extra stuff about me that may be interesting
I suppose the most prominent 'extra' about me, is my dogs. I've always felt a connection with dogs, always loved them... I strongly suspect I've been with dogs throughout most or all of my previous lifetimes, quite possibly many of the same dogs.
I used to breed & show Shelties, and show Smooth Collies... but had to give that up due to decreasing finances (it's very expensive!) and increasing physical disability. I also came to dislike the nature of what are called "breed shows". I would totally love if I was physically sound enough to train and run dogs in agility though... that is the most awesome of dog sports. But that will never happen in this lifetime.
I've owned, loved, and enjoyed several dozen dogs since the age of 13... often a dozen (give or take) at once, at any given point in time. My dogs are the source of my greatest happiness & joy, then eventually of my deepest grief 〰 but they only break your heart that one time, and even then they don't mean to. That they have to leave so quickly, is the only thing I hate about dogs! But they and their unconditional love & devotion are so, SO worth it! They truly are unconditional love in a furry little package, and continually reaffirm your value as a human being.
My current crew, seen below, is the entirety of the last litter I bred (there was only nine litters all together, over 20+ years). That was another reason I knew I couldn't continue breeding & showing dogs... something had changed inside, and I could no longer adopt out the puppies I raised... even though I thoroughly vetted (no pun intended) potential adopters to make sure they would love & treasure my babies as much as I did, and even though it was truly satisfying to know you were supplying someone with their furry little soul-mate.
Aren't my kids cute, though?
Princess Possum
Little Lacey
Ms. Zoey
Mr. Sawyer
Baby Jack
Another thing I'm famous for is my home-made pizzas. I like to cook & bake, and although I'm no chef I do have several things that I make well, and pizza is probably at the top of that list. It's annoying that I can't stand long enough to cook & bake like I used to!
Everyone in the family gets home-made pizzas for their birthday celebration. Except, for a number of years, my Dad. He simply wasn't a pizza fan in general. But then I got so good at making them, that he suddenly wanted my pizzas for his birthday too!
The crust & sauce are made from scratch, from recipes I developed myself; toppings vary, but include various meats and veggies, and sometimes pineapple. I also make really good cinnamon rolls and spaghetti sauce from scratch. (Those are recipes from my gramma and momma.)
fresh outta the oven...
... and ready to eat!
One of my best friends, upon having my home-made pizza for her birthday for the first time, told me, "Forget this computer science stuff! Just open a pizzeria!"
The other prime occasion for home-made pizza is our family game nights. (With that and the birthday thing, several people have wondered how they can become part of the family, besides marrying in... ) We used to get together every Friday night, but since I went back to school it hasn't been every week anymore, plus it recently changed to Saturdays. We all still look forward to having our game-nights though, and it's a ton of fun. We all tend to be kind of competitive, but it's also just fun!
We play a variety of board games... favorites include the classic Scrabble to a modern variation played with cards called Quiddler; to fun "party-style" games like Mystify, Last Word, and Taboo... we also like card-based games like Five Crowns, Sequence, and Golf... tile-based games like Dominoes, Quarkle, and Rummy-Cube... and then we set aside whole special nights that are just for Monopoly.
A recent favorite is the game picutred below, which my nephew Justin got me for my birthday last year... it's a new twist on trivia, and you gotta have some speed too... but be sure of your answer because you only get one guess per round. The very best thing about the game, though, is the playing pieces...
the whole board...
...all the little smart-asses...
...aren't they cute?
... and the board itself! You might not be surprised to know I win this game damned near every time!
For almost exactly five years before returning to school, and as featured in my resume, I worked as a Mysetry Shopper. Well, that's the vernacular; you're really auditing retail environments, plus customer service and various behaviors from the associates, to document compliance (or not) with business standards. This was one of the most interesting jobs I've ever had. It's challenging in various ways, and you can lose money if you don't correctly figure out what you're doing.
You often have to think fast & be able to react (smoothly is nice) to odd-ball situations; you always have to stay cool & sharp; you need an excellent memory plus well-tuned observational & writing skills; but one of the most fun parts for me was the travel. This is where you have to be careful, as you can lose money if you don't do your math; but sometimes the jobs in remote places pay premium fees.
In fact, all that driving is how my nephew Justin racked up his 500 hours of supervised driving to get his driver's license, since he was under 18 at the time. He also asked me to go with him on some college tours the summer before I went back to school 〰 one to Eastern Oregon University and one to Southern Oregon University. I found mystery shopping jobs in those places, so I could work while he was doing his thing during the day. We often took mystery shopping routes along the coast, too; and a couple of times along the way to Mt. Hood, which was awesome.
Road to Mt. Hood
Mt. Hood from highway
Depoe Bay
Moonrise over coast range
Pacific City
Oregon Coast through trees
Crater Lake & Wizard Island
Mt. Shasta
Oregon Desert
Columbia River
There were also often interesting things that happened along the way, or in the process of doing the jobs themselves; and interesting people to meet that made it memorable; and sometimes you could even get paid to evaluate restaurants and take out your family or friends.
Weinermobile live & in person!
We also got lots of great photos on these trips! Despite all of the gorgeously scenic places we got to visit, and I did love that... one of the best things to happen on a mystery shopping route was running across the Oscar Meyer Weinermobile! I've loved that thing since I was a kid, and I finally got to see it in person and even go onboard. I only wish they would've given us a trip through Albany in it. But I did get my official Weenie Whistle!
Up until I was 19, playing piano was also a prominent part of my life. I took part in a few classical music competitions and evaluations/examinations every year between ages 10 and 19... that ended up being the main reason I quit at age 19, for 23 years.
There was one competition where each year you could earn a maximum of five points, aka "Superior". For every 15 points, however long that took to accumulate, you earned a successively bigger trophy. At each year's competition, you would play three or four pieces of classical music, increasing in difficulty with each year; by the last few years, I was playing four pieces that were each three to five pages long.
I used to play stuff like this. Exactly this.
So I got a perfect score eight years in a row 〰 several times even getting "Superior+"... and was supposed to be one of the super-rare ones to achieve a third trophy. Since you aged-out of eligibility to compete at 19, most students either didn't stick with piano that long, or, if they did, they didn't earn enough consecutive perfect scores to achieve that elusive third trophy. The pressure was on... then... that ninth year, I blew it by one point. So, since I'd aged out anyway, I just quit all together.
Twenty-three years later, my 'surrogate momma' found out that I used to play... and talked me into taking it up again 〰 best yet, as a surprise Christmas present for my Dad. I had to re-teach myself how to read music by that point, and which notes on the page went with which keys on the keyboard. But, I did it. The recording up there was made just a few weeks after I took the piano back up, after my 19-year absence. So it's not very good, but it's not horribly bad, either. (I never did record myself playing in my hey-day.)
My piano teacher, who I was very fond of, always told me that if I didn't spend so much time showing and otherwise with the dogs, I could've been a concert pianist. Perhaps, but I would've lived a very nervous life doing that!
Very recently I became qualified to volunteer for the American Cancer Society's 'Road to Recovery' program. This service coordinates volunteers to provide rides for cancer patients to and from their treatment appointments. I recently completed the two-part online training and evaluations, for interacting with and transporting patients and using the online system, along with a background check; and am now certified to actually work with patients!
I can't wait to go on my first ride with a patient! I need to get my nephew to clean & vacuum out my car first... maybe if I make him some pizza...
This is a meaningful project to me, having lost my Momma, with whom I was super-close, to breast cancer in 1999 when she was only 51... and seeing that my Daddy (I'm a bonafide Daddy's girl) is a leukemia survivor, having been diagnosed in 2013, and declared in full remission in 2015.