The Racing Experiment......: Tagged!!!!!!

Apparently my friend Danielle (see her picture above!) knew I had absolutely nothing to do today. I don't have to work, its too cold and snowy to ride, the dog has been walked, its too early to Christmas shop (for a procrastinator) and all I have to do is stare out the window!

Danielle "tagged" me in an effort to get me to update the ol' blog. This means I have to come up with 6 random things about myself to share with you. Hopefully if you're reading this you are not digesting Thanksgiving leftovers and so my six things plus a little tryptophan don't put you to sleep!

1. When I was growing up, I wanted to become a veterinarian. I love animals and have had the following at one time or another: 2 dwarf hamsters, a ferret, a goldfish, bunnies, cats, turtles, dogs, and I dated a guy with 3 iguanas. The dwarf hamsters had babies and then ate them. Maybe that's when I decided working in the world of animals would be a little tough.

2. I grew up in Grand Haven, Michigan. It was a pretty cool place to grow up and I spent a lot of time at the beach and swimming in Lake Michigan. We also had woods behind our house where my brother and I would hang out and play in the swamp. We would catch frogs and race them and play marbles and climb trees and leave pennies to get squished on the railroad tracks that bordered the woods. My brother was very cool to hang out with me, seeing as I was 5 years younger than him! We would also sneak over to Mother Hubbard, a convenience store, and get candy. My favorites were Tangy Taffy, Nerds, Tootsie Rolls, Now and Laters, and those Jolly Rancher stick candies that cut your tongue when you sucked on them.

3. I was the very last of all my (high school/college) friends to get married. Some of them had even been divorced and remarried by the time Chuck and I met! I'm pretty sure my mom thought it was never going to happen. The thing is, I wasn't going to settle, and it took a while for the right guy to come along. A few of the guys I was dating must haved scared my family, like the super-tattoo'd-septum piercing-guy, or the crazy-military-death-like-stare-guy. There were a few normal dates in there, but they were usually boring! Thank God Chuck came along and saved me from the messy, gory world of dating.

4. I love Arnold Schwarzenegger movies. Even the stupid ones. I am sad there may not be any more Arnold movies in the future, seeing as he's a governor and all. My favorites are, of course, The Terminator series, then I liked True Lies a lot, Total Recall was awesome, and Predator. Arnold better have a cameo in the Terminator Salvation (OMG, can't wait!) movie that's coming out next summer or I'm gonna be very upset!!!!!!!! Check it out--(http://rss.warnerbros.com/terminatorsalvation/motionposter.html)

If you don't think that's cool there's something wrong with you!

5. I'm a sucker for adventure. This year alone I have done many adventurous things for the first time (also detailed in our last blog):

--Wakeboarding.... And faceplanting into Reed's Lake on the wakeboard.

--Go-kart racing (the real fast 60+ mph karts!). You have to wear a jacket, neck guard, gloves and everything. Its the real deal. And I didn't crash!

--Riding a supermoto and crashing on the supermoto. Sorry about the bike, honey!

--Riding a dirt bike, and yes, crashing a dirt bike. Good thing it was a rental :^)

--Downhill skiing on real mountains and occassionally, biting it on real mountains.

--Then, of course, there's the mountain biking. Here in Colorado I have been challenged to ride on more technical terrain than I have ever ridden.

--And with an adventure rating of 9.88 on a scale of 1-10, having only 2 extremely stressed out days to decide to move to Colorado after 35 years of living in Michigan, when I didn't even have a job and we'd have a house to sell. I do now have a job, of course, but we still own house in Michigan!

A successful year, I must say. Especially because I didn't break anything with all that biting it and all. And we haven't crashed and burned yet here in Colorado Springs. And it ain't gonna happen!

6. I'm taking a ceramics class. Wheelthrowing, to be exact. I took it so I could try something new, and I haven't used the right/creative side of my brain in a loooong time. Here are some of the first few things I made. Actually, its the second batch of things because the first few were UGLY.