1. I've never done TT before. I just discovered in browsing through other's blogs that it's traditional to do 100 things about yourself when you reach your 100th post. Well, I didn't know that, but I figure if I do TT...let's see...carry the one...7.69 times, it's as good as doing 100 things. And 7.69 times means the 8th one only has to have 9 things!

2. Is that being lazy or efficient?

3. I tend to do everything the hard way. I bake from scratch. I chop my own onions. I sew, not glue, sequins. Even when I find a quicker, easier way to do something (pancakes from Bisquick, for example), it always feels like cheating to me.

4. When I was young I was so insecure about my abilities that I would bake from scratch for my family, but only use a cake mix for company. That is pretty much a metaphor for everything about my life then.

5. People saw me as confident long before I felt that way. To this day, I have to fight the tape in my head that tells me that everything I do falls short of the mark.

6. Parents didn't praise their kids much when I was growing up, and mine were super-critical. My father was always yelling "That's class D work."

7. The funny thing is, the man never did class A work in his life. He always stopped short of doing a good job.

8. It was really hard for me when I started making more money than my father ever did. Then I realized that I worked hard to get there, and he didn't.

9. I never met my father's mother, and she never even sent me a birthday card. My mother's mother didn't like me, and everyone knew it. I was determined that all my grandchildren would feel enormously loved. Nothing gives me more pleasure than doing something for them and seeing that look of delight on their faces.

10. None of my grandchildren can imagine a grandmother who doesn't like you. I take that as pretty good proof that they feel loved.

11. Between us, the Professor and I have 10 grandchildren, 5 boys and 5 girls. They are all OUR granchildren. They range in age from 22 to 3. I'm hoping for at least one more from Guppy & Stormii.

12. The Professor was a friend of my brother's. I've known him since I was 8. He noticed me in my early teens; we dated for a while; I dumped him. 28 years later, after two bad marriages apiece, my daughters engineered our re-acquaintance. Dolphin had told me "Mom, you have terrible taste in men; let me pick one for you". When she carried on about how good-looking and funny he was, I had to see for myself. I recalled him as not very attractive and extremely boring.

13. I called the Professor at his mother's house. After we chatted a bit, I told him to call me next time he was in town and he said "I'm here now." So he came out to visit me and the rest, as they say, is history.