Tag, You’re It

What better way to wrap up the week than to participate in a lovely game of tag, right?  Katie over at NFP and Me tagged me earlier this week, so now I get to pass it on.  🙂

Here’s the idea:

1. The first rule is to post these rules.  (Done!)
2. Post a photo of yourself then write 11 things about you/your life.
3. Answer the questions for you set in the original post.
4. Create 11 new questions and tag people to answer them.
5. Go to their blog/twitter to tell them you have tagged them.

I have got to get better about having my picture taken.  I just usually have the camera in my hands.  But here I am with my baby boy and it’s a decent pic, which is kind of a miracle in and of itself.

Eleven things about myself/my life:
1.   I’m very opinionated
2.   I’m not a very good listener
3.   Married 13 years this summer
4.   I have been blessed with five children, three girls and two boys
5.   I’m a rabid KU fan (yes, I am annoying…apologies in advance)
6.   I was a toll collector in college and that job helped pay for some of my tuition and living expenses
7.   I ran a marathon in 2007
8.   I worked really hard and later that year, I ran my personal best in half marathon
9.   I dream of beating that half marathon time someday, but wonder if I might be too old
10. I’m a pretty pride-ful person (ironically, I am not proud of that)
11. I look on the bright side

Questions Katie asked of me:

1. Weirdest class you’ve ever taken?

— I took a Logic for Computer Programming course when I mistakenly thought I should be a Computer Science Major. 

2. If you could only eat 2 foods ever again what would they be?

— Olives and Pizza

3. What’s your go-to belt it out in the car song?

— Love Story or Back to December by Taylor Swift

4. What’s the most OCD thing you do?
— If people hand me papers stapled together and the corners don’t match up, or they have more than one staple, I will remove all extra staples, make sure corners line up and re-staple.

5. Favorite high school memory?
— Winning North Carolina State 4A High School Volleyball Championship my junior year (it was my school’s twelfth consecutive high school championship, but we had just moved and I made the team, ended up being one of the starters and that season was an all-around blast)

6. Won’t you share your opinion on camping? Love it or hate it?

— Strong Dislike for it.  (I’m a hotel with shower and air conditioning type of girl)

7. Weirdest thing you’ve ever eaten?

— Ethiopian food (my brother-in-law had his rehearsal dinner at an Ethiopian restaurant)

8. E-reader or real book reader and why?

— real book reader.  Probably because I don’t have a Kindle (yet)

9. Favorite TV show currently on?

— Smash (really…I don’t watch much TV…mostly just college basketball, but I do like this show)

10. What’s your favorite award you’ve won?

— My favorite thing ever is the one 1st place medal I got for an individual event when I was 11 years old.  I won Division II 100 yard Individual Medley.  It was incredible.  I had gotten 1st place medals as members of relay teams, but this one was all mine.  🙂

11. What’s your claim to fame?

— Well, our family was featured in the March/April 2010 Family Foundations.  Courtesy Kathleen Basi.  That was pretty cool.

Well, that was…interesting, right?  I had to think about some of those!

Here are my questions for you whom are tagged:

1.   What’s your go-to alcoholic beverage?
2.   What’s your biggest accomplishment post-college?
3.   How many blogs do you follow?
4.   How many blogs do you regularly read?
5.   What’s your earliest memory?
6.   What is one word your mother would use to describe you?
7.   What is your favorite non-fiction book?
8.   What book have you read over and over again?
9.   What time do you get up in the morning?
10. What radio station genre do you listen to the most?
11. What was your favorite vacation?

Now for the tagging.  Well, I don’t know if I have anyone I can tag since Katie tagged a bunch that I would have tagged!  Okay, so maybe Sarah, Elizabeth, Elizabeth and Jamie.

When You Say Nothing

A few weeks ago, I heard the song that Craig and I danced to at our wedding on the radio, and I thought about blogging it.  Then Katie at NFP and Me came up with a great idea for a link up!  So I’ve kind of blended my idea for my post with hers.  Her questions helped provide some direction.  🙂

What’s your song? When You Say Nothing At All – Keith Whitley

Share a video if there is one?

Did you always have a song or did you have to find one?

Craig and I didn’t really have a song as we were going through the process of planning our wedding.  We both loved music, but had a variety of tastes.  Craig’s taste in music is quite varied by a large margin.  He really likes the band 311 but is also a big Johnny Cash fan and then he enjoys Barenaked Ladies, and I know his iTunes play lists include U2, Beastie Boys, Bruce Springsteen, Elvis Presley, Neil Diamond, Rush, Grateful Dead… you get my drift.  He’s been known to jam to some rap on occasion as well.

I go through phases with music.  Sometimes I’m a country girl.  Sometimes I’m an Elders (Celtic Rock) girl.  Sometimes I am an 80’s hairband girl.  Sometimes I blast Tone Loc (Funky Cold Medina!) or Sir Mix-a-lot (“Baby got Back!”) or Boys II Men.  Many days I love Journey.  These days I am a Taylor Swift girl.  Usually whatever I am in the mood for sticks around for awhile and then I will drift out of listening to any music, too.

Craig and I went to see the movie, Notting Hill, about 6 weeks before we got married and the movie had the Alison Kraus version of “When You Say Nothing At All” in it.  I had heard and really loved the song earlier in the 90’s when there was a digitally re-mastered version of the old Keith Whitley song made into a duet with Alison Kraus.

Craig and I both liked the song and decided that would be our song for our wedding.  And we decided we’d use the Keith Whitley version…because we kinda like originals.  🙂

What does it mean to you?

For me, the meaning of a song is all in the lyrics.  I like a good melody, but if the words aren’t meaningful, I don’t buy into it.  

It’s amazing how you can speak right to my heart
Without saying a word, you can light up the dark
Try as I may I could never explain
What I hear when you don’t say a thing

Chorus:
The smile on your face let’s me know that you need me
There’s a truth in your eyes saying you’ll never leave me
A touch of your hand says you’ll catch me whenever I fall
But you say it best when you say nothing at all

Something I might have romanticized a bit about marriage before getting married was the idea that it could be so great to know someone so well that you don’t have to talk all the time…or any of the time.  I don’t know if Craig and I knew each other this well on our wedding day, but it was the kind of relationship I hoped we’d always have. 

I don’t think we had it quite yet on the day we married.  At least not completely.  We were still so young, and understanding what someone says with their eyes, their smiles, their hands…not something that could be understood the same way.

How has the meaning changed since you first chose it?

All day long I can hear people talking out loud
But when you hold me near, you drown out the crowd
Old Mr. Webster could never define
What’s being said between your heart and mine

Chorus twice:
The smile on your face let’s me know that you need me
There’s a truth in your eyes saying you’ll never leave me
A touch of your hand says you’ll catch me whenever I fall
But you say it best when you say nothing at all

Interestingly enough, over almost 13 years of marriage, and through the addition of 5 children, I think we’re getting there.  I feel like having this song in the background of life has given us something to strive for through all of life’s changes.

And I think that it’s now true that we let each other know that we need each other through non-verbal cues.  And we live every day knowing leaving isn’t an option either of us entertain.  Through all of life’s ups and downs – job changes, financial problems and successes, parenting trials, welcoming and loving and raising children – we’ve been there to catch the other and build each other up through the years.

Won’t you share a picture of you two dancing? (Doesn’t have to be a wedding picture!)

I won’t.  I’m sorry.  I don’t have one.  I don’t have a picture I can access anywhere that is just Craig and Me.  We really need to fix that.