I have a vivid memory of being ten years old and opening the bathroom door and seeing a golden rat. And what had happened -- I was m-, moving it with the door as I opened the door. It was trying to get some water and it was loose in our house. We had lost the hamster. We've lived in this big old drafty-ass farmhouse. And we had lost the hamster in the house somewhere, as children sometimes do. But the hamster mated with a rat that was also loose in the house. And that's how we came to have a golden rat running loose in our house. My mother finally got it, and killed it, and got the rat, but the rat -- or, the hamster, but the hamster had gone wild in the walls of the house, or maybe it just went crazy. I don't know. But mom had to put that down and put -- she put the rat down so we would have no more rat-golden-hamster mixes running around the house. It was the only one that made it to adulthood. It's the only one we ever saw. But then they were -- what a freaky mate. A golden hamster and a rat. But there were some scary moments before it got caught. One time, my mom came and jumped on my bed when I was sleeping because the bathroom was right across from my bedroom, and that was the closest place to, to, -- was my bedroom to the bathroom. And she jumped from in the bathroom where it liked to go -- that's where we fed the dog and the dog's water was in there. So I'm assuming that the rat wanted water, being that it was being poisoned. Hm. Very distinct memories.

I am the least graceful person and I fully admit it.I have so many stories of just— just being a klutz. I remember maybe five or six years ago, I went hiking at Tahquamenon Falls, and I think I had all of the necessary equipment, you know, I had hiking boots and you know, I might have even had one of those hiking sticks or whatever and I will say that it's Tahquamenon Falls it— when I went hiking it had rained, so it's kind of slu— like that slushy but kind of slippery and muddy and then there was so many exposed roots and everything. So it's just the perfect opportunity for someone like me who is less graceful to fall, but I can remember going for a hike from the upper falls to the lower falls and there's kind of like a cliff and it leads down into a river and I was hiking, and I tripped and I was literally inches away from falling off the cliff— like the momentum from my body was like kind of pulling me down off the cliff like I was afraid I was gonna fall and like I was like kind of holding on for dear life not to like roll right over the Cliff's Edge. And I can remember that after that I had gotten such a like a big bruise like a just it was a deep, deep, dark purple and it was like this size of a grapefruit. Like it didn't like swell like a grapefruit. I mean it did swell but it didn't swell like a grapefruit, but it was like so big around it was like as big as a grapefruit. It was on my knee. I remember taking a picture of it and kind of posting it on Facebook as like, yeah, look at how klutzy I am.

Note: There is language that is excluded in the transcript but not excluded in the audio. I had this friend, and she was having a birthday party. And there were kids there that I didn't know that were a little bit older that I felt like I wanted to impress. Anyways, near her house is like this Christian summer camp. So, we could walk through the woods from her house to this camp area. And I remember, like, taking a spray paint can and painting on the back of this pavilion, there, like this anarchy symbol. Nothing ever became of it. I don't think they had cameras or kind of knew what was going on. I don't even remember where the hell I got the spray paint can. Sometimes I feel like some of this stuff from my childhood is like, I must be remembering it wrong, but I distinctly remember this. Um -- or what possessed me to do it. But I did that. I don't know if, what became of it, but I felt like, "Oh, I'm hot s***" because I could impress these older kids. Anyways. I don't know. I never heard about it again after that, so.

So we walked back down along the coastline and ended up at a whale watching boat, which we took out, took a tour out into one of the bays, the big the big bay. Again, don't know the name of it. And they took us out probably 45 minutes or so. We motored out. And then we saw the whales, and wow did we see some whales. I have never been on a successful whale watch before, so this is finally — I actually see why people want to do this and get excited about whale watching. Before this experience, I had had a couple bad experiences with with whale watching so I was really kind of excited to see this happen. So they're humpback whales that kind of migrate to and from Iceland, the Icelandic waters, the northern -- northern Atlantic waters, and they go down the Atlantic south you know, summer winter that kind of thing, kind of migrate.  And we saw several many many different ones at the time, you could see the blowhole splashes, and then you could see the dorsal fins on the top, and then several times we saw them actually take the deeper dive where you can see the tail totally come out of the water. Got some really good pictures. One of them did some sort of a -- some sort of a tail slap-type thing. So like more of it was actually out of the water, and its tail like really slapped the water. It's called something, can't remember what it's called of course. We didn't see any of them like breach or like bring their you know heads out of the water or anything like that. But sometimes they were — they were really close you could see the barnacles on them. And like I said had never experienced anything like that before which was just really really cool.

Maybe a controversial take but I think I would have a bat under my hat. Not only because it rhymes, but also I don't want to wear a gigantic hat like it'd be dope to have like a cat or a small dog or something I guess. I'm not trying to -- first of all, have the neck pain of supporting like a nine pound animal in my head, but also I don't think there are a lot of really fashionable hats that would accommodate that kind of animal. Bat, on the other hand, like small spaces. It probably would not be a very kind to have it like under a baseball cap, but maybe, I don't actually know. But the rationale -- so if it's under my control, it's obviously not gonna bite me, that's part  — part A. Part B is you would just have your own personal like mosquito eater. So you're at a bonfire, let's say, and the mosquitoes are just eating everyone else alive. Not you, because your little bat buddy is flying around eating them all. Why else? Keeping warm on my head, you know, I think that would be kind of a nice thing-- a little mammal. Would freak people out, nobody wants a bat flying in their face. So you're having an unpleasant conversation you wanted to end, just take your hat off, bat flies in their face, they scurry off, done. I think it would work in a professional setting for sure. No one could prove that you are controlling the bat because that's insane, so you could gaslight your coworkers. That's pretty good. Um, yeah, I can't think of any other pro-cons. I think that a bat is the play.

Note: There is language that is excluded in the transcript but not excluded in the audio. But I was really quite known for being a little bit of a class clown. And so for example, one of the courses we took where I have a pretty good memory of this -- It was my certificate for student affairs, so I was in student development. And the professor, ironically, was my very first on-campus boss. So I know him very well and vice versa. And so, it was quite humorous to both of us because he would call on me -- and I worked, at the time, in residential life and so the wildest things would happen in my life being on call. I watched students get tased, I watched a kid try to climb in a manhole, like things that you just don't normally see. And so, [he] would constantly call on me to share and I would get student -- I would have, like, my fellow classmates just rolling, because I could retell the story pretty well. And it was factual, I wasn't necessarily trying to be funny, but I feel like I have good delivery. And so, I remember a lot of times just being the one that he would kind of hold up as like, "Okay, so she's gonna talk about this theory." Or we would talk about students and just their development and how sometimes they just do the stupidest s***. So I really enjoyed -- those were the times I enjoyed.

So I like skunks -- They're cute. If you've ever seen a picture of a baby skunk, those are like, off the charts adorable. I don't even mind the smell of a skunk as long as it's kind of faint and distant. Strong skunk, you know, I find that as repulsive as anyone else does, but like faint skunk? Not terrible.  So -- so the reason the skunk became my nemesis was we had a duck pair. Well, this mama duck started nesting in my flower bed. And she built herself a nest, and you know what they do, they like, lay an egg every day. They lay an egg and then they leave it alone because they're not gonna -- they don't want to start incubating it until like, it gets them all done. It lays an egg a day, and then when it's finally done then it starts sitting on the nest, and that way all of them will kind of develop at the same rate and they'll hatch about the same day. So I kept a close eye on this duck, we were really careful when we were like, leaving the house to give it wide berth. So we wouldn't startle her, I mean, and I was really looking forward to them hatching and us having like a little duck family around.  But one night I could hear from my bedroom window which is like, kind of above her nest. I heard this like, really distressed quacking. And I like, bolted out of bed, tore downstairs, and went out and realized that the duck was off the nest, quacking all upset, and there was a -- I can't remember if I didn't see this the first night because this happened a couple times, but anyway, I could see a skunk had come and was eating the eggs. And I was like, "Oh, for God's sake," like, that was like, I mean I get it's nature and everything, but it was really, um, like, upsetting to me because I could mama duck was upset and I wanted to see those babies. So like I scared the skunk off that night.  But this, this kept happening. And sometimes she would get so upset she would like, fly off and just leave. And I was worried one time, she's not going to come back. So I grabbed the eggs that were…

One of the cool things that I decided to do is, um, on all my dad's blue chambray work shirts, they had pockets on them, and he used pockets for everything -- to carry a pen, and he would always have a little notebook in that pocket. And what I've decided to do with that pocket is I cut them off and kept them all, and am sewing them onto each of the quilts. And inside each pocket as I decide who the quilt is going to I'm going to be searching for and printing photos of that person with my mom and dad. So either your -- a parent or a grandparent. And put their photo in the pocket specifically for them with, um, yeah, their -- their grandparents or, or their grandpa. And I think that's going to be really cool. I'm also hoping to write a little poem or note just trying to encapsulate the respect that I have for how hard my dad worked all those years on the farm, and, um, what that has meant to our family and our legacy. So that's the pocket part of the story, and that was a sample of one that I was just experimenting with to make sure I could do it properly. So anyway, a pocket full of memories also included with each quilt.