If someone gave you $10,000 and told you that you could NOT give it to any of your friends, family members or use it for yourself, what would you do with it?

I would give it to Heifer, International, an organization that buys farm animals for families in need in poor countries.

In how many places have you lived during your lifetime? Provide a brief description of each place you’ve lived, why you lived there, and why you moved.

Born in Portland, Oregon, Moved to Benton City when I was one year old. 808 Ash Street.  Moved to Richland when I was 18.  At 21 I moved to Kennewick when we bought our first house.  2538 West Entiat.  Then to 415 South Green Place in Kennewick for 34 years.  Moved back to Richland in 2016 to 2456 Tiger Lane.

What are some of the life lessons that you have learned and would like to pass on to your descendants?

Life lessons:

If you lie, it will usually come back to bite you in the ass.  Or, it will wear on you until you tell the truth.  Don't lie.

Keep your integrity.  It is something no person can take away from you.

Always have something in savings.  It will take away a lot of stress in your life.

Always be there for family.  They will always be there for you.

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

What are 5 significant events or experiences in your life, and explain what effects they have had on you.

I don't feel like I have had five "significant" events in my life that fashioned me into what kind of person I am today.

My personality was deeply set when I was born and I just did what came naturally to me.  When I was young I had many friends but no one that I was extremely close to.  I liked to do odd jobs and earn money so that I could save it.  I usually had some money stashed away somewhere in a special box.  I get more enjoyment from saving money than spending it.  When in high school I loved chasing boys and going to dances.  I didn't do athletics because I didn't have that "gift" and I liked chasing boys better.  Marriage is where I want to be.  I always considered myself "half" of a couple.  Change is something I don't do quickly.  I put a lot of thought into it.

And that's all I have to say about this question!

What were some of the jobs you had throughout your life? Explain some of the memorable experiences you had with these jobs.

See the previous blog entry to see my history.  I only had two employers in my life.  One for six days, the other for 40 years!

I did work at Prosser Packers for six days immediately after graduation.  I had to quit because my packing machine broke down.  They then put me on the conveyer belt sorting asparagus.  It gave me motion sickness.  I quit.

My most memorable (apparently) experience during my working years (40) was when I lit a match in my office shortly after starting work (in order to smoke a cigarette, which you could smoke in your office back then!)   As I struck the match, it flew out of my hand, across the room and into the insides of a typewriter!  I was horrified!

What did you do for a career? Explain how you chose that career.

My career was Hanford

When I graduated from High School my mother drove me to Columbia Basin College to see about signing up.  I didn't "know" what I wanted to be and the classes were for English, History, same kind of things I took in high school.  I knew I was good at secretarial stuff so I went to Modern Business College and signed up for "Executive Secretary" program.  Before the six months program was over I had an interview out at Hanford with Wadco company, which later became Westinghouse.  I was a part time typist in the typing pool.  I quickly got a job as a secretary and then four years later got my first job as an Engineering Technician Trainee.

I remained a technician for a couple of decades in various locations and then went on to Operations Specialist and then Maintenance Specialist, spending 40 years out at Hanford.  Didn't plan it but it just happened.  My first husband, Kerry Lynch was a blind date, through his sister Mickey, whom I worked with.  My second husband, Mark Johnson was working in the same building (308 Bldg.) and asked me out.

What are some of your talents? Explain how you discovered them and what you have done to cultivate and improve them. Describe how your talents have they affected your life

I am good with numbers.  My Mother always told me that.  She also told Mark that when she first met him.  I didn't do anything to develop that talent.

I grew up in small town Benton City, WA .  Mom encouraged me to go to college but I just didn't have the confidence because I couldn't picture myself doing anything besides being a secretary.  My Aunt Wilma, who grew up close to me worked as  a secretary out at Hanford and she was the only working adult female I knew.  The rest were stay at home moms.  That is probably why I went to Modern Business College in Kennewick.  I took all the business classes in High School.  Typing, shorthand and Office Practice.  I received the "Business" award for the school as a senior.

I do love to count money, I have collected coins.  I probably should have been some kind of accountant.

Whoops.

If you could go back in time and spend an hour visiting with yourself at age 15, what would you tell your younger self?

Don't be in such a hurry to find a boyfriend.  Develop yourself and see the world a little before you settle down.

What are some of the things you enjoy doing in your leisure time?

I enjoy playing cards with friends, going out to lunch with a friend, playing slots at the casino or on my phone.  Going to the movies.  Going for a walk.  I don't seem to be putting golf down as one of my things.....,.....

I like reading but only before I go to bed at night.

I like watching tv most nights.  I have several programs I like.  I seem to especially like 20/20, Dateline and 48 Hours.  I like murder mysteries on tv and in my books.  My Mom was like that.  She read "True Confessions" a magazine.

I used to like traveling but three years post chemotherapy I am overdosed on traveling and just want to stay home for a while.

What makes you stop and go "wow".

A beautiful tree with gnarled trunk.

What scares you?

The idea that one of my kids would become seriously ill or be in an accident where they were seriously hurt or killed.

Or spiders, snakes or any animal moving aggressively toward me.  Or a burger or prowler coming after me or high places where I am close to the edge.  Flying in bad weather.

I guess there are lots of things that scare me.

If you could spend the day with any famous person in the world, who would it be and what would you do?

President Obama.  I would want to give him a truth serum so that he had to answer me honestly and have to answer every question I had.

What is Your Philosophy on Money?

Spend less than you make.

I always put something into my savings first.  Then I start the process of paying and allocating for house payment, utilities, food, clothing, etc.

Going out to dinner and recreation are always last on my list.  Your dinner can be something cheap and simple that you eat in the park.  You can make your own inexpensive recreation.  You can eat very inexpensively.

Build your nest egg.

If you need to spend money to be happy, something needs to change in your life.  If you need more money, get a second job.  Don't charge and borrow.  It leads to heartache.

Money in savings is power.  You can make decisions that aren't associated with panic and stress.

What are 50 things you are grateful for.

1.  I am grateful for My Children.

2.  My husband, Mark

3.  My grandchildren

4.  My extended family

5.  I am very grateful that my children love each other and there is no animosity involved between them.  As this is a rare gift.

6.  I am very grateful that my brothers and sisters all get along.  Another rare gift.  I always thought this was normal but as I grow older I realize that what our family has as a relationship that is rare and I am very grateful.

7.  I am grateful for my marriage of 34 years and counting.  I have a good husband.  It isn't that we don't have differences, the secret to our marriage is that we "work" at it.

8.  I am grateful for my health.  I know this may sound like a joke but I'm not doing that bad at 63.  Brain tumors and breast cancer can't make me believe that I don't have a pretty healthy life.

9.  I am grateful for the health of my family.  Chronic illness is very hard on the whole family.  We are relatively healthy.

10.  I am grateful for my good life in general.

11.  I am grateful that I had a good job for 40 years.

12.  I am grateful that I have a retirement that is very secure financially.

13.  I am grateful that I have friends that are there for me if I need someone to talk to or just someone to go out to lunch with.

14.  I am grateful for the house I live in

15.  I am grateful for the fact that Mark has always been very good at taking care of projects around the house and keeps our home in very good repair.

16.  I am grateful for the opportunity to build a new house in a neighborhood close to my son, Jason and my sisters.

17.  I am grateful that my grandkids, Mikayla and Kaitlyn live in this town so I could be part of their lives growing up.

18.  I am grateful for the wonderful partners my children have chosen, Julie, Graham and Jennifer.

19.  I am grateful for the fact that I was born in the United States to a good family.

20.  That I am in an area that doesn't have any natural disasters, e.g., tornadoes, mudslides, floods,.

21.  I can't think of 50 things.......I am just grateful for everything.

22.  Grateful is a funny word.

 

What are 20 things about yourself that make you uniquely you?

I am good with numbers.

I am positive.  No matter the bad situation, I will find the good.

I have good relationships with my family and friends.

I have a tendency to finish 90% of a job.  I seem to drift off for a while before I finish a job.

I dabble in things.  I have done lots of hobbies and none of them have stuck.  I get tired or bored after a while.

I am not athletic.

I like to walk.

I love music.

I always love to dance.

I get more enjoyment from putting money into a savings account or invest it than buy furniture or other household goods.

Before I go to sleep at night, if I need to settle my mind, I think about money and count up my savings and debts in my head.  Lately, however, I haven't had any debt.

I like putting on comfy clothes as soon as I get home.

I love to eat big juicy hamburgers and french fries with tartar sauce.

I love shrimp any way I can get it.

I save small dabs of food for later.  I can't stand to throw food away.

I only comb my hair once a day.

I always have at least one plant in the house.

I believe that education is extremely important.  Most fear is bread from ignorance.

I love to drive.

The hardest thing I do every day is get out of bed.

List at least five people who have had a memorable influence on your life. What did they do that had such an influence on you?

Ms. Manweiller  Business teacher in high school.  Miss Manweiller was a young teacher, new to our school.  She made a good effort to show the business students what it would be like out in the business world.  I planned to be a secretary and I zeroed in on her because she was my idea of how you should dress and act if you were in business.

My father.  He was an honest, hard working man that always supported his family, maybe not in an outward way, because he wasn't demonstrative as far as hugging, telling us he loved us.  But we all knew through his actions.  He was a fair man.

My Mother.  Mom was as hard a worker as you would find.  Not many of us could imagine raising seven kids in a three bedroom, one bath house.  She did an excellent job.  Everyone one of us were raised with good values, well balanced, and a sense of loving each other and those around us.  Again, Mom did not hug or say she loved us.  It was demonstrated in her actions every day.  The best kind of love.

Wilma Todish I remember because she did what I wanted to do.  Get a job out at Hanford as a secretary.

Ironically, I went to business school for five months, got a job as a secretary for less than five years and then became a technician, spending about 35 years in the technical field.  So much for the secretarial field.  It was just a jump off point.

That's it.  Can't come up with a fifth one.

What are some of the personal values that are very important to you? Share some examples of what have you done and what are you doing now to teach these values to your children, grandchildren and others.

The primary value I try to impress on my kids and grandkids is that you have one thing that people cannot take away from you.  Your reputation.  Be honest with everyone.  Be the person that people can trust.  If you say you are going to do something do it.  If you are given a secret, keep it.  If you can't keep the secret, don't let someone tell you the secret.  Life can take away everything you have, but they can't take away your  honesty, reputation and integrity.

I value education. Money spent on education is money well spent.

I tell my kids that there is no shame in failure.  The only failures in life come from not trying.  If you try something and fail, you learn something.  If you never try, you have already failed.  

I try to advise my kids as they experience life.

I also try to advise my kids to not spend more than they earn.  You need to always save some money.  It allows you to make wiser decisions when life turns against you, and that is inevitable.

What are some of your life philosophies or life views that you would share with others?

Tell the truth.  There is nothing worse than being a lier.

The Golden Rule.  Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Keep your promises.

Treasure your reputation.  That is one thing no person can take from you.

Do not cheat.  Do not cheat in games.  Do not cheat at life.

Never stop learning.  Fear is born out of ignorance.

Describe some of the major community, national, and world events you lived through. How did these events change your life?

The first world event that I lived though was when John F. Kennedy was shot.  I was in fifth grade and I remember being in school and wondering if we would have to go to war.

I remember the cold way with Russia.  My parents put food and water into the "fruit room" in the basement in case we had to go down there to get away from radiation if a nuclear bomb was dropped near us.  That was during the time I was in grade school.  I wasn't really scared because I didn't think it would happen.

I remember when Mt. St. Helens volcano erupted.  It was around 1980.  Sunday morning.  I went down to Albertson's to get groceries.  When I came out of the store there were huge strange clouds in the sky, blotting out the sun.  I went home and called my Mother.  I asked her what she had done the night before because I thought we were seeing the end of the world.  She laughed and told me to turn on the radio or tv.  The volcano had erupted.

I remember seeing the Beetles on the Ed Sullivan show.  They were great. (1963?)

I don't think any of these events impacted my life.

How many children do you have? List their names and share a few memories about each one.

I have three children

Jason was born January 15, 1973. Kerry Michael Lynch is his father.  Jason has been a wonderful son.  A little bit wild and a little bit dependable, trustworthy and just a nice person.  Everyone loves Jason!  Jason has a tendency to joke about everything, even the serious stuff.  That is how he handles his stress.  He is the guy that you are just not very sure when he tells you something if it is really true.  You have to dig a little bit to find out if he is serious about some things.  Jason is the great cook in our family and the guy is amazing when you put a microphone in his hand.
This is where you are supposed to tell stories about your kids and I am just not a story teller.
If I was I might tell you of the time we discovered tiny be-be size holes in the ceiling of the living room.  Upon grilling Jason, we find out that he had been shooting at a spider on the ceiling when he was home along one afternoon.  What?  Are you kidding me?

I could tell you about the time we went camping when Jason was about 8 and sent Jason, Brad (Mark's step son) and Scott (Mark's stepson) out to go snipe hunting.  Mark and I went out into the forest at Priest Lake and watched the boys.  Funniest thing I ever saw as the boys eventually came back into camp and Brad and Scott locked Jason out of the camper and Jason stood by the camp fire and shouted into the forest for us.  (Kinda sounds like child abuse now that I tell the story.....)


Lindsey was born January 7, 1982.  Lindsey is my more serious child.  Has a lot of her father in her personality.  Lindsey takes a while to get to know people and can be a little stand offish, but once she becomes your friend, you know you have a friend for life that you can depend on and you always know where you stand with Lindsey.
Lindsey always functions best when she has structure around her.  I believe that is why she tended to lean towards sports.  The structure of the game is her comfortable spot and as it turns out, she is a very gifted athlete.  This is where I am supposed to tell a story about Lindsey.  I am not a very good story teller, but if I was I might tell you of the night we found out she made the varsity soccer team as a freshman.  On the way home we passed her good friend, Ann Giesa, with her Mother, Mardi, driving down 10th street.  For some crazy reason, we decided that Lindsey would hang a BA out the window, so I held onto her arm so she wouldn't fall out and she pulled her pants down and hung her butt out the window when we passed Mardi and Ann!  Another case of child abuse where I could possibly get arrested?  What kind of mother was I?

Kyle was born July 10, 1984.  He was the cutie pie of the bunch.  With a head of blonde curls and a sweet personality he was hard to beat.  Kyle was rather a blend between Jason's wild jokester personality and Lindsey's serious side.
Our little Kyle was the first to break a bone.  He pushed his big-wheel up the driveway and rode it down standing on the seat, ran into the wall Dad was building along the driveway at the end and broke his leg!  Kamikaze pilot!  Kyle was also the first to wreck a car.  He blew through a stop sign while driving his sister's car while in high school and t-boned another car.  (Quit messing with the stereo while driving!)
Our big surprise with Kyle came when he entered college.  He spent a lot of time skiing and boating with the family during his youth.  His father was a great water skier.  Kyle tubed and wakeboarded but would never learn to ski.  When he entered college, he joined the water ski team!  What?  He learned to ski with them and spent four years and beyond, with the ski team, traveling to Oregon and California and made a bunch of life long friends.  Never say never.

Share some stories about your spouse.

When we first met, we spent a lot of time water skiing on the weekends.  It was summer.  During the fall Mark would hunt for pheasant mostly.  Together we lived a rather mundane life because we both had full time jobs and a family, Jason.  Winter time we did some skiing.  Mark had to learn to ski as he had never done that before.  I wasn't that good but I could get down a hill.  Took a few trips with the Desert Ski Club.  Sun Valley was a fun time.  Went with Jack and Sandy.  Mark seems to take most of his enjoyment in life from working, whether at work or doing jobs around the house.  He is not one to have casual guy friends or activities with other guys.