Have you ever slept on / in a hammock?
Yes, frequently for short naps in my own gazebo.
Do you find it easy to maintain friendship with other people?
Yes, although the older I get, the less time we seem to spend together. It has to do with the amount of things there are to do and the longer time it seems to take to do them. Plus, friends are moving and, sadly, passing away. I maintain them in my heart and thoughts.
Are you a person of ethics?
I hope so.
If so, how does that impact your daily life?
I think I’m more aware that when things are wrong, I can do something to change them–by volunteering or at the very least by donating.
Are you decisive or indecisive as a person?
Decisive
Why do people hold double standards?
Because it is easier to think something and/or to believe in it than to do it.
Inspired by Kristian and That Really Burns my Biscuits #10
What is your most unhealthiest but guiltiest pleasure and why?
Cheetos Torciditos, because they are practically the only thing that tastes good to me anymore.
What is your process of writing a new post for your blog?
It is the first thing that I do when I wake up, after feeding the dogs and cats. I get back into bed and don’t leave it until I’ve written at least one poem to the prompts and posted a new photo of a flower for Cee’s prompt. I’ve done this every day for nine years now. I usually come back and read and do more blogs as well.
If you were asked to create a Top Fifteen Book List holding books that you felt everyone should read at least once in their life and would never regret reading what titles would you include?
Becoming (Michelle Obama) nonfiction
No One Can Pronounce My Name by Rakesh Satyal
Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood (Trevor Noah)
The Delight of Being Ordinary: A Road Trip with the Pope and Dalai Lama (Roland Merullo)
The Brain that Changes Itself. (Norman Doidge M.D.). nonfiction
Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries (Kory Stamper) nonfiction
The Midnight Library (Matt Haig)
Eleanor Oliphant is Completely fine: A Novel. (Gail Honeyman)
Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand (Helen Simonson)
The Inaugural Meeting of the Fairvale Ladies Club (Sophie Green)
The Grand Sophy (Georgette Heyer)
Secrets of a Charmed Life (Susan Meissner)
Crazy Salad and Scribble, Scribble (Nora Ephron essays)
The All-Girl Filling Station’s Last Reunion (Fannie Flagg)
The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane (Lisa See)
Fourteen: A Daughter’s Memoir of Adventure, Sailing and Survival (Leslie Johansen Nack)
Anything by Anne Tyler or Barbara Kingsolver
The Seven Sisters series by Lucinda Riley
Anything by Jane Austen or the Brontes
Logical Family: A Memoir (Armistead Maupin)
Simon the Fiddler (Grover Gardner)
How important is it for you to know a person’s real name? [Be this online, off line, social media or blogging]
I like knowing their real name. I always have this feeling that if I did, I would find some connection between us that otherwise we would never discover.
When at school what were your top five subjects that you were passionate about?
Literature, Composition, Botany, Chorus, Math
Why was this – what did you love about them?
I loved reading literature and creative writing and also studying grammar. I liked Botany because it was a science where we didn’t have to dissect animals and because I love plants. I enjoyed singing in the chorus. I loved the puzzle aspect of math but never really discovered what it was for, short of multiplication, division and addition. I could do the geometry and trig and I actually won the math award in high school without ever actually learning any practical applications!!!
Are those five subjects still present in your life today in any form?
I still write for hours every day and always have a book going, although I now listen to them on Audible as my eyes give out by the end of the day. Luckily Alexa and my phone now help me with math as I’ve lost my facility for doing math in my head. I am still crazy about plants without having to dissect them and have lots of plants and flowers and trees in my garden and I do daily photos of flowers for Cee’s blog. I no longer sing much as I’ve lost my voice but all through school and college I sang in church choirs, duets, girls chorus, mixed choirs and in the chorale in college.
Are you a photogenic person?
No. At least I certainly hope I don’t look like any of the recent photos that have been taken of me.
Are you eager to appear in family of friend snaps?
No. I am always the one taking the photos so I rarely appear in them.
Are there many photos taken of you in the various stages of your life?
Yes. tons of them thanks to my older sister when I was younger and because of friends and family taking them later.
With regard to the paranormal do you choose to not believe because there is nothing to believe or because you feel it is safer to not believe?
I do believe in the paranormal to some extent.
Are you a non-believer or a believer?
Non-believer in organized religion. I do, however, believe in some spiritual element in the world.
How are you with meeting strangers/new people who might or could become new friends?
I have traveled so much that I feel I’m good at meeting and befriending people.
Is there a process you adopt to identify if they are the right fit for you?
If it feels right and easy and fun and natural, we are the right fit.
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 
This is very interesting — I thought of doing it myself, but I dunno….
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It took a long time but was fun to do. Luckily I’d sent some book lists to friends earlier so could draw on that. That was the most interesting question to me. Looking for new books that are upbeat and not about the Second World War!!!! Every book recommended to me ends up being increasingly frustrating or depressing. Enough of that in real life.
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I hardly read any more because I judge those books for a contest and that’s enough, I guess. BUT the books I enjoy are the same kinds of armchair escape books that were published in other dark times — outdoor adventure. BUT I just got the Canterbury Tales which I avoided in school. It’s good. It’s fun. The other book I have on my table to read is “The Desert and the Sown” by Gertrude Bell. We’ll see!
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I loved the Canterbury Tales. Read it countless times, once in the original Middle English. When I student taught, I had my kids write a modern Canterbury Tales which they loved doing, believe it or not.
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I think that sounds like a really fun project. I just was thinking “What kind of medievalist are you when you haven’t even read the preeminent work in your own language?” I had a class — seminar — in grad school, but it was the same quarter I got hit by the truck so I am sure I read it but also understand why (given the head injury) I might not remember anything…
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OMG Martha, if anyone ever had a good excuse for not reading the Canterbury Tales it is you!!!
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I know. When I wrote you I hadn’t read it, I started thinking I had to have read it. I passed the class. I remember the book as a physical entity. I even went on a date with my professor BEFORE the accident. I even remember the horrified expression on HIS face when he saw my post-accident face (14 stitches in my upper lip, two black eyes, skin missing from part of my forehead, road abrasions on my cheek and chin.
I can’t even feel that scar on my lip any more, but… Anyways it’s kind of cool because now I get to enjoy it for the first time…
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I learned some new things about you! And I’m going to read some of the books on your list. I haven’t read any of them–except several books by Anne Tyler and Barbara Kingsolver. And Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights.
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I loved your reading list — thank you for sending it to me when I was doing not much but sitting at home and reading! I read and enjoyed several of the books, and am still working my way through the list! I would add the trilogy of books by Murillo about Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner with the Dalai Lama, and I have recently purchased Michelle Obama’s new book. I’m also looking forward to Leslie Johansen Nack’s next work, and would add The Blue Butterfly to the list.!
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Let me know how you like them, Andrea.
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I’ve read quite a few books from your list. Grand Sophy was a favorite and I’ve read it many times.
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What others have you read?
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The Brontës, Jane Austin and Becoming
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Reading Becoming when Trump was president made we wonder what we’d done to go from that to this!!! But gave me a bit of hope it would swing back again.
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I hope it works with Biden in the driving seat
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Hey Judy,
Some interesting answers in here and an intriguing book list, l haven’t read much of it, although a few by the Brontes – Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice and Emma. Charlotte Bronte – Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights and The Professor and The Brain that Changes Itself.
A good five list of your favourited subjects, l loved the first two, l discovered botany much later in life. Math and l were never good friends from the start and singing wasn’t my scene.
Good answers, many thanks 🙂
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I think everyone should read The Brain that Changes Itself. It gave me support, actually, in my blogging, as writing the poems, rhymed and metered, from 6 prompts is such a good daily exercise in wedding the left and right brains. Part of me says it is stopping me from getting my books published. Another part says it is what is fending off dementia!
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The brain is a fascinating atmosphere 🙂
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I have read all the Bronte books, but could not get on with Jane Austin. Otherwise we haven’t overlapped – which just goes to show how much there is available. I appreciate your further honest answers
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Thanks, Derrick. I’m sure we overlap on quite a few..So many books, such a short list.
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MORE BUSYBODY QUESTIONS FROM JUDY DYKSTRA-BROWN
*Have you ever slept on / in a hammock? *
Are you kidding~? Sometimes for months at a time; but it is my opinion that most people do not really know how to lie or sleep in a hammock. (including* Judy*), If the people in the Jungles did that, then their population would suffer! And they would have a lot more back problems~! I have also slept on the ground a lot, but usually in a sleeping bag~! (OR WITH ONE)
*Do you find it easy to maintain friendships with other people? *
Yes, but not as tight a friendship as I see in many women!
Are you a person of ethics? That depends on just what you consider ethics,,,
I feel that I am ethical in my day to day life. But may have said or done things that others may not have considered ethical. I have been accused of writing something that the other person considered not ethical…..But, like you I try to be honest.*
OR I hope so.
If so, how does that impact your daily life?
Well in the case of the question above I wrote the following:
SLAPPING A SAP
In jest I wrote a soliloquy
it was about lying and things that be.
In it words that just, did not bother me,
but taken more by her, or so said she.
She took askance and let me know,
such a statement my couth did not show,
and such farther writing just had to go,
or I could no longer be her beau.
So she gave my cheek a verbal slap,
telling me how I was such a sap,
an evil minded thoughtless chap,
for writing terrible things like that.
Feelings hurt from that verbal blow.
That face slap then began to grow,
and my sorrows began to show,
a condition, so I had to let her know.
Then she assured me right back:
“Twas not a slap but a gentle tap,
on the cheek of her beloved, but slack”,
lest I think that she doth make an attack,
Feeling my words from her should depart,
she felt the pain of others, from the start,
so because we were then so far apart,
she made this statement from her heart.
I’ve learned my lesson so will try,
not to write such things on the fly,
but will digest every word, thereby,
keeping peace, for from that sting, I still cry~!
Are you decisive or indecisive as a person?
Very decisive, but then really bad at procrastination
Why do people hold double standards?
Because they are either two faced or they always desire being liked by others no matter what is asked.
What is your most unhealthiest but guiltiest pleasure and why?
Not eating or living properly, health wise.
*What is your process of writing a new post for your blog? *
I think that I answered this in your** last epic questionnaire~!
I only write when the desire hits me or when I see, read, dream, or think of a good subject. My prompts are usually only from day to day life. Otherwise I may go for days or weeks without even thinking about it.
If you were asked to create a Top Fifteen Book List, holding books that you felt everyone should read at least once in their life and would never regret reading, what titles would you include?
The books that I read on a regular basis are not what the average person would be reading because they are mostly historical, factual or scientific. I Usually read about three to five books at the time on the same subject to build a broad knowledge on that given person, place or subject. I am not much on reading fiction except a few about prehistory fiction like those by Jean M. Auel who wrote about prehistoric times, These would be books like “Clan of The Cave Bear” or “Earth’s Children”.
I have read most of the Classics, some several times over. And spend a lot of time just reading postings and articles on the internet. I do not listen to tape-recorded books~!
However when I am looking for a book to give to a friend as a gift, below is a list of what I would search for:
You can start with this 12 that Kahlil Gibran wrote starting with The Prophet, then on to: .
PROSE POEMS
The Broken Wings
Sand and Foam
A Tear and a Smile
Kahlil Gibran’s Little Book of…
Thoughts and Meditations
The Collected Works
Secrets of the Hearts
The Garden of the Prophet
Spiritual Sayings of Kahlil Gibran…
The Madman
There are many more that I can not remember at this time, but one that comes to mind is: That a little book written by Peter Bowman called “Beach Red”, written in 1945, about landing on a Pacific beach during WWII. Excellent to read and it leaves quite an impression Especially because this prose was so well written.
How important is it for you to know a person’s real name? [Be this online, off line, social media or blogging]
Not really important, but I think that Cat-fishing, like Robo Calls are a terrible thing for anyone to do. Now “fake photos” are something else. I like to picture the person I am communicating with.
I never did like my given name, but I am not defensive of it, just letting the people I care about know what it is, but like many others I sometimes connect it with my mother admonishing me when she was angry, in my family we all had pet names and given names were only for non friends to use…I have always had very white hair. As a young kid I was called “Tete Blanche”~!
When at school, what were your top five subjects that you were passionate about?** Girls, history, math, Geology, and Phys Ed.
Why was this – what did you love about them?
*Their pretty smiles, nice bodies, snuggles and long interesting conversations., *
Are those five subjects still present in your life today in any form?
In my mind, YES,,,,, in my body it is now a bit slower.
Are you a photogenic person?
If you mean do I like to take photos, yes
if you mean do I photograph well, you need to tell me, I might not tell the truth~!
Are you eager to appear in family of (or-?) friend snaps?
NO~!
Are there many photos taken of you in the various stages of your life?
O-M-G~!! So many I feel that they will never all be seen, especially if you are waiting for me to post them.
*With regard to the paranormal do you choose to not believe because there is nothing to believe or because you feel it is safer to not believe? *
That is an interesting question. Yes I often BELIEVE but always question the veracity of what was told to me and who is telling it. Not looking to be safe, just informed. Now if you are asking this like an Evangelical would, most of the answers have been proven but often changed by them, but they still do believe in things written 1600 years ago that came from eons ago.
*Are you a non-believer or a believer? *
You just asked that and I just tried to answer it, I hope you did not need more.
How are you with meeting strangers / new people who might or could become new friends?
Love it and if I find interesting things about them, even in correspondence it becomes an interesting pastime. However, like reading a good book If I find them dull or narrow minded then I quickly tire of them.
Is there a process you adopt to identify if they are the right fit for you?
Oh yes, if they are opinionated beyond discussion, “know it all attitude”, “negative attitude” or finding faults in mine or any other’s writing about life and the world around them, I do not often stay around. But a person who writes well, interesting, or open minded, I am a fan and turn to them first~! And I do remember what they have said, even a long time after, if I have found them interesting. A person who looks for things to correct in others is really a turn off and I try never to do this.
THANKS FOR HELPING ME FILL A DULL WET, EVENING~!
A wordy question list and even more so on my answers~!
SAM, OSO, M VOELKER, HEY YOU, OR IF YOU MUST MARION, but I tried not to use any words that would get my mouth washed out with Palmolive soap~!
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I think you had fun doing this as did I. Thanks for your attention to detail and truthfulness, Sam.
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I enjoyed this peek into your past and present and am bookmarking the post so I can refer back to your list of books. Happy reading!
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Not sure what your comment means..Perhaps a link that doesn’t work? It is just my name surrounded by […]. Curious…
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