15 Facts About the Real Melanie

A sneak peak behind my public persona.

1. I HATE scary movies. As soon as the music rises ominously, I start pacing. Once in a movie theatre, at The Lord of the Rings, I jumped and managed to throw *quarts* of popcorn in a 4′ radius all around us. It landed in people’s hair, on their coats… everywhere. My husband has never let me hold the popcorn again.

2. I am *the*definitive *bookworm.* I read at least 5 books a week till I was 15, stopping only if I had too much homework to keep it up. My mother used to beg me on nice summer days to , “At least read outside!” Sometimes, to limit my late night reading, I have read perched on the edge of a cold tub, only to realize 2 hours later that I am frozen and can hardly walk.

3. I love STRONG tea, butter tarts and red wine and cilantro. I love old houses and restoring their beauty, gardening, big windows and old pine floors.

4. Someone told my mother that I was cute but my sister would be beautiful! I am short, 5’1″ and 104lb. I was a

cute *little*kid (the grade six girls wanted to cart me around like a doll ),  a cute new mother, at 57, my kids’ friends think I am cute and they are 16/17 and I will be a cute, little old lady. Doomed to be*forever cute*.

5. I have a sadistic streak. The times I have laughed the hardest concern my husband and bathtubs. Once Michael was stuck in a too small bathtub, trying to rinse his hair with a*princess*shower head without getting any water on the floor. The second hilarious incident was when he was stuck in a cold bath, with his leg sticking straight out in a cask, while I attempted to haul him up! Both times I laughed so hard that I ended up on the floor. My husband did not even smile.

6. My athletic skills are dismal. Michael, my athletic husband finally gave up on trying to find a sport to suit me when he realized that the only possible choices were a very gentle game of badminton or crochet but even that was a stretch.

7. At 13, I played Becky Thatcher in a Tom Sawyer musical even though I really can’t sing. I also I had to kiss him in front of the school, then night performances, a televised production and sing on a record. I STILL cringe at the memory.

8. I can’t spell, type, and I am basically just entering the 21st century’s computer world. So what would be the most difficult dream be to fulfill? Why, become a writer and of course this is the path I find myself on.

9. I love my husband and my kids. I love play dough, looking for bugs, colouring, reading kids books and making doll houses. I really need lots of grandkids.

10. I am eccentric, living on the margins of society and I love quirky, intellectual nerds with a sense of humour. I often laugh in the face of tragedy. It works for me.Only my parents*really* get my humour.

11. God has managed to heal and love me in spite of myself and I could weep in gratitude for His patient mercy.

12. If it was not for my daughters buying me clothes, cutting and dying my hair and teaching me about make-up, I would look very frumpy.

13. I was pregnant and nursing, often both, for 18 years without a break. My husband says he saved me from becoming a nun librarian.

14. I am an inefficient square, trying to force myself to roll through chores like a circle. I just recently have begun to take delight in my inefficiency.

15. I *need*to start drawing and painting again.