JIM'S MI-5

1. Excluding your current employment and boss who is the best boss you ever worked for and why?

I have very few former bosses. Jim was certainly the boss that had the greatest impact on my life. I very much appreciated his willingness to teach me as much as I wanted to learn. I think he had great faith in me (in fact, I think it was that fact that brought us to our "downfall"). I also enjoyed the long talks we had about faith and religion. Up until our relationship "ended", I felt that he was like another father to me. The lack of continued relationship after the professional one ended, however, shows me that I was sorely mistaken about the whole "father" thing.

Alice was my favorite supervisor. She wasn't technically my "boss", but I worked in her department a lot, and she was the department head. We worked really well together. Man! We could get that work done!! Talking the whole time, of course, but diligently working. It was like we had a kind of rhythm. Yak, Yak, Yak. Punch, punch, punch. Yak. Yak. Yak. Count, count, count. Yak. Yak. Yak. (We used to work in the shipping/receiving department at Senter Crane's Department Store back when I was 19 years old.) Now we both work for the same lawyer. If it ever got to the point that I had to actually work in the office, we'd have to skip the yakking part. The work I do requires a great deal of concentration, and it's one of the few times that I find it hard to multi-task.

2. Have you ever discovered something that is great but you can't convince anyone else to try it?

Oh, I don't know. Nothing comes to me off the top of my head. I really love the Close To My Heart products that I sell, and I sometimes can't understand why some people aren't knocking down my door to buy it. However---I think that's because I'm not a great salesman. I'm not out there really "pushing my goods". The customers I do have, however, are very supportive, and I know I have at least one customer that is as addicted as I am (if not more so).

3. It is time for a winter getaway. Where do you want to go?

Since the Daytona 500 is this weekend, I guess I'd have to say Daytona, Baby, Daytona! Disney World will be great, too.

4. When do you think you will buy your next vehicle and what would you like?

I'm thinking that when I get my next vehicle, my kids will still be kids. The way my husband trades in vehicles around here, heck, that could be next week. I would still see myself in a mini-van, or maybe a Nissan Pathfider. When my kids are grown, I'd probably move away from the whole mini-van thing. I really like the looks of a sporty car, but I really like the visibility that my mini-van gives me. Maybe they'll have some sort of sporty, feminine SUV that gets great gas milage (35+ mpg) by then. Although (and I don't know if I want my husband to know this), when I had to back Dwane's pick-up truck up the driveway during the last storm, I actually found it be somewhat "hot and sexy".

5. Is there an active hobby or sport you want to get into this year?

Again, I'm thinking I don't want my husband to know this, but I might like to try to learn how to really drive our 4-wheeler. With 3 guys in my house, I really have to learn to get into some "guy stuff", or I'm never going to get to spend much time with my family. Since I found backing up the pick-up quite exciting, maybe driving a 4-wheeler might be too. It might be nice to go through some trails and see what I can see. If Dwane could find a nice groomed trail with pretty little bridges, colorful gardens, and babbling brooks, I might even really enjoy it.

I also want to expand on a couple of things we started together as a family last year: disc golf and camping.