J is for Jordan, Robert, that is, and Jeffs in my family

The blogging A-Z Challenge finds us on J!

Reading has been my joy for as long as I can remember. I loved the Bobbsey twin books, Wizard of Oz, and any book about dogs. I read every Nancy Drew book there was, and most of the Trixie Beldens, and that started my love for mysteries. Went on to Agatha Christie, Victoria Holt, Phyllis Whitney, and then on to "spy" thrillers like Ludlum and Follet. Somewhere along the way I found Anne MacCaffrey and Marion Zimmer Bradley. And then one day I picked up a book that looked interesting by some guy called Robert Jordan called The Wheel of Time. I was hooked on fantasy then and I've never gone back. I still prefer epic fantasy, even though I know it's rather fallen out of favor. I didn't ever finish the WoT series, though, as the series got way too long. I have all the books, though, and some day I'm going to read them all from 1-whatever. I do think he should have stopped at some point sooner, though. But I still have a fondness for Robert Jordan starting me on the path to fantasy reading.

The other important J in my life is Jeff, because it's the name we chose for son #2. It's a funny story--or I think it is, anyway. My great-grandfather was a Jeff. His youngest son was Jeff Jr., but unfortunately he was killed in a plane crash when he was young. He must have been a neat guy, because both my mother and her brother remember their Uncle Jeffy with great affection. My uncle named his son after him, so my cousin is the third Jeff. When I was pregnant with #2, the hubby and I picked Jeff for a boy's name, and Brenna for a girl. (No, they didn't give us ultrasounds back then just to discover the sex of the child). About a week before I delivered, I dreamed I had a girl, so I was convinced that's what was going to happen. But I didn't go into labor, and my first child was 2 weeks late and I had a hard delivery because of his size, so on my last doctor appt., he told me if I hadn't had the baby by the following Tuesday, to check into the hospital that day for induced labor. When I told my mother, she looked at the calendar and said, oh, that's your cousin Jeff's birthday. Well, there went my dream of having a girl out the window. I just knew then that if I made it until Tuesday and had my baby on my cousin Jeff's birthday, that I was having a boy. And so I did, on both counts.