About Me - The Early Years

I grew up in Taylorsville, Utah.  My house was a pale yellow and had four bedrooms and two bathrooms.  When I was little, my bedroom was upstairs next to my Mom and Dad's room.  When my sister moved out, I moved downstairs to the "big" room.  The best bathroom in our house was the one in the basement.  The tub was SUPER deep and built into the ground so it was level with the floor.  My only complaint about this was the ginormous spiders that would crawl up the drain and scare the heebie jeebies out of me, or when I'd have dreams about a gigantic great white shark swimming through the pipes and coming up through the bottom of the tub while I was taking a bath.  It scared the heck

 out of me...because, you know, people are always finding great white sharks 

in their tubs :).  

We had an awesome yard.  Like...the best yard in the entire neighborhood.  I've always had a pretty amazing imagination, but as a kid, if I didn't have anyone to play with, I made up new ones.  Yes, I was the child with imaginary friends that my mom always set places for at the table :).  We had dozens of trees and my Dad built a treehouse in the backyard.  For a kid with an imagination, anything could happen in that backyard.  Anything.  

My earliest memory I can remember is of me, my brother, and my sister.  My Dad was on an important phone call in my parents bedroom and had shut the door.  So...my brother got a cup, put it on the door, and then listened into it.  I of course had no idea what he was doing, but I wanted to do it too.  So, I got a cup, and completely mimicked him.  My Mom took a picture of us like that.  I also found out that my Dad was in the mob and was under investigation with the FBI.  Hahahaha, just kidding :).  I have no idea what his important phone

 call was about.  

As a kid, we played anything your heart could imagine.  We lived across the street from a circle, so during the summer time, we'd set up bases and play baseball.  We had a trampoline, so we'd play all the games known to man and a few that we made up while jumping around.  Hide and seek was a favorite because our yard was awesome for hiding.  Soccer in the front yard, four square, and kick the can were also a few favorites.  

My Mom and Dad put me in preschool when I was three.  I have terrible memories of that place.  One day, we made these sweet binoculars out of old toilet paper rolls.  We were going to go on a bird watch around the neighborhood with them. However, on the day of the bird watch, one of the little boys in my class completely smacked me in the head.  Of course I told on him...I was like four.  Anyway, when my preschool teacher asked him about it, he LIED and said he had never hit me.  Which he did.  So, instead of punishing him, she punished me and made me stay at home with her creepy husband in his dark and creepy computer room all by myself, while everyone else went on what I'm sure was the most amazing bird watching event EVER.  I'm pretty convinced that the two years I spent in that preschool where the worst two years of my life.  From there, I attended Robert Frost Elementary.  

Which wasn't near as traumatic as preschool :).  

I grew up with eleven boys in my neighborhood.  That's right...e.l.e.v.e.n.  I was the only girl my age, surrounded by mean, smelly boys.  There were a couple girls that came and went as I grew up, but for the most part, I played with the boys.  Which means I played boy things, and was a tom boy until about the age of 14 when I finally had my first real crush and decided that it would be good if I started acting like a girl.  I'd collect things like snakes and tomato worms.  A couple times a year we'd go and catch tadpoles, which I then raised into frogs.  I loved all creepy crawly things, except for spiders, and had all sorts of buckets filled with little creatures.  My Mom got the scare of her life when one of the snakes I caught escaped it's mason jar.  When I discovered it missing, I panicked, knowing that I would be in a ton of trouble if my mom found it before I did because I wasn't supposed to be bringing any of my creepy crawlies into the house.  Her scream from upstairs let me know that the worst had happened.  She banned my snake from the house, and even worse...made me let it go.  That was just one of many snakes I caught and housed as prisoners.  I seriously had the best childhood :).  

I remember riding my bike to our elementary school a couple of weeks before school started during the summer to find out which class and teacher I had been assigned to.  Back then, they posted the classes on the main doors of the school.  My favorite teachers in elementary were Mrs. Fuller, Mrs. Foote, Mrs. Dent, and Mrs. Gillings.  I had Mrs. Fuller twice, and she LOVED me.  Mrs. Foote was awesome because she did all sorts of fun art projects that none of the other classes got to do.  I can't remember much about Mrs. Dent other than knowing she was the cool teacher and I was lucky enough to get her.  I never technically had Mrs. Gillings, but in 6th grade, I was a Student Body Officer, and she was the teacher in charge of us.  She was fantastic, and I loved her.  After I moved on to Jr. High, my mom got a job at Robert Frost working in the library.  It gave me the opportunity to go back a lot and see my old teachers.  It's funny how much nicer teachers are when you are no longer their student.  :)

Most of you know how OCD I am about pretty much everything in my life.  I think part of it is because of my chores as a kid growing up.  I mopped all the floors from the time time I was 10 until I moved out.  Lucky for me, I married a man who mops all the floors for me now :).  I'm also extremely old school when it comes to cleaning.  For example, you have to mop the floor on your hands and knees in order to get the job done right.  My mom referred to me as her little Cinderella when I was little, and even until I was 22 and got married because I was the cleaner of the house.  We switched off with chores, but my brother and sister never did as good of a job as I thought they should...so I ended up redoing what they had done just to make sure things were spotless.  I wasn't assigned to clean everything...I just did it, to make me feel better inside.  Hence my OCD. When things are clean, I'm happy.  I was that way when I was little with all my toys lined up just right...and I'm that way now.  I guess some things never change, even as you get older :)

Next installment in a couple weeks: Growing up, teenage years