Is that a thing?
Anyway - back into good blogging practices? Sure we'll go with that...
So ...... I thought as the new year approaches ... it would be cool to do a little personal history thing ... so .... I saw it on Pinterest and was all --- yep, THAT ... let's do that right now....
MY PERSONAL HISTORY
1: Write about your name. Where did it come from? What does it mean?
So my name was a spur of the moment choice. My mom was 100% convinced I was a boy. I don't like why she was convinced besides the fact that my mom had 7 brothers and she was the only girl out of 8 living children. Probably just thought the odds were not in her favor. LOL. But my chosen name was Nathan Allen. So when the doctor announced "It's a Girl!" there was some shock.
So I was named after a favorite actress of my Mom's from a tv show called A Family Affair. Only my Mom said the spelling was Anissa, my Grandmother said it was spelled Annissa. My mom was right, but my Grandma won the fight ... and so I became Annissa. My middle name Rae is after not only my Dad, but my pediatrician also ... (both Raymond)
I hated growing up without being able to find my name on STUFF. I could get an Ann, and Anne, or Anna ... but never my full name. Even if there had been Annissa stuff out there it probably would have been Anissa <--- the correct spelling. I would have rather been named Alison, or Elizabeth, or something that wasn't so weird.
BUT ... I love my name now because it's not the norm ... most people don't pronounce it right though, I'm constantly correcting people... . and it's funny when I find another person out there with my name. But there are others out there.
BTW... it's Ah-Niss-Sah .... not Ah-KNEE-Sah ... my husband (11 1/2 years later, still says the later) ... ha ha ... but I still answer. I've just gotten used to answering to whatever I'm being called ...
2: When and where were you born?
I was born in a not so little town in Wisconsin, right in the Chippewa Valley. I was due on June 1st 1976 and I wasn't born until June 25th. I came out, apparently, when I was good and ready.
3: Write about your mom. What would you want people to know?
My mom was the second born of 9 children. She had one older brother, and 7 younger brothers. Two of them were twins, and they were premature as a lot of twins are. But this was back in 1962. One twin, the smaller of the two, was thought to be weak and my grandparents were told and prepared for that twin to die. So they were shocked when the other - stronger/bigger - twin died from aspirating. Lynn, the twin expected to live, was the one that died at 2 1/2 days old. Lance, the one expected not to live, did.
My Mom was the second Mom to all her brothers, I think. She helped my Grandma out a lot. I know that when my mom unexpectedly got pregnant with me, I know no different than of my grandparents supporting her. To her, there was no option of an abortion or putting me up for adoption. Although my Dad strongly suggested both. My mom was only 21 when I was born. She was still going to school. After that she worked hard, and usually had more than one job. She helped my grandparents pay their bills and feed the family. I didn't know any of this until recently. I thought my Grandma and Grandpa were pretty well off. They built two houses. Both of which they still owned when my Grandfather died, one of which I remember them building when I was about 3 years old. I remember them asking me what color they should paint it.... I suggested pink and purple.
My mom has always been an extremely hard worker. Because of this, after we moved out of my grandparent's house, I was often left alone - between Mom working all the time, and having some resemblance of a social life, I was just alone a lot. I didn't think there was much wrong with that. I was a latch key kid and I was a good kid. My mom never had to worry about me having parties, drinking, drugs.... none of that. I remember one conversion when my mom cornered me one day, and she had just gotten off the phone with her best friend Donna. She said "I know you basically raised yourself, but I'm really proud of you for not doing so many of the things that Heather is." Heather being my Mom's best friend's daughter and my Irish Twin from another mother. We grew up together, seeing each other for the summers, but she great up in Georgia and I grew up in Wisconsin. That comment though always hung with me.
The worst thing I did was shoplift when I was about 12. That was pretty bad because my mom worked at the court house and with the police. I got caught and never did it again. She made me call my Dad and tell him and I was mortified. Never did a bad thing like that again.
But my mom has always been a my best friend too. 💓💙💚💛💜 I don't know what I would do without her.
4: Write about your dad. What would you want people to know?
I remember giving my mom a hard time. I couldn't understand why my family was so different than everyone else's ... they all had a mom and a dad and siblings. I had a mom, a grandma and grandpa that raised me, plus a ton of uncles, and eventually their wives and cousins... but we always lived in a big house with a lot of people.
But I had no dad. I had no siblings.
I remember asking my mom where my dad was, if i had a dad, why I never met him. I remember begging her for a sibling.
It got the point where I confronted her with the fact that I realized I was adopted ... I remember her laughing at me and saying, no - no I wasn't adopted.
I remember saying I was switched at birth. There was this newborn baby photo of me....
Here is this dark skinned, dark haired, dark eyed baby .... and I was this pale blonde Irish child ...
CLEARLY not the same child as that newborn photo!!
But alas ... my mom thought I lost my mind. I probably had. So at the age of 5, my Mom sat me down and told me that I have a Dad, I also have a step-mom, and a baby brother ... and I was going to be able to meet them all. I was so excited! I wanted to give my brother a bunch of my stuff to make him happy...
As I grew up, a few things happened. I found a bunch of letters that my Dad wrote my mom while she was pregnant with me... first begging her to get an abortion, and then after that window of opportunity passed, begging her to put me up for adoption.
I was that OOPS that happened between his first marriage and second marriage and a clear stain on his parent's family tree, as I was not even acknowledged by his father. I was nobody. I was a bastard and not his grandchild.
My Dad grew up in a pretty strict Irish Catholic household.
I say not "his" grandchild because after my Dad's dad's death, my grandmother made it very clear she wanted to meet me and so I got to meet her and have a relationship with her.
I love my Dad to pieces. I always have, always will. I think I look most like him. I also act a lot more like him than I do my Mom I think. I know he feels horrible about how situations were and are and how he hasn't had the opportunity to be there for me like he was or is for his other kids. I don't blame him, and I've told him that.
The situation is what it is.
Though, I am not saying that I don't have Daddy issues. Sometimes, I feel - deep down - that I just wasn't that important. I wanted him to walk me down the isle when I got married, and he couldn't make it so my Godfather Jerry did, and I loved him to death. He died of cancer and I will still break down into tears thinking about it.
We came out to Washington in 2001 when I was still married to my first husband, and I got to see my dad twice. Once at the flea market he was always at. Then he came over to my Mom & Step-Dad's place. It wasn't for long.
Went back home and my whole life turned upside down.
Divorce happened and I met DB. I was down in North Carolina when my Grandmother died (his mom) ... and my Aunt (his sister) found out I hadn't been notified. She was the one that called me to tell me, and there had been no way I could have gotten home in time to attend the funeral. I was heartbroken. I was heartbroken cuz he didn't call me, and heartbroken because she had died.
You always think time is on your side, and it's not.
We decided to move to WA State and I know my step-mom was always afraid I would use her as a built in babysitter, but I never even needed her for that. Cal was old enough to watch his brothers, so I don't know why she had ever been afraid of that. And then, as soon as we decided to move out here, it seems it was then that they decided to move to Wisconsin. I was looking forward to spending time with my Dad - for the first time in my life, actually have my Dad in arms reach to spend time with... but I guess it was never meant to be. Two months after we got here, they moved out there....
And it seems like I'm only talking bad stuff but it's not....
My Dad got me some of my favorite gifts. He got me my first monogrammed things...
The one thing I wanted when I was a kid was a preemie Cabbage Patch kid with blue eyes and a pacifier .... and he got me one, only with brown eyes ...
I remember he taught me my first "swear" joke....
Knock Knock
Who's there?
Ma damn...
Ma damn who?
My damn shoelace is stick in the door!
He took me to do one of the coolest things I've ever gotten to do in my life, while I was visiting them in North Carolina he took me out to an island in the ocean where there were sharks teeth galore! I collected a whole bunch of them, and I had learned how to tell what teeth were from what sharks... and my mom had thrown them all away after I had gotten back, I remember being so upset....
My Dad would write me when he was on active duty and he'd tell me stories... like how he worked at this place (hospital) in Saudi Arabia and how the Prince's nephew was assigned to work under him, and my Dad didn't treat him any differently than anyone else, and this apparently pissed off the nephew to the point where he complained to the Prince. So the Prince wanted my Dad out of his country and basically kicked him out. Dad said when he was escorted to the airport, right before getting on the plane, he said he spit on the ground, and that's a huge insult to them...
He also spent most of his active duty time on submarines. Navy man. He said that the movie The Hunt For Red October is pretty right now, down to the pictures of the control panels and such, he said the top secret stuff wasn't there, but otherwise it was pretty spot on ...
I have always had a very good time when I've been around my Dad. I just wish we had more time together.
5: Do you have any siblings? Write about them.
I have four blood related siblings. 1 Sister, and many other "Soul Sister Best Friends" ...
Let's start with the ones that I have blood ties to...
The above photo is my older sisters, my grandma (Dad's mom) and Calahan ... so from left to right it's Janna, Me, Grandma Katherine, Cherie and baby Calahan ...
So Cherie, the oldest ... almost 6 years older than I am... I know nothing about her really ... met her once...
Janna, she's 4 years older than I am ... again, I don't know anything really about her ... met her twice in my life...
My younger siblings, Kenneth and Mary Katherine ... (and the leg in the back of the picture, that's Janna's leg) ...
So Ken was that baby brother I met when I was 5. He's two and a half years younger than I am.
Mary is six and a half years younger than I am.
I really know nothing about any of them. I wanted to have relationships with all of them... but the older two didn't want anything to do with me, I'm sure they heard bad things about me from our grandfather if Dad ever talked about me. He told me he got into a couple fights with my grandpa about me. I thought after the above picture was taken, that we'd have a good relationship, but I guess not. I have no idea where they are now, or who they are.
Ken and his wife live near by still, but Ken doesn't want anything to do with any family from what I understand. I don't know why. I can only guess. But I have a decent relationship with my sister-in-law. I like her a lot .
Mary and I had the best chance of a relationship. I would send her pictures of her nephews, she liked to show them off when she was in school. However, whenever I have been around my Dad when she's been around too, it's almost like she has to lay claim on him. Like... she's better than me because he raised her, and I'm just the toss off child. Maybe because I look and act like him, and have more in common with him then she does? I don't know.
It got the point where she was ..... interjecting into so many things I would post on facebook. "I ate this today" ... "should you be eating this? don't you have diabetes?" I would write something, she's correct my grammar the way she thought it should be... I'm sorry, it's FB! It's not an amazing piece of literature... I don't even keep to proper grammar here .. I write how I think and feel and talk ... it just seemed like everything she was saying to me was her trying to push herself on me as being smarter and better .... and then she unfriended me. Woohooo ... thanks for saving me the trouble.
It's really amazing the amount of abuse I'll take from someone because they are "family" ....
So my sister Heather ...... I spoke of her earlier. Heather is the daughter of my Mom's best friend Donna. Donna died a few years ago, and when that happened, my Mom took on Heather as her own. So she always has family. We grew up together, also, so it was pretty simple. Though we still butt heads now and again, but we can agree to disagree on things and still love each other.
I have a Sister-In-Law, Samantha that I have gotten really close to and consider a sister. <3 She has my niece Myra, who is also DB's and my Goddaughter.
And a core group of girlfriends that I am so close to I think of them as sisters. Cathy, Jenna, Dianna, Mel, and Sarah...
6: Where did you grow up? What do you remember from that place?
I grew up in "big city" Wisconsin, in the Chippewa Valley. The Chippewa Valley has three main cities that kinda blend into one other, Altoona, Chippewa, and Eau Claire.
Yes, you might have heard about Chippewa Falls in a little movie called Titanic when Jack Dawson makes a comment about how he fishes in a little pond called Lake Wissota ...
Jack: Well, they have some of the coldest winters around. I grew up there, near Chippewa Falls. I remember when I was a kid, me and my father, we went ice fishing out on Lake Wissota. Ice fishing is, you know, where you...
Rose: I know what ice fishing is!
Jack: Sorry. You just seem like, you know, kind of an indoor girl. Anyway, I, uh, I fell through some thin ice; and I'm telling you, water that cold, like right down there...
[He gestures with his chin down toward the Atlantic Ocean]
Now, I'm not calling James Cameron a liar or anything, but his fact checkers failed him on this one. While we ALL love the fact that our little area was put in this massively popular (and always will be one of my favorites) movie... BUT .... Lake Wissota is a man made lake that wasn't filled until 1917 ... sooooooooooooooo ....... there is that snag.
Anyway ... so like the Twin Cities of MN, these were the Wisconsin "Sister" Cities. We were a hope and skip from rural Wisconsin where manure was the fragrance of the season, and cow tipping was a thing. We could go parking in random fields with our boyfriends and spend the night (Yes I did that) and for a long time it was a place where you didn't need to lock your doors at night. Everyone knew someone who had a farm, if you yourself didn't have one.
Eau Claire was named "The Safest City in the US" one year, and I remember - distinctly - because it was just after that new awarded title was all over our news that our car got busted into - the window broken and the radio and stuff stolen ...
Ha ha ... safest city ... . right... .
I love growing up where I did. It's a really pretty area. All my family was there, it didn't necessary become a bad thing until after 2001 and I didn't have much family in the area anymore.
7: Think about your house growing up. What was it like?
I grew up in several houses, and an apartment. From newborn to about three or so, I grew up in the Taft House.
Two floors, one was half above ground and half under... and the other above ground. Three bedrooms upstairs, one bathroom, then the large kitchen, dining area, and about the same amount of space for the living room and the stairs going down. So there was a landing for the front door, which was ground level, but you opened the door and could either got up the stairs or down the stairs. Downstairs, under the living room was a Den area, with a wood burning fireplace... under the kitchen/dining room area was the laundry room and basement. There was a door in the basement where there was a short amount of stairs going up to the garage ... plus a 2nd bathroom and 3 more bedrooms. The backyard was fenced in, there was lilac planted along the fence line, there was a cranapple tree which I loved.... the smell of Lilac is home for me. It really is.
I know around the age of 3 - my Mom dated a cop, and we had lived with him briefly ... but I don't know much about that.
I do know we lived with my Grandparents in the new house they built, the Golf House. It's an interesting house. I've never really seen a house like it ... most houses it's one floor plan on top of the same floor plan, maybe a little different ... But it's one level ontop of the same sized bottom level.
Anyway - to best explain the house is - the corner you see there in the photo, that is the corner of the living room with the window in the middle of the living room. The window next to it, blocked by the Lilac is the kitchen window. So on the side of the house, on the oher side of the bushes, is the front door. That whole area that you can basically see, is the living room. The kitchen was on the other side and also really large.
So this house is easier to explain like this... the main level of the house was over the basement. The top floor and the sub-level was on top of each other. So the basement had the same type of layout as the main floor, and the same for the upstairs and the sub level. The upstairs and sub level had two bedrooms, and a bathroom. The main floor had the large kitchen, the dining room, a little nook between the dining room on the other side of the stairs that Mom and I used as a little TV room, and then the large living room. Crud semi-representative drawings .....
My room was the long bedroom across from the bathroom on the 1/2 basement or sub level.
So yeah, there you have it ....
Then we moved back to the Taft House about the time I was 11... I think...
I don't remember how long we lived there. I know when I was 13 we moved out to Rock Falls into my Mom's boyfriend's place. That was really rural ... we lived down the street from the Amish. I loved where we lived, but not who with. I could never do anything right according to my Mom's boyfriend... I lasted about a year before I couldn't deal anymore and I moved back into the Taft house with my Aunt & Grandma ....
After that we lived in a two bedroom apartment for awhile...
Then back to the Taft House with my Grandma and Aunt.
Then moved into an apartment with my Grandma ....
After that, I got married and was on my own with my own family ....
8: What was your childhood bedroom like?
So until Mom and I moved out on our own, my room was pretty typical .. bed, toys, all that....
When we moved out, and moved to the Taft house.... this was my room for awhile and I absolutely LOVED this room....
I loooooooooooooved the build in shelves...
9: What was your favorite activity as a child?
Hummmmmmm.... probably playing with my neighbor. Reading. Watching TV. Riding my bike.
There was this golf course across the street from the Gold Rd. House and we'd go over there, we'd go sledding when it snowed, and we'd go hang out at the Club House and there were woods on the other side of the golf course, and I would go walking and hanging out in the woods.
10: What was your favorite place as a child?
There was this toy shop in the Twin Cities that was a castle and I loved to go to it ....
I mean, the only other place that I considered my favorite place is just being in my Grandpa's lap...
11: Who were your friends as a child?
I had a neighbor girl I always played with. There was another girl who lived behind her ...
12: Did you travel as a child? What were your favorite places to visit?
We didn't really travel a lot. We went on some big long family trips... we went to Disney, that's pretty much the biggest place we went. I went and visited my Aunt & Uncle in St. Louis at one point. I went to North Carolina when I went to go see my Dad once. Other than that, we really didn't travel a lot.
Besides that, my favorite place to visit was the library...
I'm stopping here for now ....... <3 I'll finish later ....
