All About Marcie

What Alan says about Marcie

Marcie quit her job as the manager of an optical when our daughter was born to be a full-time mom. When Zenna entered first grade she realized she would have a lot of empty time on her hands, and decided to return to school to pursue a Master’s degree in accounting. Marcie loves math and enjoyed the bookkeeping aspect of her retail job. She even enjoys doing taxes.

Music plays a vital role in Marcie’s life.  She loves to sing and play the piano, organ, guitar and recorder.  She taught herself to play the organ and the piano.  She also taught her sister so that they could play duets.  While working on her undergraduate degree in mathematics, she made sure that she also got plenty of extra music classes. She particularly enjoyed voice lessons.



I love Marcie’s sense of humor, and her love of music. I also like her patience with me and that she likes the way I am, instead of trying to change me into something I'm not. I love to spend a lot of time with Marcie because we have so many interests in common.  I like being able to talk about a wide range of subjects with her, including difficult technical and scientific subjects, and I enjoy helping her with her studies and projects.  Her abilities and knowledge impress and interest me.  I appreciate the fact she knows more about math, music, and other subjects than I do.  I value the encouragement she gives me in my interests.

25 random facts about Marcie

1. I have one brother and two sisters. We grew up on our one-acre family farm, which means we enjoyed plenty of fresh air and lots of animals. It also meant lots of work. We still have a hard time being enthusiastic about gardening after spending all of our summers chasing weeds around our parents’ huge garden and flower beds.

Marcie (far left) with her siblings

2. Foods I hate include raspberries, onions, squash and liver.

3. I lived in the same state and county until I was 22 years old. At that point in my life, I had never traveled more than 300 miles from home.

4. In the last seven years we have moved six times. Four of those moves have been 800 or more miles away. Besides Utah, we have lived in Pennsylvania and Arizona. (Alan also lived in Texas for four years before we were married.)

5. I earned a Bachelor’s degree in Math in 1996. I’m currently working on a Master’s degree in Accounting and hope to finish in December 2012.

6. Growing up, my siblings and I raised chickens for 4-H. We always hoped to get 2nd or 3rd place for weight, because then the prize was money, but all too frequently we got 1st place, which meant adding another tacky chicken trophy to our collection.

One of far too many chicken trophies

7. When I was in college I drove a huge, grey 1978 Dodge which I named “Leonard."

a "Leonard" look-alike

8. I taught myself to play the “piano” on an old vacuum-tube organ (my father paid $50 for it) when I was 13. When Alan and I got married, I told him I’d rather have a piano than a wedding ring. He made good on his promise to get me one a couple of summers ago, and I’ve been happily teaching myself to play my very own piano ever since then.

9. I am terrified of heights, guns and telephones.

10. I learned French in high school and university, and my teachers commented on my excellent pronunciation.

11. I served a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Texas, where I was required to speak Spanish. Now whenever I try to speak French, it comes out with a Spanish accent.

12. We have not had a TV connection in our home in more than nine years, nor have we missed it. I’ve always found television to be extremely dull, but I enjoy reading—especially books that make me laugh. I also love to play video games, so I’m still good at wasting time.

13. When I was 19, I went to an eye doctor for the first time. When he asked me to read the top line of the eye chart, I couldn't see anything. I thought the doctor was playing a joke on me, but it turned out I had cataracts in both eyes. After receiving lens implants in each eye, I can now see almost perfectly--except for things up close. So I wear glasses for reading and near vision, but I don't need them to drive.

14. When I was in university, I worked weekends at a nursing home doing laundry. I passed the time listening to oldies radio, and as a consequence, I know more oldies trivia than anyone I’ve ever met.

15. Someday I would love to sing with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

16. When I was a teenager, my dream was to become a theoretical physicist.

17. In university I took two physics classes and changed my major to math.

18. I love paying bills and balancing our family budget. I look forward to doing our taxes each year.

19. I worked for five years as an optician and eventually became the optical manager. When Zenna was born, I decided I would rather be a mom.

Marcie, 1999

20. I enjoy cooking when I have time to do it, but I hate cleaning up! I also enjoy designing my dream-house with an easy-to-clean kitchen. Maybe someday....

21. I hope that in the afterlife I will somehow be able to “think” my hair the way I want it to be, because I never can seem to explain what I want to a hair stylist. I always seem to get something vastly different.

22. I didn’t have to change my initials after I got married because my maiden name starts with the same letter as my married name.

23.I love to play board games, and fortunately, so does Alan. We enjoy hosting his family for "game nights." 

24. I like to invent weird theories to explain the universe. Some examples are my Light/Dust Theory, the Walmart/Disney Theory, and the Why-English-Authors-Write-About-Food-All-the-Time Theory.

25. My parents bought our first computer in 1986. It had a color monitor and a mouse, which was a big deal back then.