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10 things about moi

2010 April 5
by Rachel Turiel

Last week at the park, where I conduct my social life, my friend Melanie asked me “does it feel weird that people you don’t know are reading personal stuff about you on your blog?” You mean stuff like: I feed my kids roadkill deer and get junior high-moony over homemade mayonnaise? Hardly seems the stuff of true confessions, but perhaps more like the lady at the cocktail party who won’t quit yapping about herself. But I’ve been tagged again, to write “10 things about myself” by Justine, who somehow wrote her ten without sounding self indulgent at all. So, get your cocktail and indulge me.

1)      For our honeymoon in 2002, Dan and I took a ten day camping trip along a scenic loop through the San Juan Mountains. We were never farther than a two hour drive from our home but felt like we were on an exotic, luxurious escapade with all manner of tarps strung up on our truck tailgate and a cooler full of Guinness and eggs.

2)      I imagined holding a baby girl named Rose way before Dan and I threw our birth control to the wind.

3)      My editing process is akin to extreme nailbiting; I just can’t leave it alone. My first publishing gig was writing a gardening column for Inside/Outside Magazine ten years ago. I once showed up at my editor’s desk, pleading the need for a “quick, last minute change” to a column I had already sent in. He sighed, gave me his desk and I shamelessly reworked my whole opening paragraph. This blog has been the antidote to painstaking rewrites and has taken more of a “shaking words out of my head” form, evidenced by copious typos and occasional blurry pictures due to a smudged camera lens which I mistook for my own smudged glasses.

4)      I used to backpack by myself a lot. Things got crazy a few times: well-behaved black bears stumping through my camp, hiking out with a raging, feverish strep throat infection or countless times where I wasn’t exactly lost, just not exactly sure where I was.

5)      Apparently we don’t shave in this house, girls nor boys.

6)      My son Col was born at 25 weeks at 1 pound, 12 ounces. He wore oxygen for his first 21 months, and before he reached his due date he’d had oral steroids, antibiotics, diuretics, iron shots, caffeine, X-rays, numerous blood draws, ultrasounds on his brain, blood transfusions, and IV nutrition. He is a charmed boy.

7)      Our house is 800 square feet. I had to return a butter dish to the shelf at the thrift store last week because its footprint was too big for our limited counter space.

8)      We don’t have a dishwasher, TV, microwave or wedding rings, not necessarily because of any dogma, but more because we have no use for them.

9)      I’ve been paid to be a camp counselor, serve frozen yogurt, wait tables, hock bagels, work with developmentally disabled people, write, survey wild plants, make herbal medicine and manage an herb shop and I still don’t know what I want to do when I grow up.

10)  I am an optimist, which often feels like my most useful asset.

*Thanks for coming to the 6512 party!



29 Responses leave one →
  1. April 5, 2010

    oh my!!! this was FUN to read!!!!!

  2. April 5, 2010

    oh and i can *totally* relate to # 3. blogging has been good for me on that front too.

  3. April 5, 2010

    I love your ten things!
    Especially number 8. Well… wait… especially number 1.
    Well… also number 7…
    oh heck… love how beautifully revealing they all are.

  4. April 5, 2010

    Fun; this post!

    I love how simply BIG your family lives. Very inspiring.

    And Col. Yes, a charmer. :)

  5. April 5, 2010

    Ha! I don’t know what I want to be when I grow up either. I love hearing about how you feed your kids roadkill.

    :)Lisa

  6. April 5, 2010

    My sleuthing failed me – I missed your first 10 things. Sorry. But now I know 20 things about you. Even better. Thanks for doing this.

    I can relate to Numbers 3, 6, 9 and 10.

    Blogging makes me even more self-conscious about my writing, and I’m not sure that’s a good thing. My miracle child happened just as I was beginning to think that I was not able to carry a baby to full term, so she’s very special indeed. But then again, all babies are.

  7. April 5, 2010

    Very cool. I much prefer sharing details about my life to total strangers on the internet than people I meet in real life.

  8. April 5, 2010

    Oh, 800 square feet! Sounds like a blessing and a challenge, one that I’d love. And a cooler of Guinness on your honeymoon: you don’t need much else, do you?? Love the list (and the new header photo.)

  9. Ami permalink
    April 5, 2010

    I love this because it is an opportunity to find so many things we have in common….
    My house is just over 800 sq feet…! I cannot possibly imagine having two children in such a space – you must work miracles – especially in the winter! :)

    …. And some things we don’t have in common! I’m going to meditate for awhile on your optimist statement… I WISH I was an optimist, and if only I knew how to become one! It’s a wonderful quality, which I believe can literally prolong your life! :)

  10. April 5, 2010

    Drat if that period shouldn’t go outside the parenthesis. Clearly, my own “editing process” could use a little fine-tuning today!

  11. April 5, 2010

    always good to force yourself to reveal more! i love especially number 5.

  12. April 5, 2010

    I am honored to be able to glimpse into your life. It’s so different from mine, and yet so similar at the same time!

  13. Melissa permalink
    April 5, 2010

    how generous of you to share these 10 things. but that is something i learned about you already.

    the blogging is sometimes hard to wrap my mind around–mostly the sharing-details-with-strangers-thing–but i also like how it connects us. clearly, we are all searching for some connection or why would we do this?

    so thank you-again-for sharing!

  14. April 5, 2010

    I love your list. ONE POUND?! Oh my. Oh my oh my.

  15. April 5, 2010

    if you can live in 800 feet, surely five people on a sailboat would be possible.

    good for you for returning the butter dish. you’d gotten by this long without it, right? thrift stores are great, but it’s so easy to leave with arms full of good deals.

    thought-provoking list. nice.

  16. April 6, 2010

    So fun to get to know you a little better. I hear you on #3 and the way a blog changes the process (in a good way). I can picture your honeymoon and hikes a tiny bit, as my brother lived in Durango for a while. Visiting him there and getting his tour of the terrain was such a treat!

  17. April 6, 2010

    I went backpacking in the San Juans for my honeymoon, too…a few years earlier though.
    What is “tagged”? See what I know about the virtual world and its lingo?!?

  18. April 6, 2010

    It really does seem that with our wonderful mountains here there is not much need to go far away.
    We have always lived in houses with dishwashers but have never used one.
    Your story with Col is amazing!

  19. April 6, 2010

    Oh I do love this ;O)

  20. Steph permalink
    April 6, 2010

    I love the new blog photo! I too have been reveling in the little earthworms I’m finding as I turn up the soil with my shovel. And congratulations to you on the 20,000 blog views! Your mother-in-law is so sweet. I’ve really enjoyed the last few posts.

    xoxo

  21. April 7, 2010

    i dig you.

  22. April 7, 2010

    I can totally relate to #’s 6 & 9. My twins were born at 27 weeks at @ 2lbs each and ditto on all the super scary medical procedures. Yipes, it’s a wonder we mama’s came through all that sane. I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up either, so for now I’ll be mama – to mine and all the daycare kids I can get my hands on!

  23. April 7, 2010

    I love seeing my pals commenting here!

    Thanks for inviting me to the 6512 party! I had the most fun!

  24. April 7, 2010

    You’re also beautiful, warm, sensitive, charming, inspiring, genuine, intelligent, friendly, resourceful and probably one of the best and most enjoyable modern writers out there to read. Thanks for being you!

  25. April 7, 2010

    800 square feet inside and many times that outside, right?

  26. April 13, 2010

    I think I’m more than fashionably late to this particular party, but I accidentally set my Google Reader to show me posts in some wacky random order and so I’m traveling backward through blog time today.

    At any rate, I appreciated getting a glimpse of these facts about you. Like many previous commenters (polite ones, who showed up on time), I completely relate to what you said in #3 about blogging changing your writing process.

    And three cheers for Col. May his medical adventures be far behind him.

  27. May 2, 2010

    I love the new header!!

    And the part about the butterdish stuck with me.

    I was going to write on your potato post that since they keep well, couldn’t you store some? But I guess not. :)

  28. May 6, 2011

    i could sure go for some roadkill d venison right about now. i’d find something to barter if i lived close. everyone in my life used to think i was crazy for backpacking alone- gasp- i am glad i’m not the only one lacking a y chromosome to have done it. :) i love this entire list, which must mean i love you! and laughed my ass off about the footprint of the butter dish. you’re awesome.

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