This week's question:
Blogging Question: What is one thing that your blog readers probably do not know about you?
My Answer:
Hmmm? This is a hard question!
I've got it!
I grew up taking ballet! I took ballet for 13 years! My dream my entire childhood and as an early teen was to go to New York and get hired into one of the ballet companies.
I lived, loved, ate, slept, and did EVERYTHING ballet! Even after school, before I did homework, I went down the basement and practiced ballet.
My mother made and altered ALL of the costumes for the entire school, "La Rue School of Ballet", in St. Clair Shores, Michigan. When we moved to New Baltimore, Michigan, it was a small town of less than 5,000 people. I missed out on 1 year of ballet when a new school opened up! YES! I enrolled immediately! I was taking classes.
We had a recital coming up soon. I got my costume and I felt like a COW! I thought I looked like a COW, too! OH, MY! What happened? I grew up. I grew up. I grew up. I now had the body of a young adult woman. I had curves. I had a chest. I had hips. No longer did I have the body of a ballet dancer. What went wrong? WHY?
My dreams of dancing on stage in New York were ruined! No more would I ever be able to dance for a ballet company. I would get on stage and they would just laugh at me now. I was so depressed. Also, the photos of myself in that costume have disappeared. Gee, I wonder where they went? (He, he!)
Okay, on to Plan #2. Cosmetology College. I had been cutting my own hair since the 7th grade. I had a next-door neighbor who worked in a salon. I had her give me a few perms way back then when they were all the rage. I watched how she did it and learned a lot. I was now excited about doing that. I excelled! I won First Place in a Men's Hair Cutting Competition! I cut Craig's hair, a dear friend and Big Brother to me. I won a huge trophy, and was very happy! This was "it"!
I did end up working in a few different salons until I found the one I felt I fit in. The only problem was the haircuts only cost $6.50. That was NOT enough money to survive on. When the day came I could not make my car payment, I then applied for a position for an office job. I got hired! So then I was an Administrative Assistant. The business classes I took in High School paid off very well. My typing skills of over 90 word per minute helped, and I also could do "Shorthand" at over 120 words per minute!
Does anyone here know what Shorthand is? Can anyone do it?
Back then, it was just when computers were coming out in large businesses. The rooms these computers were in were in basements of buildings and took up the entire area. The room had to be climate controlled and people could not just walk around these huge machines because it caused static electricity, which was not good for computers. At that time, Word Processors (which were in type-writers) had just come out. There would be a digital bar across the top above the keys, and it was only about 3-4" long. You could see what you were typing.
We have come a long way since back then! Never did we ever think we would one day even know what a laptop computer was, and here I am now, typing one now!
Amazing how everything changes in life.
(I have two children. A daughter and a son. My daughter started ballet at age 3! No, she is not a ballet dancer, either, for the very same reasons!)
Thanks for reading this week!
Laurie
