Eight random things Me Me Me

I got tagged by Lady Tess and somehow managed not to find out about it until recently. [Shakes fist at internet, devourer of information.]

First, the rules:

1. Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.

2. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.

3. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.

4. Don't forget to leave them a comment telling them they're tagged, and to read your blog.

Okay, here we go...

1. I'm the only one of my siblings to have broken bones. When I was 11, I broke my right pinkie finger. I was playing six-man "Keep Away" with a soccer ball and caught the ball wrong. When I was 27, I put my foot wrong running across the street and fell on my left hand with my elbow locked. That cracked the top of my radius (one of the two bones in your forearm). And then when I was 35, I put my foot wrong crossing the street (again!), only this time I broke my ankle. Apparently it was a duel between the tendon and the bone, and the bone gave.
   
   
2. I gave up caffeine (except for the little bit in chocolate and the caffeine in Excedrin). I stopped because my heart kept feeling like it was trying to scrabble right out of my chest, which freaked me out no end; WebMD suggested caffeine could be a cause. So bye-bye caffeine. And bye-bye palpitations.
   
   
3. In twelve years of grade school, I went to 8 different schools. My dad was in the military, so that explains some of it. Then there's the usual grade school/middle-jr. high school/high school shift. So most of the time, I changed schools between school years. The lone exception was third grade. My first school, Sunset Elementary, was overcrowded, so some students were chosen to be bussed to a school out in the cotton fields (literally--cotton grew on three sides of the school). I was one of the choices for third grade. My first third grade teacher didn't like me because I brought the wrong cigar box my first day; my second, Mrs. Atkins, was the bomb.
   
   
4. I am a reading addict. I don't say that lightly, either. I'm one of those people who'll read food boxes when there's nothing else available, and I've read when I was so intoxicated I couldn't get my eyes to work as team. (So one did the reading while the other sort of wandered wherever it felt like. That, or I closed one eye.)
   
   
5. I always read before bed. Always. I know they say you're not supposed to--I think it's supposed to keep you awake or something. But since I always do it, I'm thinking it's part of my nighttime ritual...which they say helps you sleep. See? There's always a reason to do something.
   
   
6. My favorite color is blue and has been for as long as I can remember. When I was 6 or 7, I was very bitter than my sister got blue-patterned pajamas while I was stuck with red. She had blonde hair and blue eyes; I had brown hair and green eyes. So it kind of made sense, especially since my grandmother, who rarely saw us, sent us the jammies. But I was still bitter. If they'd been my size, I'd have stolen my sister's pajamas.
   
   
7. My hair is completely white. Not that you can tell to look at me--I have a very good relationship with my hairdresser, who keeps me in color. But when I look at my roots? All white. I've been coloring my hair since I was 26...which is when I realized I needed to. (I put temporary color in--it made me look like I'd slept for a month, which was a hint that my natural color was Not Flattering Me At All.) But my mother always said that she found my first white hair when I was two, when my hair turned brown.
   
   
8. I try to take very good care of my teeth and my feet--I heard once that if you take care of your teeth and feet, the rest (health-wise) will follow. I was very gratified to read they're starting to think there's a connection between gum disease and heart disease. My mother had dentures, so I saw first-hand what a pain in the neck they were--I really want to keep my own choppers until I die...

Okay, enough about me. Like Lady Tess, I'm having a hard time thinking of who to tag who hasn't been tagged.... I tag Corrina, Chris, Kim and the six Moody Muses. (Okay, that last one is probably cheating, but I don't care...)

Fly-by

Fly-by means this will be short.

I think.

I often think I'll be short and then I yap away. The last post was like that--it sort of grabbed me by the hair and ran with me.

I've been absent because my life has done that recently. I've been working on a lot of smallish things--scribbling, RWA meetings, making regular appearances at the day gig, spending time with the beloved and the sister people--that aren't particularly fascinating to report, however interesting they were to live. So no report on those.

As usual, I've been reading--I'm a reading fiend who currently has 25 books out from the library, with half a dozen on hold, and more books than I can count in the TBR pile. Right now, I'm reading Sea of Thunder: Four Commanders and the Last Great Naval Campaign 1941-1945 by Evan Thomas--I started it last night and so far it's very readable. (Not all history books are, I'm sorry to say, so this is high praise than it might sound.)

I started it after finishing A Royal Affair: George III and His Scandalous Siblings by Stella Tillyard. My first exposure to Tillyard was Aristocrats: Caroline, Emily, Louisa, and Sarah Lennox, 1740-1832, which was turned into a two-part series for Masterpiece Theatre; that got me curious so I went back to the book. As Tillyard says somewhere in A Royal Affair, her career has tended to focus on the impact of siblings on a given personage, rather than parents, children or society. Since I am very close to my sisters, this is particularly interesting. I didn't know anything about George III's brothers and sisters; what I found out made me sad.

And before all that, I read the latest Loretta Chase, Not Quite A Lady, which was, as usual, fabulous. I've only read it once...which may sound peculiar unless you know that I've read Lord Perfect something like half a dozen times in the last year. But I know I'll read it again.

And that's pretty much where I've been, mentally at least.