A few days ago I made my 100th post. In honor of that, I will share 100 things about myself you may or may not already know --
1. I am on my second wedding ring. The first one was lost.
2. I don't lose stuff. That is why I think 1 1/2 year old Rebecca was responsible for the demise of my first wedding ring. But I'm not holding a grudge, because I've got a new one now!
3. I didn't like cheesecake until after I was married.
4. I didn't like dark chocolate until after I was married either.
5. I don't think I am pretty. I am lucky to have a husband who does.
6. I am an inveterate bargain-hunter. I have some friends who suggested a two week money-spending fast, and I wanted no part of it. Not because I wouldn't love to take a break from spending money, or because I might not have the self-control to do it, but because it would kill me to miss out if cereal went on sale and I couldn't stock up.
7. When I was in high school I didn't get asked on a date by a boy until my senior year. (I even coined a term: Male-Initiated Date. Dates where I asked didn't count.) I never went to a single boys' choice dance. It still makes me feel sad for my younger self to think about it.
8. I am honest to a fault. I don't like to lie, even to save someone's feelings. If pressed, I'd rather turn a conversation to a different topic or compliment an ugly baby's obscure best feature than take the easy way out and just say an untruth.
9. I love being a stay at home mom. I love my kids. I love my life and I feel lucky to be in my current situation. But sometimes I don't understand why I was given the intellectual gifts I have so that I could read Dr. Seuss and clean the house.
10. I have a Bachelor's of Nursing. I worked in Labor and Delivery and the ER for a total of a year, and then quit to stay home full time.
11. I graduated from BYU as the College of Nursing's undergrad Valedictorian. I had to speak at graduation, which scared me at first, but didn't turn out to be that bad.
12. I am a lot less self-confident than I appear. Most people think I have no social fear, but I have an inferiority complex that surfaces frequently, especially when I am in large groups.
13. I would rather be in severe pain than experience nausea and vomiting. Even after being a nurse and a mom, when I hear, "My tummy doesn't feel well. I think I'm going to throw up," it makes me want to leave immediately. Even if I know the person connected to the tummy is going to need my help.
14. My mom is my best friend.
15. I don't like Mormon fiction. Anita Stansfield - yuck. Gerald Lund - no thank you. I admit to reading and owning the Work & the Glory series in its entirety, but give myself a pass because I completed said series during my teenage years before I had enough time to form a strong literary sense of self.
16. Even though I now have a stronger literary sense of self, I still enjoy throwaway reads every so often. I'm just pickier than I used to be! (Guilty pleasures: Michael Palmer and Michael Crichton, for example.)
17. I was afraid of roller coasters until I was 15. My best friend Jana dragged me onto the Colossus on 9th grade Lagoon Day, and I was instantly converted. I will now go on almost anything, especially if it goes upside down!
18. I refuse to be a bullet voter. I'm a most of the time Republican, but if all my choices on a given ballot end up elephant, I'll pick a random government office and vote Democrat, just out of principle.
19. I like mashed potatoes best without gravy. Just butter and salt, thank you.
20. I 'just knew' my parents would never allow me to go to a rock concert as a teenager, so I never bothered to ask. Years later when I mentioned this to my dad, he told me they would have let me. I'm still a little skeptical.
21. When I was a high school sophomore I chose a black backpack because I didn't want it to ever clash with my clothes. A month later I realized that was dumb and wished I'd chosen a more interesting color, especially since it was a Jansport backpack and those bad boys last forever. (I used it all through college and still have it!)
22. I had braces twice.
23. I'm not a very good dancer.
24. My dad offered a boy in our ward $10 if he could teach me how to serve a badminton birdie. I was unteachable.
25. I have small feet, and sometimes I can buy shoes in the little girls department. (They're cheaper!)
26. I had to wait until I was 13 to pierce my ears, but I let Cassidy get hers done when she was six.
27. I have a bias against the name Danny. Most of the Daniel/Danny/Dans I have known have been either weird or creepy and have had a crush on me that I did not return.
28. I played the flute until my junior year in high school. My senior year I switched to choir. Even though I was very good at the flute and I liked it, I should have switched to choir sooner.
29. I don't like change. It bothers me when people move away and when grocery stores rearrange their merchandise into different aisles.
30. I have never carried a balance on a credit card. Ever.
31. I had terrible acne as a teenager, and even though my skin is clearer as an adult, I have a residual self-consciousness about going out in public without makeup.
32. I like hiking.
33. I hate running.
34. We lived in Texas during my childhood, where all the ants are fire ants. You do NOT want to bitten by a fire ant, so you either steer clear or step on as many as you can. Even though we live in a place where the ants are harmless, my heart still races when I see them.
35. I love to play games. Board games, card games, any games. Favorites include Bohnanza, Phase 10, Five Crowns, Settlers of Catan, Ticket to Ride, and many more.
36. I laugh and laugh and laugh at comedy routines by Brian Regan and Jim Gaffigan.
37. I like to stay up late but I married a man who likes to go to bed early.
38. I think stepping into a wet shower is gross. I like feeling like I'm the first and only one to use a shower, even if it isn't true.
39. I like vacuuming and cleaning the kitchen, but dislike dusting and cleaning bathrooms.
40. My children are required to make their beds every morning. I, on the other hand, slept on top of my bedspread for over a year when I was a kid because I didn't want to make the bed.
41. I used to sleep with my window open a crack during the winter because I liked to curl up in bed in warm pajamas and layers and layers of blankets.
42. I hate to run out of things, even if it is something not too important to be out of. Being out of eggs, yogurt, cheese, or Scotch tape gives me the itch to run to the store. Maybe that is part of why I love Costco.
43. I would have a membership to Costco just to buy their Kirkland Signature brand kitchen garbage bags and baby wipes.
44. I think the best thing about having a new baby is that I can kiss and snuggle and nuzzle her all I want, even on the face. It's not nice to do that to other people's babies, but I can do it all I want with mine!
45. Nathan has told me many times that I don't have to clear very much with him in the way of spending money. He wouldn't even get mad if I went out and bought a car without running it by him first. (Seriously. But I wouldn't.) That said, I still ask for his input on small things like whether to spend an extra $5.95 a month to get a DVR for the upstairs TV. He always says he doesn't care and it is up to me, but I still ask.
46. I know all the words to "Ice, Ice Baby," but I never owned the album. Because that would be lame.
47. When I was 3 I used to think that the heel of a loaf of bread was 'the piece with no crust' and that cottage cheese was ice cream. I don't mind eating the heel these days, but I still struggle with cottage cheese.
48. When I was born I stopped breathing multiple times and turned blue. I had to be in the NICU for a few days and go home with a heart monitor. I received a priesthood blessing in the hospital, and afterwards stopped having the episodes. They never were able to find anything wrong with my heart or lungs as a child, and my poor college student parents never received a bill from the pediatric cardiologist either.
49. I am a spelling, grammar, and punctuation Nazi. I notice most typos and misplacement mistakes. A few pet peeves: businesses that spell C-words with a K to be cutesy (Klassy Kars are never Klassy, folks) and misuse of the apostrophe (You can't be Take'n things places. If you refuse to be taking, at least be takin'.)
50. I am selectively ambidextrous. I eat and cross stitch with either hand. I only ever use scissors with my left. I bat, write, and crochet with my right.
51. I flunked 'Uses scissors properly' in Kindergarten. YOU try using those blunt, never-were-sharp scissors for lefties made by righties.
52. I had my first kiss my freshman year in college.
53. I have kissed four people, but I am the only person my husband has ever kissed. He likes to tease me about being easy, but I say four is nothing to be ashamed of.
54. I drove a black 1985 Chrysler Fifth Avenue when I was a teenager. I was grateful to have wheels, but occasionally wished for something less embarrassing. Or at least something smaller. Its wishful nickname was The Lovemobile.
55. When I was 14 I got the stomach flu after eating a roast beef sub sandwich. It was 6 years before I could eat a roast beef sandwich again.
56. I am casi-fluente in Spanish. I took Spanish for four years in high school, skipped Spanish 4 at the suggestion of the Spanish teacher, and still got a 5 on the AP Spanish test.
57. I was a National Merit Scholar, and attended BYU on full scholarship.
58. I have a rather large sense of personal space. Its name is My Bubble, and I physically cringe when the uninvited encroach upon it.
59. When I was two and in Nursery, I very much wanted my class to have a cool name like all the Primary classes had, so I decided we were the Moonbeams.
60. I asked my dad if Santa Claus was real when I was 5.
61. I attended eight different public schools and only moved once. Our small town school district in Texas changed the elementary school boundaries yearly in an attempt to achieve racial diversity. Because of this, I never had the experience of walking to the neighborhood school.
62. I learned to ride a two wheel bike all in one day when I was five. Up until then I had a tricycle, and I got a two wheeler for Christmas. But the company left the training wheels out of the box, which wasn't figured out until late on Christmas Eve, so my good sport of a dad ran behind me all day long while I learned how to use my Christmas present.
63. The first car I bought was a stick shift. My mom had to teach me how to drive it.
64. My favorite soft drink is Sprite from a soda fountain. Bottled or canned Sprite is too fizzy.
65. I don't like cola. I grew up in a no-caffeinated beverages house, and the first time I ever tasted Coke was at a birthday party. I had my first sip, leaned over to the friend sitting next to me at the table, and whispered, "This is really gross root beer." She looked at me like I was from Mars, and replied, "It's Coke."
66. I love the feeling of a cold pillow on a summer night.
67. I grew up eating my Grandma Shirley's homemade boysenberry jam, and didn't like any other flavors until I was an adult. Now I make and eat strawberry and raspberry freezer jam, but I still only like homemade and I still like my grandma's the best.
68. I like kids' cereal dry by the handful and occasionally for breakfast. But what I really love (and honestly, I do love it) is grown-up cereals like Wheat Chex, Grape Nuts, Cracklin' Oat Bran, Crunchy Corn Bran, and plain Cheerios.
69. Another thing I like for breakfast but rarely have is hot chocolate and two slices of toast. Butter the toast, cut it in half, and dunk it in the hot chocolate...Mmmmmm.
70. One time in high school I had really bad gas and made a big deal about how bad the room stank to a big group of friends. It took me an hour and a change of location to realize that I was the reason the room smelled so terrible.
71. I use self tanning lotion every 3 days during the summer because my legs are so white. Best $7 I ever spent was on my first bottle of that stuff.
72. I didn't know you were supposed to tip the pizza delivery man until after I was married. Nathan was shocked and dismayed.
73. I have really straight hair. So straight that no matter how long I leave the curlers in/curling iron on, the curl is gone after a few hours. Even if I use a lot of expensive hairspray.
74. If I give a compliment, I always truly mean it.
75. I can suck a Tootsie Roll pop all the way to the Tootsie center without biting it.
76. I voted for Gore in the 2000 Presidential Election. Later, when he acted like such a petulant baby about the recount, I wished I hadn't.
77. I think Twinkies are greasy yellow torpedoes of yuck.
78. It takes me about a year to get back to pre-pregnancy form after I have a baby. I know this, yet it still makes me sad. Every single time.
79. I have to buy short or petite length pants, and even so, some might say they're a tad long on me. If I buy regular inseam pants, I have to cut off at least 4 inches and hem them.
80. I love all four seasons equally. It may be from when we lived in Texas -- it was summer or scorching summer for about 10 months out of the year. The other three seasons had to share the remaining 8 weeks. Though I like each season in its time, I do particularly love the smell of autumn.
81. Stains frustrate me.
82. I am a rule follower, and I think others should be too.
83. I was fired from my very first job because of a misunderstanding with a customer. I was so embarrassed; and I cried for two days afterward.
84. I was picked from the crowd at MarineLand (a now defunct attraction park similar to SeaWorld) to touch and feed a dolphin. On a trip to Universal Studios Hollywood I was chosen from the audience to ride the bike from E.T. in front of the green screen. I don't recall being chosen for anything since.
85. I thought it was embarrassing when my mom bought me deodorant for the first time. I remember hiding it in my underwear drawer, red faced, looking over my shoulder and hoping no one could see.
86. I love to sing alto, but I usually end up singing soprano because I can still sing in that range.
87. I make up silly songs and put my kids' names in them. Sometimes they like it, sometimes they don't. It's a family tradition. My dad used to make up weird songs, and we would groan about it. I didn't realize I was doing it just like he did until I'd already been singing my silly songs for 2 or 3 years!
88. I fear loneliness and boredom.
89. I hate laying out in the sun to get a tan. I never seem to tan, and mostly I just get hot and sweaty. Plus it's boring.
90. I grew up during the low-fat & fat-free weight loss media craze, so eating cheese makes me feel guilty.
91. I loved playing Barbies. I played with them until I was way to old to play with Barbies. Seriously, like I'm not even going to say the age. I will say that I haven't played in at least a week. :-)
92. In Texas, every girl over the age of 8 carried a purse. In Utah, girls don't carry purses until at least high school, and often not until college. When we moved to Utah and I showed up at my new junior high school with my purse, I got more than a few strange looks. The next day, I left the purse home.
93. I don't like the fantasy genre as a general rule, but I do like the Harry Potter books.
94. I graduated from college having never taken a Calculus class.
95. I hate being told what to do. As a little girl on timeout in my room, when my mom would say I had been there long enough, I would stay on my bed for longer. I was going to show her I could come out when I was good and ready to come out, not because she told me I could. I don't know who I thought I was punishing...
96. I love guacamole so much that for years I would base my entree choice at Mexican restaurants on whether the dish came with guacamole. I was in my twenties before I realized that guacamole can be ordered as a side item, too! (Duh.)
97. I can't not answer the phone, even though I have caller ID.
98. Wearing flip flop style sandals hurts my feet. I always feel like they're going to fall off, so I curl my toes under slightly. By the end of the day, I have a cramp in each big toe.
99. I usually order ice water at restaurants for two reasons: 1. I am cheap. $1.50 all around the table adds up quickly. Even if I'm not the one paying, soft drinks are not a good value. 2. I'd rather eat my calories than drink them.
100. I love my immediate and extended family more than anything. Nathan and I spend most of our free time together, and often at home. And even though we've been married for 9 years, we still take long weekends and vacations with both sides of our extended families, sometimes more than once a year.
Whew. 100 things is a lot of things.
