14 Things You Didn’t Know About Me…

by Liesl - Homeschool Den

Let’s face it, my life, especially when you look at the blog, revolves around the kids and homeschooling. I spend a lot of time preparing for homeschooling; the kids and I spend time working on their schoolwork, projects and activities; I blog about homeschooling; and I’m even (gulp) trying to write a book — not about zombies (though I did meet a woman at LD’s Parkour (sport’s) class who writes zombie books for young adults) — nope, mine is about (please don’t role your eyes…) homeschooling. Even when I’m carting kids around, we’re often homeschooling on the go.

So all that got me to thinking yesterday when I had a momentary bout of freedom (four hours home alone while the kids had playdates with their public school friends!) that I should try to convince you there’s more to me than homeschooling! And even if it’s not intriguing to you, boy it’s downright fun to think and write about something other than homeschooling!

Here it goes — things you might not know about me…

At one time I was a quilter! I grew up hearing stories of my great grandma’s quilts (and we had quilts on our beds made by her). I figured I could do that too and I did! My first quilt is on the left. I embroidered the Native-American animals first. I gave away my first (and only) large quilt to my sister-in-law as a wedding present.

I nearly drowned when I was about three. Apparently I stepped off a shelf and went down, down, down. I still remember my Mom’s had coming at me through the murky brownish/greenish water. Her watch was still on her wrist as it came through the water at me.
I was once in a horrific train crash that killed several people including children. I was in the train car and at the window that overlooked the terrible scene. I have horrendous images forever imprinted in my brain about that scene and the wounded people there… I can still see the driver half in-half out of the bus, drooped out the windshield and the man in white trapped under the bus…
When I was studying in Germany, I went traveling during spring break. I had a Eurrail pass and decided to go see Rome. I had some crazy adventures — I stayed in a salvation army house for women and met a lot of Ethiopian women who wanted to get a green card to move to America. I was hanging out with one of the teens. We took a walk and wound up at the train station (a seedy place, let me tell you). She got into a fight with her boyfriend and they started fighting and yelling. The cause of the fight? Me! She said I was her friend — and he said something. They started pulling on my arms, one in each direction. A huge crowd formed around us. The police came and asked what was going on. Not speaking Italian, I pulled out my trusty phrase book and pointed to “I am a student. I am sight-seeing.” GRrrrreat piece of eloquence, Liesl! Anyway, the boyfriend went on his way and we were sent off.
That same trip in Rome (when I wasn’t with the Ethiopian teen)… I was propositioned by a married Texas man. We had chatted while looking at a couple of the famous sights (the Pantheon, as I recall). Then he wanted me to go to dinner with him and come back to his hotel. “My wife will never know,” he told me. I was totally stunned and shocked and saddened for that poor wife. I high-tailed it out of there. I’m a bit of a Puritan, I guess.
Changing subjects… you know what? I think my house would be a bit cluttered and messy even without a troupe of homeschooling kids at home. I love delving into projects and even when I had no kids, I was so involved in things the house was always a low priority. So there it is. I spend a lot of time apologizing for our ugly mail pile, the piles of books in our homeschool room, and the laundry that’s still on the couch, but I doubt I’ll change too much.
I have a massive scar on my belly (not the C-section one b/c LD was breach, but another one. My belly looks like an upside-down T)… because the doctor screwed up my surgery. They had to open me up and check the bowel to make sure it wasn’t nicked. It wasn’t, but Hubby was SO scared when I didn’t come out of the “simple” surgery for hours and then he heard the words, “I’m sorry Mr., but there have been complications.” I spent a week in the hospital. My friend said it was scary looking at me when I first woke up because I was a shade of grey that healthy people shouldn’t be. All’s well, of course!
So, while I’m not a zombie book fan — I do love end of the world type books. I’m reading a series about a comet that might strike the Earth (the Comet Clement series – the first Kindle book is free) and I can’t put them down!! They have an incredible number of typos which drive me a bit batty, but someday I bet this will be a mini-series on TV. It is SOOOooooooo good!
I love Survivor!! I’ve seen almost every season and I daydream about being a contestant. But unfortunately I get cold pretty easily and doubt I could handle the wet/cold part. Still, the shelter building, camping, bugs, campfires… that’s right up my alley!
It won’t come as any surprise then that I’ve done a lot of back packing… everything from hiking large portions of the Appalachian Trail, to the Wind River Range in Wyoming, the Annapurna Trail in Nepal and St. Clair’s Track in Tasmania. I love being out in nature! I did a lot of mountain biking for a few years — and did a two day mountain bike race with Hubby. We were proud we came in 5th!
Let’s see… there are so many other things I could tell you… I was in the Peace Corps in Hungary. Mako is the onion town (and at times it smelled like onions!). It was about 10 km from Romania and 25 km away from Serbia. I was there while the fighting was still ongoing in Serbia. The town paper wrote more articles about me in the paper than I deserved… they all had titles that cracked me up like “Liesl, Teaches and Learns” or “Lisa’s Mission (below right)” or “Lisa, the Runner” The town journalist was friends with one of my best friends. (Here’s a picture from the scrapbook I sent to my parents for Christmas.)

Going a bit deeper — here are a couple things you probably don’t know about me either… LD and DD were IVF babies. I had to travel about 1000 miles to go for fertility treatments. Some of the time Hubby wasn’t with me… such as the moment when DD was implanted. Wild, huh? Oh — and ED by the way, was not an IVF baby.
One last thing… I’ve had 9 ear surgeries (all stemming from ear infections) and wear hearing aids in both ears. I LOVE them! I can turn the sound up and down at will! BIG grin!! I can’t imagine how hard it must be for those of you who can’t turn sound down to write or read or sleep!! (Update: I had a series of serious ear problems a couple of years ago. I wound up having 6 surgeries in a 7 or 8 month period… and wound up losing my hearing and balance system on the left side. I’m not deaf in one ear and am still hard of hearing in the other.) See this video update about my ear dramas that year.

And now… I really better get back to those amazing kids of mine!!