I was working on a new knitting pattern and it said that it was for an advanced knitter, which I probably qualify as in certain circumstances. So I bought the pattern and I started it and I was reading the instructions word for word and it was -- on paper, made sense to me, but every single time I tried to knit it, it wouldn't work. And I don't really exactly know how to explain the problem -- if you're not a knitter it'd probably be really tedious. But I went to -- there's a website called Ravelry and it's where people post photos of their finished items and they'll comment sometimes on specific patterns. So there were a lot of people that said like, "I also got caught up on the first step. But then, once I figured it out, it went really smoothly!" And it was kind of annoying 'cause it was like, "Well, what did you figure out? Like, what am I missing?" And so I think a couple people in there said something that kind of helped me, but I still was lost. So, I ended up emailing the designer to ask for clarification and they got back to me super quickly and clarified it. And I tried it and it made perfect sense. It worked out just fine, but I was so frustrated. I think I knit it, like, four or five times and then had to rip it out. And the type of yarn I was using -- like, some yarn you can knit and knit and knit and knit over and over and, like, rip it out and knit it again and it's fine, it doesn't look any worse for the wear. But this specific kind I was knitting with is mohair. It's like super airy and not really something that you should be knitting over and over and over and over again. And so I was getting really frustrated that I was gonna mess up, you know, a big portion of my yarn, too. So, anyway, that is my story.

I had been in an accident and I was on crutches and I went strawberry picking with my mother. And early in the morning -- she had just gotten home from working in the emergency room. She was an RN, and she had just got home from working at the emergency room in Eaton Rapids and she still had on her white nurse's uniform and she just stopped at the house and picked me up and we went strawberry picking. So, here is a girl on crutches with a nurse picking strawberries and there was lots and lots of comments from people about how I had my own private nurse and it was just a funny event.

But anyway, so one year at the Hart Fair it was the first year that they had like debuted deep fried Oreos. And me and my mom and my sister were just immediately hooked. We were like, "This is the best thing God has ever created on this green earth." And even though this is like years later when we first tried deep fried Oreos, every year after that we would get deep fried Oreos at the Hart fair. But just one day my mom was like, "Yeah, we have a fryer at home. We can make our own deep fried Oreos." We were like, "Mom, why have you been keeping this information a secret?" And she was like "[I dunno] I just didn't think about it." But so anyway yeah, one time my mom, my sister, and I we all, you know, made our own deep fried Oreos. And I mean I can -- we've only done it like once or twice. I mean and they were just as good as the ones from the fair but it does take a lot of frickin' oil just for like a couple batches and the oil gets like dirty real quick. So you're like using up all this oil for like 12 Oreos or something like that. So yeah, it is a little cost inefficient, I will say that, but they were delicious and I would do it again in a heartbeat.

And that summer, the boy who is now -- I've been married to for 51 years -- called me to ask me for a date. And the first time he called, we had a bad connection and I couldn't understand who was talking or anything and I hung up on him. And I found out later from my mother-in-law that he had been pacing and pacing and wringing his hands, and trying to get up courage to call me. And finally he -- and then when I hung up on him it sent him into a tizzy. Then she told him, "Try again." So he tried again, and that time we got a good connection and he asked me to go out with him, and we went to the Ingham County Fair. And I, of course, had grown up going to the fair. And I love the fair. Actually, I love the animal barns better than the Midway. I just love seeing all the different kinds of animals. And so for our first date, we went to the fair and we walked up and down through all the barns. Back then -- you wouldn't recognize now that that's the Ingham County Fair. Back 50 years ago, there were so many farms around, and so many animals, that they had to set up big tents to shelter the overflow of the number of animals that were at the fair. So there was barns and barns and tents and tents of cows and horses and sheep and pigs. At that time, I don't remember ever seeing a goat at the fair, but now there's goats. But anyway, there was lots and lots of dairy cattle and beef cattle of various kinds and like, Brown Swiss, Jerseys and Her- Herefords and Angus and there was lots and lots of different kinds of cattle. And so we spent the evening walking up and down, and he held my hand and it was, it was, it was very innocent. Anyway, that was my memory of our first date was -- and we did ride on -- I do remember that we rode on one or two rides on the Midway, but that wasn't the big thing. It was, it was just, I thought, you know, I was 18 years old. What did I know? I was just so enthralled at how romantic it was walking around, holding his hand. And the…

I'll tell you one of my most memorable dates. I was just thinking about it this past week. It was February 14th, 2004. It was Valentine's Day 2004, and I was in college at the time and I took my girlfriend out to TCBY. That was, for you young folks, it was yogurt. Like, frozen yogurt. And then we went to Barnes & Noble and we each looked for books that we wanted to read, and then we went and we just found a place within Barnes & Noble to read them together, and that was the date. And we both loved it. We would speak about it lovingly as time went on, like, "Ah, remember that date? That was wonderful. The frozen yogurt and just reading at Barnes & Noble." I stand by it. You know, sometimes it's not always like what you do but who you're doing it with, and we both loved reading and I'm fond of frozen yogurt, so it worked out. And now the reason it was on my mind recently is because I was watching a hockey game, Red Wings were playing the Canadiens at a home-and-home to end the regular season, and the Canadiens had a rookie from Holland, Michigan who, I found out, was -- he was born on February 14th, 2004. And I was struck. I'm not sure if I have known this feeling before. I was struck with the notion that it's just kind of strange that -- I remember exactly what I was doing that day. I was eating frozen yogurt and reading at Barnes & Noble with my lovely girlfriend at the time, and it's just strange to be like, "Wow, just a few miles up the way, you know, a future NHL phenom was born right now." It could have been happening while I was ordering frozen yogurt. It's kind of strange, you know, I -- when you get older there's certain things that just -- for the most part, I just live my life like I always have. But every now and again you get these things that pop up where it's like, "Oh, weird. I remember that day very well. I was an adult already, and I remember exactly what I was doing when this person was born." So, that's my story. That's my date.

A long time ago I was dating a man, and we had decided to go to Oscoda for the weekend. So I packed my bag. And it was a Thursday night, and we were leaving Friday, Saturday, and Sunday and coming back Sunday night. Well, that Thursday night he decides that we should go to Firekeepers and gamble. And I noticed he kept getting up to go to the ATM. He'd gamble a while, then get up and go to the ATM, and then gamble a while and get up and go to the ATM, and he did this over the course of the evening. I had gambled my thirty five dollars out, and I was done and I was just watching him, and we left after he lost all his bettings. And I got up in the morning so that we could leave for Oscoda, and he said "Well, we're not going to Oscoda, I spent all our money last night." Man, was I ticked off! He gambled away all of our vacation money. We were gonna have a little holiday. I mean, it wasn't much, it was to Oscoda, but still. I was very disappointed in him. That relationship didn't work out very well. We made better friends than lovers, and we became friends pretty darn quickly after that. I wasn't gonna let anybody disappoint me that way again.