Well I can hardly divulge my deepest, darkest secrets right here and now. Save that for another time I guess, or another blog, *wink wink.

I did think of some very benign themes about me.

#1 – I way prefer real Christmas trees over fake ones. Although the last few years we’ve gotten lazy and just put up the fake kind, one upstairs and one downstairs. It’s just the mess of all the needles dropping off that’s such a pain.

Going out to the bush and chopping down a tree is very nostalgic to me as my birthday is December 21 and that’s the day we would go cut down our tree and set it up. Maybe someday again we will do that.

#2 – I chose the wrong career when I was young and stayed in it for 24 years like an idiot. But at least I’m out now.

#3 – I’m terrified of aging, my kids know this. I was just discussing this last night with a friend. Terrified of perimenopause, petrified of menopause. Why does this have to happen to females? It’s so unfair. What will happen when I’m no longer riding the waves of my cycle each month? I won’t know what to do or which version is the real me.

#4 – I hate washing lettuce. It’s such a pain. Last night we had tacos and I had bought a head of lettuce, I don’t know what the actual kind is. I just call it a head of lettuce. It’s round, wrapped in a plastic cover. I do wash romaine or leaf lettuce but this one is all enclosed in itself so I don’t feel it needs to be washed, but maybe that’s just me being lazy.

Anyway Clint felt the need to cut some and use the salad spinner to wash it and I was so annoyed because then I had to take apart and wash the salad spinner. Like why.

#5 – I won’t take a prime parking spot at the grocery store. I’ll purposely find one further away. I think those spots should be saved for people who are elderly or have a hard time getting around. I mean, obviously there are handicapped designated parking but still, I don’t feel I should park so close to the store.

#6 – In high school I jumped on a tour bus that took us to somewhere in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, to tour an OSB (oriented strand board) manufacturing plant.

Why? Well good question.

This company, Louisiana Pacific, was planning on building an OSB mill right near my hometown. And naturally, it stirred some controversy because of the logging that would be done, potential pollution, yada yada.

So the company offered up three greyhound buses and residents of the Swan Valley were allowed to sign up to go (over a weekend) to Sagola Michigan, to tour a facility already up and running. To show us it’s not so bad.

I was sooo down for a free trip into the States and check this place out, I tried to convince my best friend but she wasn’t allowed. So I said I’m going anyway. My parents didn’t have much to say about it. I signed up.

Friday after school I jumped on one of the buses and we drove all through the night. There were some other high school kids on the bus but mostly it was middle aged men. My brother in law was on one of the other buses.

Anyway, we arrived and had the tour, they fed us supper and we got back on the bus and drove the sixteen hours home.

What I remember well from that trip was how tired I was by the time we got back and the smell from the washroom on the back of the bus that seemed to permeate the air inside the bus.