I've been Tagged...are you next?

The rules of the game are posted here at the beginning

A. Each player answers the questions about themselves

B. At the end of the post, the player tags 3 people and posts their names, then goes to their blog and leaves them a comment, letting them know they are tagged.

10 years ago I was: Let's see, it was 1998 and I was just getting ready to return home (or had just returned) from my mission in New Jersey.

5 things on my to do list today:

1) Take Brenden to get his learner's permit :)
2) Grocery shopping
3) Teach Michael Anne to read...she's been asking me to teach her to read for a few days, as though it's a one day process!
4) Take some paperwork back to my OLD job!!
5) Put together a menu and grocery list for the next two weeks - by emailing Maria and asking for a copy of her menu & grocery list!!!

Things I would do if I became a billionaire:
(no particular order)
1. Buy a nice home here.
2. Buy a home on the beach in Hawaii or Costa Rica, maybe on my own private beach.
3. Spend the winters enjoying our home, plenty of sunshine, fishing, and eating lobster in Hawaii or Costa Rica.
4. Start my own private school, hand picking the teachers and administrators & set up a scholarship program to attract kids who actually want to learn.
5. Give a million to my family members...they've all done so much for us.
6. Start a charity of some sort that would enable people to learn skills to help them improve their own lives
7. Take cooking classes from Wolf Gang Puck and/or Rachel Ray!
8. Save most of it for my children's college tuition and for Derek and I to serve missions


3 of my bad habits:

1) lack of exercise
2) don't drink enough water
3) retail therapy when I'm down

5 places I've lived:

1) Panama
2) Maryland
3) Utah
4) Hawaii
5) New Jersey
Others: Virginia, Arizona, Korea, Tarawa in the Rep. of Kiribati

5 jobs I've had:

1) High School Biology Teacher
2) Customer Service @ Seven Peaks Water Park
3) Waitress, but only for a short time, it was boring and my brothers were in town, I had to quit!!
4) Secretary for a lawyer in Panama
5) Resident Assistant at Deseret Towers, BYU

Something most people don't know about me:
I sucked my fingers until I was at least 12, I even had dents in my middle and ring fingers from my teeth. As you can imagine I'm a big believer in pacifiers/binkies...you can take them away but you can't chop off fingers!


I tag: Ashley, Kerri, & Nicolle (although she doesn't use her blog much but it would be fun to read her answers if she did).

Lead it snow...

We've got so much snow they actually canceled church!
A few days ago during a particularly heavy snow I mentioned to Michael Anne how grandma and I had been talking and decided that we ought to move to a warmer climate like Hawaii or Panama or Arizona for example. (Not like that would take much convincing/deciding - I love Utah but I'd move in a half a heartbeat given the opportunity). Michael thought about this for a moment and then declared, "I think I would like to move to China!" Curiously, she talks about China a lot so I always ask her about it. This particular day she said that when she moves there she will take her own paint to paint her house. When I asked why she responded "So that it won't have lead in it and then I can make toys for kids that aren't bad for them to play with."
I suppose this all stems from the toy recalls this past summer. I was checking her toys one day and I explained to her that some toys from China were unsafe because of the levels of lead in the paint. She is very keen and remembers these things very vividly. We always check to see where products were made, especially if I don't like the product, and if it was made in China this gives us a great and logical way to pass it up no matter how fun it looks. As soon as I say it was made in China and might have lead paint in it she is quick to return it to the shelf without any further "discussion." Admittedly, this works pretty well even when the product isn't really from China!

Oh hank, it's dead!

I just looked into the cage and Maggie's corpse is lying out in the open. She is definitely dead. I guess Meg dragged her out of the igloo, taking advantage of the chance to finally be in charge for a change. I sure hope she doesn't try to eat her. I'm going to vomit! Holy yikes...

Oh Rats! Is it dead?

Strange question, I know, but I'm really afraid to check so I'm not going to.
A few years ago my nephew, Steven, gave me his pet rat, Spike. I enjoyed having Spike as my classroom pet at school for two years until one day he started convulsing and then seemed to slip into a coma. I didn't know what was wrong with him so I gave him extra food and water and left for the evening. When I arrived the next morning Spike was stiff as a board. It took me all day to get the nerve up to dispose of him and even then I almost lost it. I felt so terrible but all the research I did pointed Spike's death to old age. After he died I decided to purchase another rat. The kids at school loved having a class pet and Michael really enjoyed him when he came home for Christmas and summer vacations.
So we went to the pet store and picked out two little girl rats. We named them Nutmeg, she's brown, and Maggie. They were also great to have in the classroom. But I got tired of retrieving pencils and other objects from their cage as some kids just couldn't resist the temptation to stick stuff in there so I brought them home for the summer and never took them back this year.
As you all probably know by now, I'm pregnant...due in March and I'm not terrible excited to have a couple of rats in my home anymore. They are fun to watch but I don't like playing with them or letting them wander around much/at all. I've actually been meaning to call the pet store to see if they'd take them back but I have yet to make the call. So tonight I went over to their cage to feed them, something I frequently forget to do, and only Meg came running for her dinner. This is very atypical as Maggie is always first in line and often fights Meg for her portion as well. So I'm wondering what's up with Maggie? She didn't even poke her head out of their little purple igloo. So I got down on my hands and knees and peaked as best I could into their igloo and all I could see was Maggie's tail and it was totally still. I tried calling to her but to no avail. She didn't move at all. Now I'm freaked out that she is dead...probably starved to death by me, the worst pet owner of the world. I'm trying to console myself because I know most pet rats don't last too long anyway but I'm kinda worried that she's a goner. I called Derek who is at work and he said not to worry and that he'd take care of it for me when he gets home in the morning. Good thing too because I'm not going near it and I swear if that rat is running around in the morning I'm going to fly through the roof...I'm sure she's dead.
One other option could be that she is currled up in that purple plastic igloo giving birth to baby rats. I did mention that we picked out two girl rats when we purchased them but one day they were "fighting" or trying to "play leapfrog" as Michael interpreted the situation and we've been puzzled by this odd behavior ever since. Now I know what you must be thinking, I'm a biology teacher shouldn't I know how to tell if an animal is a boy or a girl, yes I ought to and I inspected them both quite a bit and didn't find signs to contrary but their behavior at times makes me wonder if one of them suffers from undescended testicles or something. Well this is turning into quite the strange blog so I think I'll stop right about here, but I'm just trying to give myself some hope that Maggie is not really dead. I'm afraid in reality she has passed on to rat heaven. Poor girl.
Thank goodness for husbands at these difficult times. I'm so glad Derek is so willing to dispose of our little friend for me, not to mention how sweet it is that he wants me to stay far away from the cage and the dead rat...in my condition of course! It's too bad they are too big to flush down the toilet, especially since our garbage doesn't get picked up until Wed. morning. I guess he'll have to transport her to a dumpster somewhere...yuck! Okay, gross that's all.