25 Questions (6 - 10)

This is the next set of questions, which I first discovered through Sarah of Toronto SAM. You can see her answers to these questions here. You can see my answers to questions 1 through 5 here.

6. Think of a person you truly admire. What qualities do you like about that person?

I admire people who are unflappable. I tend to freak out, and get stressed, and I appreciate people who don't. If you can remain calm, when the pressure is on, I want to be like you. I also admire people who can fend for themselves -- my mom grows and preserves most of the food that they eat and I really wish I could do that.

One of us can grow a garden and one of us can fold a fitted sheet and one of these skills is going to more important than the other if the apocalypse hits!!!

7. How do you like to relax?

To no one's surprise, my favourite way to relax is to crawl into bed with a good book! Or hang out in our back yard, preferably with a drink, and again, with a good book. I guess a simpler answer to this would be "reading"!!!

Me reading as a kid, just to include a throwback picture. I still read in this position! 

8. When was the last time you did something you were afraid of?

In January, I was the passenger in the car as Dave drove us home from a weekend away in a whiteout. I was fairly scared of that, but the only other option was to wait until the next day, meaning we would both have to take days off work, and the weather wasn't looking to improve.

The last time I remember doing something through gut wrenching fear was last June. During our neighbours' fire, I moved our car further onto our driveway so that another neighbour could park their car in our driveway to protect it. I was in my pajamas, my hands were shaking, my stomach was churning with fear and there were roaring flames and a lot of screaming behind me. This was in the three minutes between when I had called 9-1-1 but before the fire department had shown up so it was truly terrifying, not knowing how far the fire would spread. I was very glad I didn't have to drive very far!

9. What are you most proud of?

I am most proud of the fact that even though I really wanted to get married much earlier than I did, and while I definitely had my low moments, I still made the most of being single. I travelled, I worked, I found a church, I bought a house with eleven other people, I worked and lived overseas, and I continued to grow my circle of friends. I didn't let my dreams being derailed (getting married and having a family) keep me from living my life. Dave and I didn't start dating until I was 34, got engaged when I was 35, and we got married when I was 36, but I lived a lot of life before then. I'm really proud of the person I was in my mid-twenties to early 30s when many other of my peers were getting married and starting their families.

I used the profits from my portion of the house sale to take my dad on the Trans-Siberian Railroad. Here's us on the Great Wall of China in July 2004. This was a very memorable trip with my dad.

Celebrating St Patrick's Day in Dublin, Ireland, March 2005

10. What are you most afraid of?

I am most afraid of climate change (and how it's negatively impacting our world) and someone close to me getting cancer (like my kids, Dave, my parents, or a close friend).

I found some of these questions hard to answer, but I think it's good to reflect on some of them. I'll answer questions 11 through 15 next time I don't have a lot to blog about :)