5 Question Interview by Erin

Erin had a new kind of meme at her blog and so she interviewed me for my blog just like she was interviewed for hers. Here are the rules and below the rules are my 5 answers:

1. Leave me a comment saying "Interview me."
2. I will respond by emailing you five questions. I get to pick the questions.
3. You will update your blog with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

She made me think deep into Val! :c)

1. Where is your favorite place to go when you want to be alone and what do you do there?

My favorite place is either out walking alone at night or sitting in a coffee shop (as though I have no where to be) like Starbucks. In the summer I like to take a blanket and lay it under a big shade tree and read. That rarely happens anymore since I have children, but when it does happen, I milk it for all it's worth. What do I do when I'm alone like this? Read or write. When I say write, I mean, either notes to myself or letters to friends. Oh, and drinking coffee. Of course I don't drink coffee while I'm walking, silly. (I probably would if I could, though!) I wish I still did yoga regularly, because that would probably be my answer - doing yoga - another thing I wish I had more time for.

2. What is the best bargain or deal you’ve ever found?

This is a hard one. Probably my best bargains have been in antique stores or flea markets. Usually it's little things like a vintage vase or linen but I have found Bascal glasses once really super cheap and then we got an old wardrobe cabinet for $50 that had been painted white, but underneath all the paint lies cherry wood. We have yet to strip it, but one day we will! It's beautiful.

3. If you could be invisible for a day what would you do?

This is really silly, but I would probably help myself inside Martha Stewart's home in the Hamptons {editing later . . . she sold it!} or New York City (or anywhere else she resides!), but of course she must be home so I could spend time with her. I'd just sit there all day and watch her do whatever she does and take notes on her decor inside her home and her gardens outside her home. I'd love to be like Martha Stewart, but I would never want to be her. The gifts she's been given as a human being (minus the illegal business stuff she's done!) I really admire.

4. If you could eliminate one weakness or limitation in your life what would it be?

My biggest weakness is not standing up for myself, for letting others "walk all over me" at times. So often I don't express what I'm feeling/thinking in the moment, and as I'm getting older (and hopefully wiser) I see that it is important to be yourself, to voice your opinions, to not hide behind a facade. That it's important to do what you feel your heart tells you to do from the start because almost always those feelings are right. I only have one chance at this life, and I'm learning as I go.

On the not-so-serious of this question, my answer would have to be ice cream. If it's in my freezer, I eat it. All the time. I love love love ice cream. And it has to have chocolate in it. And while frozen yogurt is good, it's still nothing like ice cream or custard . . . yummm. And again, I'm only living this life once, so even though it is a weakness for me, I will not stop eating it unless cows go extinct.

5. What has caused the greatest spiritual growth in your life?

My grandma's death in 2000. She was in the hospital in ICU for over a month, an hour away from my home. And while I stayed there a couple times a week, I drove over there every day that I didn't stay. So I had a lot of time to think, and cry, and pray. I'll never forget that time. It's times of weakness that we get closest to God and I think that is exactly why He hands us times of pain and sorrow. To seek Him out and get to know Him better, and learn just what this life (and our life to come) is truly all about.