23 Things About Me on My 23rd Birthday

1. For a large portion of my life, 10 Things I Hate About you was my favorite movie. I can still quote almost the entire thing from start to finish.

2. Putting Axton's pants on him is one of my absolute least favorite parts about parenthood. As soon as I get one pant leg in, and start working on the other, then the first one comes out and then I'm back and forth, back and forth, over and over again. I feel like I'm in a Two-Second Groundhog Day land and I'm getting nothing accomplished. Silly really, that I let it frustrate me, but when it happens every.single. time? Gah!!! Just be naked, child!

3. I am a closet swearer. I know, I know - I shouldn't be. It's a bad habit I started back in 7th grade, but probably would have picked up anyway from a few members of my family. There have been countless times that I've inserted a swear word in a blog post, and then had to go back and erase it because I didn't think my readers would appreciate it too much. Nothing super "bad" (meaning, my F bombs are few and far between) but some D's and H's and once in awhile an S or B will float in my head. And most of the time, it's not out of anger - but humor. I just think a properly placed curse word can turn a mediocre sentence into a hilarious one. Gosh I'm terrible! I can't believe I'm typing this sh* up!

4. I could probably eat some form of Mexican food for every one of my meals - I love refried beans and tortillas. That's practically all I ate during my pregnancy, and almost every time we go to Taco Bell I order a bean burrito with no onions and extra red sauce.

5. I'm really bad about washing my hands. Gross, I know. Like, I wash them after every time I use the bathroom, of course, because it's easy to remember when it's right there. But when I'm out and about, or we go to the park or the mall or after a diaper change (yuck!! I know! But really, most the time I don't get poop on my hands, I've gotten quite skilled with a wipe), I just forget. And then halfway through my next meal I'll slowly stop chewing and then get up and wash my hands really fast. Usually. Or I'll just say, "Meh. Builds your immunity." (Again, I'm even embarrassed admitting this to myself!)

6. I wrote my college senior thesis on Toni Morrison's Beloved. It's about a black woman who kills her daughter so she isn't taken into slavery - it's been banned from many schools and universities. But most things that have something important to say are often feared and rejected by society, yes?

Anyway, I used Ihab Hissans' theory The Literature of Silence to examine her novel. Here is my thesis statement:

"In Beloved silence operates in the community's refusal to warn Sethe of schooteacher's arrival, invoking Sethe's outrageous murder of her daughter, which results in the apocalyptic and radically ironic figure of the ghost Beloved, with the final irony being found in the telling of the novel Beloved, a story that was not meant to "be passed on."

Heavy stuff.

7. I had a bad habit of bleaching my hair in high school. Baaaaaad.

8. My favorite childhood memories are when we lived in Wisconsin. We lived on 14 acres, with 3 acres of strawberry patches, an acre of raspberry patches, long, grassy fields, a dirt road, and a pole-shed. I used to love to mow our giant lawn because we had a riding lawn mower and I would put on headphones, crank up the music and just ride for hours on end. I would roller-blade in circles in our pole shed, making up songs about boys and growing up and singing them loudly because it echoed in there. We picked strawberries and sold them for money and made strawberry jam and pies, we helped my mom in her giant garden and watered my dad's rows of pine trees, moving the hose every half hour.

9. I've been writing in journals off and on ever since I knew how to write. I kept a pretty steady journal all through elementary school, and I've since found out that both of my parents have read parts of my journals they've found in boxes. When they told me, I felt completely betrayed and resolved that I would never read my children's diaries. I stopped writing in one until the day my heart was broken my junior year of high school. I had just broken up with my boyfriend of two years, and had no where else to turn. I wrote in that journal every single day, trying to heal my heart through words. I have two entire journals filled with my mournings over that boy, spanning a period of a whole year.

10. I took 3 years of French in high school and 3 semesters in college. I was in the middle of applying to study abroad in Paris - I only had the phone interview left - when I met Adam. Obviously, I never made that phone call.

ps - Robyn, when Adam saw this pic he said he liked your hair :)

11.Whenever we played Spice Girls in 5th grade (and we played that a LOT) I was always Ginger Spice. I think I liked that her "other" name was Sexy Spice. But now that I think about it, is that even true? Or did someone just make that up?

12. I grew up with a guitar-playing Daddy. I have distinct memories of him singing "What's Goin' On?" by 4-Non Blondes, "Romeo and Juliet" by Indigo Girls, and "Walkin' in Memphis" by Marc Cohn. I know all the words to those three songs and can't hear them without thinking of my Dad. It also instilled a love of men - or anyone, really - who play the guitar - that's how Adam snagged my eye.

13. My high school job was being a Police Cadet for the Idaho Falls Police Department. My mom worked in a secretarial position there, so I had some good ins. Mostly I just liked working in the office, shredding papers, putting speeding tickets into the computer system (I loved it when they were for someone I knew in school - I always felt like I had a secret over their heads), filing confidential reports on things like domestic abuse or robberies. Once I led a demonstration on bike safety for a group of youngsters, and later, a tour of the the Police Department to a group of Cub Scouts. I had to fingerprint them all as part of their merit badge. I was also asked to do things like a night patrol during an Art Festival. I had to take a shift from 6pm to midnight, just walking around the river and making sure no one tried to break into the tents that were set up for the event. I had a radio that I could dial into dispatch if there was any trouble. I had a uniform and a badge and that little radio and I felt pretty tough. Until one drunk guy came around, kicking a can on the ground and shouting loud. I got totally freaked out even though he didn't even glance up at me.

14. My first concert was when I was 10 years old and I saw Enriquez Iglesias. I've since been to a Good Charlotte concert (13), Jimmy Eat World (17), JoDee Messina (18), and Miranda Lambert (20) concert. I have quite an eclectic taste in music.

At the Jimmy Eat World concert - my first one without parents! 

15. From the age of 7 to 12 I believed I was living in a haunted house. We bought our house in Wisconsin from someone whose son had committed suicide. His first attempt was in the basement of the house we bought, and my brother told me - to freak me out - that whenever someone attempts to commit suicide - even if they fail - their soul stays where it happened. To add to that, we lived at the end of a dirt road and across the road from us was a church and the graveyard that this boy was buried in. My friends and I would go looking for his old fort that he had built in the forest on our property and when we couldn't find it from time to time, we would get all freaked out and think he had moved it. We would go to his grave at midnight and light a candle or do other stupid stuff. Every single weird thing that happened outside I thought was him. (As a type this now, as an adult, I can see how disrespectful this would be to people who have attempted, or succeeded at committing suicide, and also to the parents of the boy who died. However, I realize I was just a dumb kid looking for trouble at the time, so I hope I'm forgiven).

16. My fifth grade teacher was Mr. Owens. He introduced me (and our class) to pomegranates. He read Charles. R. Swindoll's quote on attitude to us at least once a week, he passed out a jar of lemon drops during special occasions, and he read The Hobbit to us. I remember I was telling a story to my class, and acting it out as I went. I was imitating how our chickens walked and generally just making a fool of myself, but I had the entire class's attention, and everyone was laughing. Afterwards, Mr. Owens had told me that I should be a comedian when I grow up. I remember being stunned, and I chased him down the hallway to ask him about it.

"Do you mean that?" I panted when I caught up to him. "But I can only make people my age laugh, I can't make adults laugh."

"Well, those kids that are your age now? They'll be adults when you are too, and they'll still be your age," he had said.

I don't know why I remember that, because obviously I'm not a comedian. However, I am a writer and I think I'm funny sometimes, so it's kind of similar.

17. Speaking of having chickens... well, we had chickens when I was growing up. They were a sort of Easter present to me. I got a box of 25 chicks and they slept in my room with me in their box until they were too big to fit in there anymore. Then we moved them outside to a chicken coop. I picked them up and carried them around and painted their nails so I could tell them apart. I named all 25 of them and collected their eggs every morning. I remember one cold winter morning going down to get eggs. It had snowed the night before and the gate was stuck. I kept banging and kicking on it, thinking it was just packed with ice and snow. When I finally got the gate open, I uncovered what had been blocking my path - it was a dead chicken, frozen solid. He must have been left out over night. I was terrified - I screamed all the way back up the hill to my house and burst through the door sobbing. It totally mortified me.

18. This is what I was wearing the night Adam met and fell in love with me - if you can't tell, that's a pig on my shirt. Charming.

19. I have a bad history of bladder control. I'm sure someone with a psychology degree could really rip me a new one over this (or anything else I've written), but it's just life. I once peed my bed when I was 12 (I was sleeping with my mom, too, poor lady) (why was I sleeping with my mom at 12 years old, you ask? Because my parents had just divorced and we moved 1200 miles away from my home, that's why. I slept with her every night for a few years, until she got married, actually). Anyway, back to my bladder issue. I once peed my pants when I was 10 because I couldn't get my house key out fast enough and I'd been holding it all day at school. Then when I was 18 and at college I peed my pants, too. I had just sat down at a toilet when my stall door swung wide open (apparently I hadn't locked it all the way) and I had to hurry and shimmy over there before someone saw me. Do you know how hard it is to stop peeing midstream? Extremely. I had to lengthen the straps of my backpack so it would cover my pants while I ran back to my dorm room to change. And, we can't forget the time I wet the bed when I was pregnant (age 21). Gah, it only gets worse when you have kids, too.

20. I asked for a horse for many Christmases in a row when I was little. We lived in a neighborhood then, so it never happened. But one summer we boarded a horse on our property and I got to ride her everyday. Her name was Splash and she was a feisty one, but I only got bucked off once. I'm pretty sure she might have bit my friend Heather when she came to visit me.

21. The summer of 2007 I went to Idaho Girl's State and was elected governor of over 300 girls. I learned that not only could I do scary things, like be a leader, but that I was likeable - and in mass quantities. Sure, not every girl voted for me, and probably not every girl liked me. But enough did, and that meant a lot to me during those vulnerable high school years.

22. Sometimes I talk funny. I like to add random "r's" to words. As in, "The weather outside is narsty." In fact, I said that exact sentence once when I was governor, over the microphone and I could hear everyone's confused whispers and I had to clear my throat and start again. "Sorry, um, nasty."

I also like to add "shm" to the beginning of words. Adam and I say "Shmank shmoo" and "shmore shmelcome" on a daily basis.

23. One of Adam's birthday presents to me was a 23rd birthday photo shoot. I'm going to be using one of the photos for my photography website, business cards, and thank you notes. I can't decide which is my favorite, so if you get the chance click on the link and like or comment on your favorite one!

When I came out of the bedroom this morning, after working on this blogpost, this is what I found on our couch: