More about me than you ever wanted to know!

I totally missed my 100th post on the take charge blog – think I realised when I was at number 120 so I decided to learn from that mistake and just focus on this blog.

That said, I almost can’t believe that this is my 100th post on this blog – who would have thought I’d have so much to say about organising?!

Anyway, without further ado…

1. My name is actually Marcia-Leigh. Nobody calls me that except two of my aunts.


2. When I got married, I dropped the Leigh and my preferred name is Marcia.


3. I was born in Port Elizabeth, otherwise known as the friendly city. For non-SA readers, this is a city on the Eastern Cape coast of SA.


4. I am the oldest of 3 children. Hence the bossiness.


5. My sister is 28 and my brother is 20.


6. My parents got divorced after 28 years of marriage.


7. My father’s now remarried but I don’t think my mother ever will be.


8. My mother says I was a very good baby :-)


9. But my stubbornness emerged at around 18 months or so


10. When I learnt to say NO


11. I really don’t remember being stroppy at all


12. I started ballet at aged 4 with my cousin, Karen.


13. And discovered one of my passions


14. Because of ballet lessons after school, I never got involved in any sport or other extra-mural activities


15. This is something I mildly regret


16. I say mildly because I wonder sometimes if I’d have been any good?


17. In all my school reports, there were two consistencies.


18. The teachers always wrote, Marcia talks too much in class.


19. I love how God turned that “potential negative” into good! Now I speak regularly in front of groups of people.


20. The other thing was I always did very well, usually 1st or 2nd in the standard.


21. I don’t consider myself a very good student however; I just seemed to remember things very well.


22. I only remember actual studying when I was in standard 7 (grade 9) and I dropped those compulsory subjects like History as soon as I could.


23. My favourite subject has always been Mathematics.


24. My worst subject was PT (Physical Training). See? There’s the non-sport thing.


25. I hated PT so much that in high school I used to ASK for extra Maths work just so I could miss it!


26. When I was in standard 3 (grade 5), I remember organising a class library. I asked each child in the class to bring in a book and I did all the library cards, a cataloguing system, everything. It was huge fun.


27. I’m sure I enjoyed setting up the library more than anyone else enjoyed reading the books.


28. I used to have terrible handwriting until age 9 when it miraculously fixed itself up.


29. I went to school a year earlier than I was supposed to (age 5) because my mother felt I was “ready”.


30. This means that all my friends have always been a year older.


31. I had 2 birthdays – a real one on 6 August and a pretend one on 6 February.


32. Why a pretend birthday? Because our schools were not allowed to register kids who only turned 6 after the first half of the year.


33. Now here’s a shocker – when I was a child, I didn’t want to eat any food. My mother had to give me milkshakes to increase my appetite and I think they worked a little too well


34. I chose to go to a high school where I knew virtually nobody simply because it was a better school than the one near to where I lived.


35. There were only 2 people from my previous school in the entire standard 6 (grade 8) class.


36. When we had to choose between doing Needlework and Home Economics, I immediately chose Home Economics.


37. The other 2 chose Needlework which was quite okay with me.


38. When they saw me all alone in the HE queue, they tried to get me to come over and do Needlework.


39. Nothing on earth would make me voluntarily do needlework ever again so of course, I refused. I don’t think you can tell just from this sentence how much I hated needlework.


40. I can sew on a button and stitch a hem though...


41. They then decided that because we had to all be together, they would do HE. Crazy.


42. I have always, always slept very, very well.


43. Because of this, I would wait until the last possible moment to get up so I ended up running up the hill to school Every. Single. Morning.


44. But I was never late


45. Clearly I was in a lot better shape than I am now ;)


46. I am very lazy.


47. I did Geography for 3 months before deciding that I would get my A easier in Accounting.


48. So I switched and had to catch up 3 months’ work.


49. It was easy because I have a head for numbers, logic (!) and reasoning.


50. Oh, I was a prefect in primary school


51. And in high school.


52. While I’m on the topic of leadership roles, I was the SRC chairperson in my standard 9 (grade 11) year.


53. I narrowly beat the most popular guy in school.


54. I still don’t know why they chose me.


55. That year I learnt to hone my public-speaking skills by speaking on a loudhailer in front of the entire school.


56. At the time I didn’t even think of it as a big deal; I just did it.


57. Being a prefect in high school was one of the most fun things I did, not because of the prefect thing, but because of my fellow prefects.


58. My school was mostly Afrikaans (only 2 out of every 6 – 8 classes in each standard spoke English as their first language) and I learnt to become fluent in Afrikaans that year because of the rest of the prefects.


59. There were only 4 Higher Grade Mathematics students in my matric year and I was the only one in the two English classes. And the only girl.


60. So the teacher gave me lots of homework (which I didn’t mind) and challenged me a lot.


61. I still love a challenge.


62. I was the only one at my school selected to participate in a Maths HG Winter School (June) at Rhodes University during my matric year.


63. That’s when I fell in love with Rhodes and with Grahamstown. And knew that was where I wanted to go to university.


64. I met a guy there (VM) who was supposed to go to UCT but unexpectedly phoned me late that year announcing that he would be going to Rhodes too.


65. I was seeing someone else at the time but when we broke up, guy 1 (VM) and I got together for about 3 months.


66. I found university incredibly hard because I was not used to studying – see number 23.


67. I also realised that I hated working in a lab – something I thought I’d enjoy.


68. I met my husband at university when he asked me to dance for him.


69. I thought he was a pervert so of course, I refused.


70. We then became friends and started eating all our meals together, but just as friends.


71. The dinner ladies used to have to chase us out of the dining hall so they could close up after supper; we were so busy talking that we didn’t even notice everyone else leaving!


72. One day we went to a movie together (Mississippi Masala) as friends and came back as a couple ;) and we’ve been inseparable ever since.


73. I can’t swim. One day when I was about 6 at a swimming lesson, someone pushed me into the pool. I was half scared to death and that was it for me and water.


74. I also can’t ride a bicycle. There’s no excuse for that – I just never wanted to do it.


75. I don’t like anything about bicycles; that’s why I hate spinning. I tried it once and that was quite enough for me, thank you very much.


76. I can’t do slow types of exercise like yoga and pilates. I’ve tried but I’m literally sleeping 10 minutes into the class.


77. I’m a type A exerciser, who stands right in the front row and follows the teacher perfectly. Sickening!


78. I told you earlier that I did ballet. I also did modern and Spanish dancing.


79. I stopped when I finished school and went away to university.


80. After a gap of 12 years, I started taking a dance funk class at the gym in 2003.


81. Now I do a hip-hop class on Mondays and salsa dancing on Wednesdays.


82. I think I’ve parallel parked maybe 5 times in total since I got my driver’s licence. So in this respect I’m a typical female ;)


83. My full-time job is in insurance (!) and I am a relationship and operations manager.


84. This suits my ESTJ-ness down to the ground. (What is your Myers-Briggs profile?)


85. I don’t eat peas or brussells sprouts. I think I eat all other vegetables.


86. And as far as fruit goes, I don’t eat any melons – watermelon, sweetmelon or rock melon.


87. My absolute favourite fruit is the humble apple. Granny Smith, nothing else. You can always find me with an apple.


88. And of course, I love any desserts with apple. Yum!


89. And you know I love anything with cinnamon. Cinnabon, I love you!


90. I drink 2L water every day and have done so since 1998. That was one of my goals for the year and the easiest one to accomplish.


91. I’ve had 3 operations in my life – my wisdom teeth out in 1997, and 2 laparoscopies – one in 2002 and one in 2004.


92. I was leading praise and worship in a cell group the very next day after the wisdom teeth. That’s God for you!


93. After the second laparoscopy, I refused to get another one done because there was absolutely no difference (at least to me).


94. Both times they anticipated a 30-minute op and it ended up being 3 hours!


95. My gynae told me I’m a lot prettier on the outside than I am on the inside. Um, thanks… I think?


96. So I had to spend the night in the hospital. Horrible – because I hate having to live with other people’s rules!


97. My obsessions are handbags, wallets and watches.


98. I buy things in threes – 3 cans of tomato, 3 boxes of spaghetti, etc. I don’t know why but that’s probably why I always spend more than we budget on food.


99. The one place I want to visit more than any other place in the world is …New York City.


100. I’ve never been the person who dreamed of growing up, getting married and having children. Yet I met the right guy at 18, married him at 20, and decided at 30 that if we didn’t have children soon, we probably would live to regret it. And that’s where we’re at now. Except I’ve found that it’s not the easiest thing in the world.

Well, I hope you’re still there and awake!

Thanks for reading, everybody. Have a great day.