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My 20 things

September 19th, 2016 at 02:09 am

I recall doing this activity once several years ago on this site. I'll do this now, then see if I can find the old list and compare.

1. I've been on SA for a decade.

2. I'm on my third career: psychology professor, tax accountant, and most recently, financial planner.

3. I've lived in ten residences during my life: 8 apartments (6 of which were in old houses that had been divided into units) and two houses, the one that I lived in from age 5 to 21, which my sister now owns, and the one that I've lived in for the past decade that I own (along with the bank).

4. These residences have been in California (Los Angeles for 21 years and Palo Alto for 1), Michigan (Ann Arbor), Vermont, and Pennsylvania.

5. I love basset hounds but for now and the foreseeable future, I am owned by cats (thanks to my beloved Henry, whom I used to tell, "Your middle name is 'Retirement," sad but true).

6. Some of my career dreams from my youth: being a writer; being a flutist with an orchestra; being a recombinant DNA biologist; being an anthropologist, being a journalist.

7. When I was 14, I wrote an investigative paper for journalism class on the problems with nursing homes. My grandfather, a retired attorney, was very active in advocating with politicians for changes favoring seniors. With my current career (as well as personal) interest in navigating the financial issues of retirement, I feel like I am coming full circle.

8. Someday I hope to write a book--another way of bringing life full circle (back to my childhood dreams of being an author).

9. And yet a third way I want to bring life full circle is to become active in musical performance again some day. There's a local division of the "RTO," Really Terrible Orchestra (started in Scotland by author Alexander McCall Smith and with branches over the world) that I hope to make the time to join some day.

10. I've been to 40 of the 50 states, mostly by way of traveling most of the lengths of I-90, I-80, I-70, I-60, I-50, and I-40 (plus a trip to Alaska).

11. On the other hand, the only foreign country I've been to is Canada.

12. I hope to visit the remaining 10 states and do a little foreign travel, probably during my 60s.

13. I once spent 7 weeks in the hospital during which I did not (could not) eat (I was fed directly into my bloodstream via TPN).

14. I have walked two half-marathons.

15. I am phobic about anything to do with tools or equipment--something I got from my mother. I wish I could be more self-sufficient but it isn't in the cards. The fact that I can fill my own gas tank, plug together the components of my computer, and once even reattached a spark plug that had gotten loose is as far as my mechanical skills are likely to go. I contemplate taking a bike or car repair class--but there are so many more interesting things to learn that I don't expect to get around to this for a while.

16. Almost all of my friends are older than me, some considerably so. My best friend is 16 years older than me and my oldest friend is 92.

17. This makes me feel like I need to make an effort to make friends who are younger than me just so I have friends in 20 years!

18. I was brought up as a Reconstructionist Jew, learned about Lutheranism from a boyfriend who I went to church with several times, about Buddhism from an anthropologist friend and my own extensive readings, about Quakerism from my several friends who are Friends, and made my way back to Reconstructisonist Judaism after attending a Buddhist retreat.

19. I have had a meditation practice of one sort or another--not long sessions and sometimes with long gaps between sessions--for over 40 years.

20. I am semi-agnostistic about the existence of God, but like the ideas of Abraham Joshua Heschel, who wrote a book "Why God Needs Man." The idea is that God created people with free will and needs us to act ethically of our own free will in order to bring good into the world.

Bonus #21. I have met one fellow SA blogger, but on another website (now defunct) that I was also very active on for many years, I have met half a dozen people. That one was a discussion forum about walking on a diet website.

I suspect this is quite a bit different than the last time I answered this list! Update: actually, much less so than I thought--the original entry from 2006 is at http://dido.savingadvice.com/2006/11/19/late-list_17556/.

6 Responses to “My 20 things ”

  1. ceejay74 Says:
    1474247790

    Very cool! I'm with ya on having no handyman skills nor desire to attain them. I now live with two people who are handy in different areas (sewing/crafts and mechanical/carpentry) and my downstairs neighbor is very handy in many areas, so now I have even less incentive to learn! Big Grin
    I'm atheist after many years of calling myself agnostic. The closest I came to joining a religion was attending Quaker meeting for about 2 years in college. Loved the experience but came no closer to believing in a higher power. I respect what people use their religions to bring themselves to attain but can't help myself thinking that it's really the person, not the higher power, that's doing what they're doing. I just think religion helps people more fully realize their own abilities sometimes, if that makes sense. That's just my belief, so anyone who is secure in their faith won't be bothered by what I think about it anyway. Big Grin

  2. rob62521 Says:
    1474256212

    No handyman skills here either!

  3. VS_ozgirl Says:
    1474283243

    I'm not phobic about fixing things, but have always been lucky enough to have a male figure in my life whether it is family or husband to not have to bother learning any of these things! If I had to, I would. While I don't have a meditation practice, we do it at the end of my yoga/pilates class and I always feel so relaxed and calm afterwards.

  4. PatientSaver Says:
    1474321689

    But what about me, Patient Saver? We met here, I'm pretty sure.

    Looks like I've fulfilled 3 of your 5 career dreams, heh heh. (Well, I haven't BEEN an anthropologist but that was my career co-major.)

    I will have to look up what Reconstructisonist Judaism is all about.

    I've just begun reading the NYT bestseller, The God Delusion, and i know the author is going to touch on something I have thought for a very long time: that religion can and has caused more harm than good, as in the Salem witch trials, WWII, suicide bombers, 9/11, the Crusades, Serb massacres, Northern Ireland "troubles," honor killings, Taliban, beheadings, etc. Because every religion teaches that it is the only true religion and creates a schism that separates those who follow the religion and everyone else.

  5. Dido Says:
    1474326483

    P.S., you ARE the one fellow SA blogger I have met! Not forgetting you at all!

    Reconstructionist Judaism was founded by Mordechai Kaplan, a Conservative rabbi, and takes the peoplehood and culture of Jews, rather than their beliefs, as central. We are a smaller movement and tend to be almost as conservative in terms of ritual as Conservative Jews but more varied and often more liberal in belief than Reform Jews. Ten Jews, at least eleven opinions. We were the first movement to have girls have Bat Mitzvahs, and the movement was early (but not first) to ordain women. The first lesbian rabbi was Reconstructionist as are at least half of the small group of transgender rabbis that now exist. We believe that `the past has a vote, not a veto` and we look for ways to reconcile traditional with modern beliefs and practice.

    As for The God Delusion, I don't think it is religion per we that is the problem, but fundamentalism in any firm, religious or otherwise, that creates the potential for dangerous extremism.

  6. FrugalTexan75 Says:
    1474338680

    I'm not a handyman either, though I did know enough to use a zip tie to fix the toilet a few weeks ago. Smile

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