I've Been Questioned

This past week, a few of my blogger buds did a question and answer meme that I loved reading, so I asked if I could join in. I've got my questions but have only skimmed over them briefly, so keep in mind that none of my answers will be well thought out.

Mary, from My Life in Scotland asked me these 5 questions:

Mary: Why did you decide to start a blog?

To be honest, I never really sat down and "decided" to start a blog. I was literally pushed into it by several friends I'd made through HGTV's, Rate My Space. If memory serves me correct it was Gollum and Bridget who squawked the most and the loudest. They were like two tiny chickens just peck peck pecking at me until I gave in, and with no idea what I was going to write about. From there it was like a possession of sorts, because I seem to turn nearly every situation into a possible blog post. One time I even posted about getting my car stuck in the mud on the side of the road. No camera? No problem! I just used my phone! Even took pictures of the nice woman who helped me, and gave her my blog address. She never did stop by that I know about. BITCH Ah, she was so nice!


Mary: If you had to pick a saying for your tombstone to describe your life, what would it be?

What the hell kind of question is this? You just found me a few months ago and you've already got me dead and buried? And I don't want to be put in the ground, 'cause I'm claustrophobic. I know, I know, I'll be dead, but still, just the thought of having 6 feet of dirt over me gives me the shivers.

I guess if I croaked right now I'd like to have my tombstone read: "If it happened to her, she blogged about it, and brought peace, happiness and giggles to all who read it" Uh huh, something like that. You think I should run this by Jimmy? Write it down somewhere? Have it notarized? Oh wait, it'll be here in my blog archives for all time, so that should be good enough.


Mary: Would you rather be on Brett Michaels' Rock of Love, or Flavor Flav's Flavor of Love? "Neither is not an option."

Would you believe I had to Google this? I've never heard of either of these shows, and I didn't even realize the lead singer of Poison was named Brett Michaels. But who do you think I'd pick between these two? The really ugly rapper with gold teeth and a huge clock hanging from his neck, or the hot, tattooed rocker with the pretty blonde hair? Need I say more?


Mary: If you had to choose between listening to bad music for the rest of your life, or watching bad movies for the rest of your life, which would you choose and why?

I'm not a huge fan of listening to music unless I'm either driving or cleaning, and since I don't do much of either of those, this would probably be the easy way out. But then I have flashbacks of all the car trips I've taken with Jimmy when he's had control of the dial, and it makes my ass twitch just thinking about hours and hours of AC/DC, Pink Floyd and Guns 'N Roses I've had to endure. Those are my three most hated bands of all time, and they happen to be some of his favorites, so he uses them to torture me in times when escape is impossible.

I'm not a big movie person either (geez, maybe Jimmy is right and I am boring!)but I can see myself surviving on bad movies much more readily than the bad music. I mean, even a bad movie can make you laugh, right? Memories of watching Space Balls...

Mary: Can people truly be friends with their exes?

I am so the wrong person to answer this question. I've only had one ex, and that was many moons ago. My first and only boyfriend before Jimmy was Matt, and we were together for a year and 10 months, me from the age of 14 thru 16. It was a wildly intense kind of love, the kind you can only have when you're still a tender age. It took me a very long time to get over that love, or at least the memory of what I thought that love was. It was just a couple weeks ago that I found out he'd finally married and had a child, and I couldn't help but cringe a little tiny bit. So for me, I'd say, no, you can't be friends with your ex, at least not if the love was overwhelmingly strong and lasted even after the breakup.

Me and Matt, circa 1990, four years after the breakup. (Day before we moved to FL)

Now I gots me some questions from Lisa over at Adventures In JuJuBo: The Life, The Lemons, and The Laundry.

Question #1: I love to read your stories about Jill and you. Have the 2 of you always gotten along so good? Are there more brothers or sisters or is it just the 2 of you?

Actually, we have an older brother, Jeff, who is 45. He lives about two hours from me, so I don't get to see him and his family as much as I'd like, and he's not a phone person so we rarely even talk. He is the polar opposite of Jill and I. He's introverted, quiet and moody, but at the same time hysterically funny when he wants to be. Love him to death.

Brother Jeff in his usual after-dinner position. Don't kill me for this, bro!

As for Jill and I, there is a 6 year age difference between us, so no, we did not always get along like we do now. There's only one time I remember getting into a physical fight with her, but boy was it a doozy! I think we've both written about the Aqua Net incident in our blogs. Aqua Net can, meet Jill's head!

I would say it's only in the past 10 or 12 years that we've become practically attached at the hip, and sometimes attached at the brain, which is not a good thing. We tend to make each other even more stupid than we normally are, and when together, I know for sure that my maturity goes from my usual 20-something mentality right down to the teenage years.

Question #2: Have you ever lived anywhere else but Florida? If not, is there another place you would like to live?


Yep, I actually grew up on Long Island, in NY. I lived there until the age of 20 when my parents picked up and moved down here to the Sunshine State. I was back in NY a couple of years later to plan my wedding, and we stayed there until Jimmy got a job offer in North Carolina. Now that was an experience. When we first moved there, we lived in this itty bitty town called Clinton, and the house we rented was in the middle of tobacco and corn fields. Talk about culture shock! The first time I went food shopping I saw a man smoking a cigarette while looking through the meat section. I hadn't seen anything like that since probably the 70s! The town was friggin' archaic!

There are lots of places I would love to live, maybe for a year at a time, just for the experience. Top of the list would be Manhattan, then Maine, Vermont, Washington state, Colorado, and Tennessee, but probably not in that order.

Question #3: What would be your dream job and why?

Unfortunately, I'm one of those people with little to no ambition in life. Hey, I'm being honest here. But I'd have to say a dream job for me would have to involve animals in some way. I would actually love to be a pet sitter or dog walker. I know, it's silly, but it's just my kind of thing.

Question #4: The thought of not eating some meat with dinner or not having anything with sugar in it for months depresses me. But, Jimmy did so good with his whole detox diet thing, is it something you think you will try as a family?

Are you shitting me? No way!!! It's not so much the lack of beef and pork that would get me, but the limitations of carbs, and the kinds he was able to eat. Also no salt would drive me crazy. Recently I've had to scale way back on my salt intake because of horrendous swelling, but if someone was to tell me that I couldn't marinate my chicken in teriyaki or something, I'd probably just lay down and die on the spot.

There's definitely been some changes made in our house though, especially with bread products. Everything is now whole wheat, and I have actually learned to like it better than white flour stuff.

Question #5: I remember when one of your girls went to the neighbors and hung notes on their doors telling them you were poor. Did you do anything like that when you were younger or anything that embarrassed your mother that much?

Oh geez, there are two stories about me as a child that have been told very often in my family. The first, I was probably 3 or so, and was food shopping with my mother. I guess by that time I hadn't really been exposed to different races, because there was a black woman behind us in the check-out line, and I (very loudly) said, "Mommy!!! Why is that woman so dirty???"

The other memorable occasion was when I was probably around 5 years old. At that time, my father was an amateur wedding photographer. When the proofs were ready, the bride would come to our house to look them over. My parents and the bride were sitting around the kitchen table when I walked in. I look at the bride, I looked at my mother and said, "Mommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmy! Why is that lady so ugly?????" From what my mother tells, she immediately yelled at me and chased me out of the room, then chased me up the staircase into my room, but as she was yelling, she was also laughing hysterically and couldn't go back downstairs for quite a while. Mom says the woman truly was ugly, but she was so completely mortified, I don't know how she went back into the kitchen to face that woman. And my father! He was left there to deal with the aftermath of my faux pas all by himself! I feel so bad for that poor ugly lady.

Okay, I know you're ready for this post to end, but now I've got some questions from Nikki Crumpet to answer. She asked me ten, but I'm only going to do a few since this is getting way too long.

You can only choose one....Rich for life....or gorgeous body for life?


Ha, this one is easy. I haven't had a gorgeous body since the age of 14, so I'm used to being a blob. So, why not take the money and continue being blobby? And hey, if I've got lots of money I can even have some major plastic surgery! Have the boobs lifted, butt and tummy tucked, thigh fat sucked away... Ooh, gives me chills just thinking about all the wondrous things that could be done!

What is your worst habit?

Come on, you already know the answer to this one. I smoke. If I smoked just a bit, or even a pack a day I wouldn't feel so awful about my habit, but I do smoke a lot. So far I've been lucky that my lungs haven't been damaged, but let's face it, I'm just playing against time. You smoke like I do, something bad is bound to happen.

You HAVE to choose one of the following people to have sex with. Which one?
Chewy from Chelsea Lately's show
Brittany Spears
Charles Manson



Oh my goodness, you are such a freak, Nikki! Once again, I had to use Google because I've never heard of Chelsea Lately, or her show. And btw, the man's name is Chuy, not Chewy. Geez girl, I thought you were talking about the huge hairy guy from Star Wars. But, after seeing Chuy's picture, Chewbacca may have been a better choice to boink with.


As for Charles Manson, I wouldn't let that crazy mofo bigot swastika-tattooed blight on mankind anywhere near my bod!

So, I'm sleeping with Britney Spears. Hey, she's got a really hot bod and a good rack on her. I would just have to avoid the kitty area, 'cause like, that just grosses me out.

You have $5000 to spend in any ONE store. Which store is it going to be...and what are you planning on buying?

If I say Wal-Mart I'm going to get hissed and boo'd out of blogland, aren't I? Okay, so let me think of a different store. There's Target, but no... not good enough. Sears? As IF! Nope, I'd better go to Haverty's. They have really nice furniture and in my whole married life I have yet to have a dining room set. Yep, that's where I'd go, and what I'd get. Besides, Mom keeps telling me that if I don't have a set before she dies, she's not giving me my grandmother's china. That's just plain mean!

I still think blowing $5000 in Wal-Mart would be the most fun though!

If you could choose one member of your family to be the next president of the US ...who would it be and why would you choose them?

Baaaaaaaaaa haaaaaaaaaaaaa haaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! Have you met my family? Do you think there's anyone who could hold office? For like, even a day? If I were president, I'd set aside my duties of running the country in lieu of checking my email once every 5 minutes. If Jeff was president, he'd blast Pink Floyd in the Oval Office while playing air guitar. Dad would threaten the secret service with death the first time they told him what to do, and Mom would probably forget she was the president. If Jill was president... No, we can't even go there.

Well, I think that about closes this session of questions and answers with Tiney!