Mom Got Tagged!

Ha roo, pups and cool-cats.  It's me - Stormy.  The Dughallmore Beagles' mom tagged our mom in this cool game going around - the 40 Things Tag.  According to the rules, Mom is supposed to write 40 things about herself and include a recent photo, then tag three others to play.  Mom is far more comfortable talking about us than herself, so I decided since I've known her longer than the rest of the Ao4, I would be the one to tell 40 things about her!  Ha roo roo roo!  She's not getting away with that one!  

40 Things About Our Mom

1.  Mom was born between moves.  Her family was going from Ft. Knox, Kentucky to Huntington, West Virginia and Mom couldn't wait until they got there.  They made a stop in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where her parents had grown up.

2.  Mom is an Army brat.  That should explain #1.

3.  Mom got her first dog when she was about 6 or 7 - a Beagle named Sam.  We don't have any pix of him scanned; I need to do something about that!

4.  Mom lived in at least a dozen places before she went to college.

5.  Mom's family's second dog was also a Beagle - Rookie.  You can see pix of him on our Sunday Salute to him.

6.  Mom will always have a soft spot in her heart for Beagles.  (See numbers 3 and 5.)

7.  Mom is a graduate of Penn State University.

8.  Mom started out as a Meteorology major.  After the second semester of Calculus, she said her head was full and needed to find something else.  She has a Bachelor's in Advertising, with an emphasis (they don't do "minors") in Social Psychology.

9.  Mom met Dad at Fort Knox, Kentucky.

10.  She also got married between moves, as I think about it.  Dad was moving from Cleveland, Ohio to Fort Lee, Virginia.  He got packed up and headed to Fort Knox, KY, they got married there (that's where Mom's parents lived) and headed out to the east coast.

11.  Mom borrowed Aunt Janet's wedding dress.  Grandma made it.

12.  Mom is an Army wife.

13.  According to the US Army, Mom is fluent in French.  She got to attend the Defense Language Institute at Monterey, California with Dad.  It was a 6-month course, 5 days a week, 8 hours a day in French.  

14.  Mom lived in Soignies, Belgium for 3 years.  

15.  A couple months after Mom and Dad got to Belgium, they adopted our great sisters, Jesse and Lucky.  (That should take you to one of our many posts about them!)

16.  Jesse and Lucky taught Mom a LOT.  (Ha roo roo roo!)

17.  Mom travelled all over Europe during those three years.  

18.  Aunt Janet and her hubby lived in Franfurt, Germany the first year Mom and Dad were in Belgium, so they got to visit a few times over there!

19.  One of Mom's favorite restaurants in Soignies was a little Vietnamese place, "Le Bamboo".  Dad met the owner when he was walking Jesse and Lucky one day; he told Dad he was opening the restaurant and invited him and Mom to come.  

20.  Mom's favorite thing at the restaurant was called "nems".  They are a Vietnamese spring roll; you wrap them in mint and lettuce leaves and dip them in different sauces to eat.  You can read about one version here.  

21.  Mom can't believe we're only at the halfway point.

22.  Mom adopted great brother Booter when she lived here the first time.  (Dad was assigned to Fort Riley twice!)  

23.  Mom lived in Korea for two years.  She, Lucky and Booter lived in Seoul, on Yongsan Army Garrison; Dad lived "further north".

24.  Mom bought more fabric in those two years than she'd like to admit.  

25.  Mom loves to cook.

26.  Mom loves to bake.

27.  Mom loves to eat.  (So does Dad; not so much for him on 25 & 26.)

28.  Mom loves to clean the house.  What?  Well, you spend a lot of time at it!  OK, fine.  Mom likes for the house to be clean.

29.  Mom owns 3 vacuums.  Zim has one, too, so there are four of those things in the house.

30.  Mom and Dad lived in about a dozen different places before Dad retired from the Army.

31.  Mom really is color blind.   She's had that dot test administered by an eye doctor and everything.  

32.  Mom loves to organize things.  Seriously.  The spices are alphabetized, as are the CDs and albums.  

33.  Mom loves to quilt and make bags.

34.  Mom's had a lot of different jobs, from working on an assembly line at a print plant to running the Master's Degree programs for Boston University at SHAPE, Belgium.  Lots of other stuff in there, too.  And volunteer work.

35.  Mom is pretty much ambidextrous.  She does write much better right-handed and fences left-handed.  Not that there's much call for her to fence these days.

No, Mom, we aren't done yet.  

36.  Mom rode in an elevator with Wayne Rogers when she was in New York City for a job interview.  He was dressed for tennis.  She didn't realize it was him until he got out.

37.  Mom and Dad ran into Clint Eastwood in a drug store in Carmel, California.  He was with Sondra Locke, and their son and daughter.  Their son had picked up a bottle of mouthwash.  Mr. Eastwood asked his son, "Well.  Are you going to buy that... conehead?"  In case you "gots to know" (see this link; start at about the 3:50 mark if you want a short cut), he did indeed purchase said mouthwash.  (I never said Mom's list was going to be exciting.)

38.  Mom is currently addicted to the following iPhone Apps:  Gem Spinner, Wordle and Word Warp, and Falling Balls.

39.  Mom's favorite colors are blue and white.  I'm told this has nothing to do with #7, but I'm not certain of that.

She's also extremely relieved that we're almost finished with her list.  She wanted to count that remark as #40.  I said, "No."  We still need to do the recent photo.  Here ya go.  

AND #40.  Mom took my online "Cooperating For Photos 1" classes.  Ha roo roo roo!

Mom is tagging following bipeds!

Huffle Mawson's mum

Sitka, Tia and Cornelia Marie's mom

Angus Mhor's mom

Have fun with it!

Tail wags,

Storms