100 Things… November 30, 2007

 

 

Tradition in the blog world says to post 100 things about yourself once you reach your 100th post… 

 

100 Things

 

My full name is Helen Lelia (Gaskins) Washington.  I was born on August 25, 1964.  A day or so after I was born, my father was in a store and an acquaintance congratulated him on my arrival and asked what they had named me…My father said Helen Lelia to which the one who had inquired responded…“Hallelujah” that’s a great name!I am named after both of my grandmothers…Helen who resides in heaven now and Lelia who lives in Tacoma, WA.

I was born and raised in Pullman, WA…the home of Washington State University…Go Cougs!

I did live in Calgary, Alberta for two years as a baby when my dad played professional football for the Calgary Stampeders.

I have a brother named Bill…or Billy to me…who is 4 years younger than me…and really intelligent…he has an MBA in finance and does all sorts of things that I don’t understand…but I nod a lot in approval. He is probably one of the most kind, patient and stellar people that I know…and we are good friends which is a blessing due to all that I put him through being my baby brother.

My parents have been married nearly 44 years…they are amazing people…I can’t tell you how many times friends and such have told me how blessed I am to have the parents that I do…believe me I know and it grows increasingly as I get older. I could easily write 100 things that I love about Bill and Felicia but for now…I am thankful for the foundation of love, faith, humor, encouragement and belief in me. They are some of the most generous people that I know. Their  belief in me has propelled me many a time…I could tell them that I felt the call on my life was to do sidewalk chalk art in the Rain Forest and they would just smile and ask me if they could supply me with the chalk!

I am blessed that until this past summer I have had 3 grandparents as integral parts of my life and my children’s. They definitely have nurtured me and prayed the way to me serving the Lord.

I broke my arm in the first grade…during PE class, I tried to get to the next station too quickly and instead of climbing down the ladder I had ascended…I decided to fly and landed on my arm. Somehow, I still tend to hurry when I should use caution and good things don’t always follow. My neighbor happened to be in the school office bringing a left behind lunch to school and he volunteered to drive me to the hospital…that would not happen today…my dad was the hospital pharmacist and met us at the entrance to the hospital…I can remember telling him how sorry I was over and over again.

I was the only person in my first grade class that could do a “perfect” cartwheel.

Because of the above fact, I was photographed with a couple other classmates for a physical education textbook. My parents told me all about it and for some reason when they explained that there would be lights and cameras…I felt sure that Bob Barker would be there as well. He was not!

Carl and my brother surprised me on my 30^th birthday and presented me with what I have come to learn is the “bible” of physical education.

From the above, it is not hard to imagine that I wished that I was Olga Korbutt.

If I couldn’t be Olga, then I wanted to be a nun.

To this day, I love the word “catechism”…but that is probably because I was raised in the Presbyterian Church and didn’t experience catechism like so many of my Catholic buddies did. Becoming a nun was going to be difficult.

I love the movie “The Trouble with Angels”…it never fails to choke me up when Haley Mills decides to abandon her trouble making ways and enter the convent. Forget Olga…I wanted to be Haley Mill.

My dad often had me visit other children that were in the hospital…I remember having to spend one night in the hospital after I broke my arm and I found it quite frightening…

My brother and I would pass the time with dad at the hospital screwing on lids to prescription bottles…it kept us busy for quite a while.

I was a junior varsity cheerleading during my sophomore year in high school…it was fun but an incredible amount of work and I don’t really think the team or the crowd really cared that we were there. What closed the deal of never being a cheerleader again was spending an entire weekend baking sugar cookies in the shape of a football, iced with our class year and presenting them to a stampede of dirty sweaty football players that devoured them in 10 seconds flat and asked for more…talk about a deflated squad of girls!

I ran track from 5^th grade to 11^th grade. I was a sprinter and a long jumper.


Sue Harbour and I wanted to try the pole vault and our coach told us that pole vaulting was no place for a girl…now girls do pole vault…thank you very much! I was born a few years too early.

I graduated from high school in 1982…wow…25 years ago.

Much to my continued amazement, one of our neighbors hired me to work in their dental office when I was in the 7^th grade…I cleaned offices, did some filing, answered phones occasionally and developed x-rays…I burned several films but they were never angry with me…in fact they were one of the happiest couples I ever knew growing up…could it have been the laughing gas?

When I look back, I can’t believe how many different jobs I had growing up in Pullman…besides the dental office and working for my dad doing pharmacy inventory, I also worked for a drugstore, I sold football season ticket packages at the university, worked university banquets and private parties, babysat, delivered newspaper supplements and probably a few others that I can’t remember…oh yes, I worked at Pizza Hut.

Washington State University was the last place that I wanted to go to college…I wanted to go somewhere else…but as the time got closer, it became the best place for me to be and I will be forever grateful for my time there.

I actually met Carl during my senior year of high school. His best friend spoke at my church youth group as a member of the WSU Fellowship of Christian Athletes. Long story there but when we first met…I was not impressed and what flashed through his mind was that he was meeting his future wife.

During my sophomore year at WSU, I spent a semester attending the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. It was an amazing experience and I still keep in touch with my Danish family.

I did some really naïve and foolish things while traveling abroad and I have only the grace of God to thank that I was kept safe and out of potentially harm’s way.

I went through the interview process for Up with People at the end of high school but not being able to sing really didn’t help.

I love old fashioned snail mail…there are not many things that can make me as happy as receiving a handwritten note…I just love it! I was very lonesome for mail while in Denmark and I would go to any lengths to receive some American mail. I mailed Carl 4 pieces of a 16 piece puzzle and said I would send the rest if he wrote me 3 letters…he did…it satisfied my craving for mail and when I returned to the States he saw me less as a little sister type and more like someone he wanted to pursue…not my intention at all as I had given this relationship up to the Lord…but God gave it back in His perfect timing.

Isn’t it amazing that we live 7 minutes from church and very often we are late. When I was living in Denmark, I was so starved for church that I would walk 10 minutes from my Danish family’s home to the bus, ride the bus for 20 minutes, wait for the train, ride for an hour and walk another 5 minutes to the only English speaking church in Copenhagen…then I would repeat the process to get home!

Carl and I were engaged on February 21, 1986…he surprised me by coming to Pullman unexpectedly and proposing…everyone knew but me!

We were married on July 19, 1986 and we had a few day honeymoon and then drove to Rochester, Minnesota where I would begin my training for physical therapy at the Mayo Clinic.

The two years in Minnesota were some of the best times in our young married life and also the most challenging. Carl did not find a full time job until we had been married nearly a year. It was difficult to be so far away from family and friends but we truly learned to depend on each other and forged a mighty bond that has proven to be unshakable.

In our really lean days in Minnesota, Carl and I would go to Cub Foods which is now Winco and play pinball for entertainment.

While in P.T. school, I won the college football pool, 3 weeks in a row…I quickly got the message from the guys that I should sit out the rest of the season…God provided Carl and I with grocery money!

I have a huge thing for college football especially the Pac-10…I dread seeing it come to an end.

When we learned massage in PT school, we had to be completely undressed to practice the techniques. This was a way to learn empathy for our future patients. I am not sure I ever relaxed during those massage days…especially as a new bride.

The last day of April that we were in Minnesota, we received 12 inches of snow in one day…the most of that winter…followed by the last day in July we were hit with golf ball sized hailstones…it was time to get out of Dodge and back to the northwest.

Carl and I had set our sights on being in the Seattle area after our stint in Minnesota. We decided that whoever found a job first, that would be where we would land. I was working with a recruiter and she suggested Portland after not being very successful looking in Seattle…and I had a job within a week…so we landed in Portland and have never left or regretted living here…what’s not to like…the mountains, the beach, waterfalls…coffee…

Carl and I have lived on 3 state name streets since moving to Portland…Vermont, Florida and now Michigan…The Washington family that live on Michigan.

Despite living close to mountains and being able to see them whenever the sky is clear…I have never snow skied. I don’t desire to hit the slopes at this age but this is the winter that I will snowshoe…I promise.

I live in the Northwest but I am not that outdoorsy. Shhhh…don’t tell anyone.

I don’t like to camp and I feel badly about that because my husband does…but I prefer a cabin in the wood preferably without anything inflated under me.

However at home, I prefer a heavy comforter and a wide open window…that’s my definition of the great outdoors.

We have been blessed with 3 children. Carlen Amanda was born on September 29, 1989…Courtney Anne was born June 28, 1993 and Caleb Joseph came along September 25, 2003.

Babies-3

Induced Labors-2
Epidurals-2 (neither worked)
Pushing time in minutes-27,3,5

Seeing their faces-priceless

Carlen’s name is Carl’s first three letters and my last three letters.

This was not planned but the girls each have the same initials and the same amount of letters in their full names. Word to the wise, the same exact initials is not a great idea.

So Caleb would not feel left out…we gave him a “C” name as well. Caleb means “faithful” and Joseph means “ God will add”.

Joseph of the Old Testament is Carl and my favorite biblical person.

For the past 14 years we have lived in a bungalow. Although I do tend to long for more space with 5 people and one very large dog…I do love the coziness factor of a cottage.

I am blessed that I have friends that I have known since grade school and we are in very regular contact. In fact, I get together annually with 3 girlfriends for a getaway…so cool to be known for what seems like forever…we just get each other.

One thing we all get is the loyalty and faithfulness of being a Cougar…of the Washington State University variety. You don’t know fans until you meet Cougars. As a grade schooler, I remember making crepe paper pom poms with Kathryn Bertilson and doing cheers at recess and singing the fight song.

WSU has been perennial underdogs and they had not been to the Rose Bowl in over 60 years when they won a berth in 1998. This was a time for all Cougar fans to unite and a great Christmas present…my parents met at WSU, my dad played football and ran track at WSU, my parents have worked for WSU for decades and my husband, brother and I were also alumni. We all took the trip to Pasadena and although we didn’t win in a close game to Michigan…it was a blast…seeing Cougars everywhere you went. Disneyland was packed with people in either WSU or Michigan shirts…very cool…a wonderful memory.

I love Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass…this was the music playing when I took my fateful leap and broke my arm in PE class and it was the music that filled my home…isn’t it amazing how music can cause distant memories to rush to the front of your mind.

Although I have a summer birthday and it seems like I should choose summer as my favorite season. I am a sucker for fall…I just love the colors and it feels like God’s creation is bursting forth in beauty…kind of showing off wouldn’t you say?

Maybe I love autumn so much because I am a 70 degree kind of girl. I just don’t do well with intense heat. Give me a mid-seventy day with a slight breeze and I am a very happy camper…well maybe just a happy girl.

When I turned 30, I decided to walk a marathon. I had just had Courtney in 1993 and needed a physical challenge(okay, that sounds ridiculous but it is what I thought at the time)…so in October 1994, I walked the Portland Marathon.

I had the idea to walk the marathon and I quickly found other women that wanted to join me…I started with 7 other ladies and only one ended up walking with me. Arlene and I had a great time. Although, at mile 18 when we reached the top of a great incline to gain access to the St. John’s Bridge…I heard the theme to “Rocky” and was ready to kick it into high gear…Arlene heard the pain of her knees and blistered feet…but we finished together and that was what was most important!

The marathon got me in shape…but my favorite shape is a heart.

I am not a big shopper…it makes me really tired.

I don’t like crowds…probably why I don’t shop the day after Thanksgiving very often.

I don’t believe in ironing…Carl is the one who irons in the family and I tend to wear clothes that don’t need a crisp seam.

I love good manners. I even excuse myself when I am alone. Imagine my pride when Caleb’s preschool teacher said after the first day that he had incredible manners…score one for the home team!

As you can tell, this is now the start of random things about me…so hang on…I wish that I was one of those women that can wear lipstick with ease…like my mother and most of my friends.

I could probably win a lot of money on Wheel of Fortune…it’s just the way God made my mind…it drives my family a bit crazy when we play certain games.

Another thing that may bother others about me is that I have a really good memory and many times very detailed. I can remember conversations well. Some of the facts are trivial but they are stored in my memory bank for all time. It can be annoying but I think it is because I listen well.

I do like surprises however my husband does not…I have learned this fact by experience…just trust me on that one.

However, I do not like surprise parties…I will attend but not as the guest of honor…kill me…just kill me now.

I love the company of friends…however, I am an introvert by nature…that tendency intensifies as I get older. I love my friends and family but I always need time to refuel in solo mode.

One of my favorite positions is to be sitting on my bed, legs criss crossed, pen in hand and surrounded by all my lovely and different Bible translations as God is working (or writing) something out of me…add in my electronic dictionary and I am good to go for hours.

I love dragonflies and ladybugs…real or not so real.

My heart and soul find rest in God alone and the ocean. Basically, the ocean feels a lot like God to me…so big, powerful and steadfast…beautiful and unending…a tide that can catch you by surprise because you thought you knew His next move…but you were caught unaware and drenched by His presence and love…soaked to the skin yet comforted and warm.

I love the accomplishment of making a great meal for my family or guests…but if I had the choice…I would take a personal chef…because to be creative let’s say 300 times a year can just get overwhelming…would you agree?!

I have tried all manner of ways but I can’t hard boil an egg consistently…it’s a bit embarrassing.

I haven’t always been a coffee drinker…I was at one time just a social drinker when we would go out for breakfast or brunch. I was big on Earl Grey tea but once my sweet Caleb came along…I became a full blown coffee lover.

Lord willing, I will get to show Italy to Carl some day…great place to get a nice cup of java…wouldn’t you say?!  Don’t forget the carbonara and gelato!

Pregnancy changed many things about my body but one of the biggest is that I am now lactose intolerant. So in my case, “Got milk?”…um, no!

I love to watch my children sleeping.

I could spend hours at the library, Barnes and Noble and Powell’s City of Books…the library is much easier on the budget.

Speaking of the library, I love that my neighborhood librarians know my name and tell me often that I am good for their circulation since I place so many holds on books. I love that the children’s librarian knows my children and is always amazed at how big they are getting…feels like home. I love the smell of libraries, the hum of quiet activity and the prospect of coming home with a surprise find.

Flowers…flowers…flowers…I love tulips, stargazer lilies, sunflowers and nasturtiums…oh and don’t forget zinnias.

One of my favorite guilty pleasures is watching movie after movie after movie.

I love when I can answer Carl’s question way before he finishes asking it and he still has that amazed look on his face…priceless.

I love Bible Study…I really love doing Beth Moore studies and wish there was a male equivalent out there…maybe there is and I just don’t know him yet.

I love words…I love their sounds and their meanings…I love taking familiar words looking up the definitions and being surprised by how full of impact they become…I suppose you know that from reading my blog.

My fixture scripture right now if II Timothy 1:12…I think the only reason that I have any peace in this world right now is because this scripture resonates in my spirit and it puts all the responsibility of life as we know it squarely on the shoulders it belongs…God’s and not mine despite my confusion at times…

“That is why I am suffering as I am. Yet I am not ashamed, because I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him for that day.”

Favorite books of the Bible…James, Philippians, Hebrews, Psalms and Isaiah…I am sure there are more.

I love starting my day by reading the psalm number according to the date and then every 30^th thereafter.

My favorite meal is breakfast…my favorite standby breakfast out is 2 eggs poached softly, bacon, whole wheat toast and hash browns…it sounds so boring but making all of that at home takes a bit of time.

Favorite Bible translation is the New International Version but I really love the Amplified Version…it goes hand in hand with my love of words.

If there were no obstacles in our life…Carl and I would try out for the Amazing Race…we love that show…but I believe we are a bit too boring to be picked and I don’t know if our joints could take it.

Our family had 3 different black Scottish Terriers while I was growing up…I still love that breed of dog.

It was devastating as a child to lose childhood pets to illness…it took Carl and I quite a while to decide to take the plunge with getting a family pet…but now we have our sweet silly Chocolate Aussie named Hazel(nut) Cookie and I know she won’t live forever but I hope it is a really long time.

My aunt Lelia was the first writer that I ever knew…I wish she was still living…she would have loved the concept of blogging and she would love even more that I am writing. She showed me my first Writers’ Market and I can see myself pouring over the pages as she talked about the articles that she was having published.

I love nice penmanship. I spent a lot of time practicing my handwriting. I really enjoy different fonts…I am like a kid in the candy store.

Does anyone play Canasta anymore? I have such great memories of playing Canasta at my grandparents’ home…anyone got 2 decks of cards complete with 4 jokers…if the answer is yes…how about a friendly game or two?

I am so thankful for my family of origin, my husband, my kids, my friends and neighbors…I have a really rich life.

I am thankful to the saving, redeeming, refining and tender love of my Savior. You have loved me always and I am forever grateful to the mercy that flows so freely over my life and the refuge I have in You. Thank You for calling me to write because in writing I get to know You better and deeper because it is really You coursing through my heart, mind and hand. If it weren’t for You and Your Word…I would have nothing to write!

Thank you for taking the time to read these 100 Things about me…it was a bit more difficult than I imagined to get to 100…hopefully you learned something new about me. Thank you for reading A Work of Heart…you are a blessing and I am so humbled and touched by all your words of encouragement and acceptance. So here’s to the next 100 posts….

Peace and Joy,

Helen