Only Sometimes Clever

I got tagged by my Uncle Steve at Careful Thought for a 10-20-30 meme.  He said it has been floating around for a while, but I’d never seen it.

So, what was I doing 10, 20, and 30 years ago?

• 10 years ago:  I had a four month old baby, my firstborn, Ethan.  We were just figuring out that the job I had was not going to work.  It was supposed to be just working from home, which was important because we only had one car.  Well, it turned out that I had to go in to the office one day a week, then two, then my boss was asking for three.  Also, it was supposed to be 10-15 hours a week, but it was more like 20-25+.  Actually, I hadn’t wanted to work at all;  Martin wanted me to.  But, I found the job, in submission to my hubby.  After a couple months of it just being a fiasco, Martin said, “That’s IT!  This is awful!  You’re never working again!!!”  I don’t know if I wanted him to take it that far, but it worked out so just-right:  Martin coming to the conclusion for himself that me working a job (other than raising our children) wasn’t right for our family.  Never again has it been a point of contention:  We’re both happy to have me at home, not working. 
• 20 years ago:  It was Fall of my freshman year in high school, by far the most hellish of my high school experience.  For academic reasons, my parents had me change schools to a private school that was… upper-middle-class.  I was low class.  Low, low.  We had no money, and I cannot fathom how my parents could have afforded to send we sibs to private school, but they did.  So, here I was, with absolutely no money with which to be even remotely fashionable, and I had braces.  And, I was a brainiac who didn’t realize it wasn’t “acceptable” to do things like raise my hand in class to ask questions of the dorky science teacher (who was actually a very good science teacher).  I was such the outcast.  On top of that, I had a nerdy older brother (whom I love so very, very dearly now, and I’m embarrassed that I was embarrassed of him, back then).  Then, the sort-of saving grace was that the most popular girl in class took a shine to me, which was fantastic, because that meant I had one friend.  However, it caused all the other girls to hate me more, because they wanted to hang around with Aimee, but there was no way they were going to hang around with Aimee when she was with me.  So, they’d send me anonymous hate notes.  Ugh.   
• 30 years ago:  I was four years old.  I do remember being four.  I was in Miss Polly’s preschool class, but I entered the schoolyear late — they were already up to the letter “P” and I didn’t even know the alphabet!  I didn’t think it was a big deal, but the little girl next to me laughed because I didn’t know the alphabet song.  Turns out that little girl was named Joellene, and we stayed friends past graduation from high school.

Golly.  Whom to tag?  How ’bout Mom Loves Being at Home, the lovely Mrs. Nicklebee, and Joy (the newest addition to my blogroll, who is another homeschooling mom with a worship pastor husband — how could I not add her??)