25 things

i never heard what the guidelines were for this. and it really took me a while to come up with twenty five.

1. I won’t kill spiders. I took this class one summer where we had to pick a totem that we identified with – a project that involved some research and hocus pocus mumbo jumbo, but regardless I chose the spider for a couple of reasons. Recently I got up off the couch and moved to the other end so a spider could cross the length of the couch without me being in the way.

2. I cannot sleep if my feet are cold. And they wont just warm up.

3. I have only been homesick once that I know of. I was in New Zealand having a rough spot in a relationship with a stressful boy and couldn’t call anyone to vent because of the time difference and because of the extreme cost of calling someone with a cell phone (only mom has a land line).

4. One of the best parts of my travels was reading people’s comments on my blogs. It made me feel like my blogs were part of some conversation of sharing my travels. It greatly amused me that when staying with Hot Mel or Dawn & Adam, they were eager to read my finished blogs about them – even though they were there and what I was writing about.

5. I am very picky about toilet paper. It needs to be 2-ply and non-linty.

6. I cannot live without Q-tips – and they must be name-brand Q-tips. More than 2 days without cleaning my ears is torture… let’s be honest… 1 day is torture.

7. I don’t think I could handle shopping for a new wardrobe if I had to. Ninety percent of my clothes have come from my sisters. I swear the pants my sisters give me fit better than any pants I try to buy. Thank goodness for hand-me-downs.

8. I love stripes – on other people. Other than a few pinstripes, I will not wear them. I also for the most part, will not wear a patterned top. However, most of my underwear is patterned and patterned with stripes.

9. I have bad dreams or parts of dreams that are unpleasant more often than I have good dreams. I am often hiding or running from bad people. Thankfully I don’t remember most of them within five minutes of waking up (or thankfully because I could make millions in book sales).

10. I often daydream horrible things happening to myself and then plan all the possible outcomes of how I can react and maybe what others will do. For example, if I ever get hit by a car while running, I’ve got several plans that depend on the extent of my injuries and where I am along Cuckoo Road.

11. I do not particularly like touch raw meat. I do not eat a lot of meat. I will NEVER be a vegetarian.

12. Eyes and knees give me the heebie jeebies. I don’t want to touch them, dissect them, or think about knee caps rolling around. Yuck.

13. Ty Pennington’s home makeover show makes me cry. I also get weepy when I hear that good things happen to deserving people.

14. Don’t ask me where my next trip will be. I have so many places I want to visit and the order is constantly changing. There is so much to see!

15. I cannot bake without spilling flour everywhere or getting it all over me. I don’t try, it just always happens.

16. I love learning new things! That is why I enjoy PBS, NPR, National Geographic, museums, and nonfiction.

17. I love vegetables! While I don’t care for green beans – they don’t taste bad. Fruit on the other hand I have more issues with. I detest peaches and pineapple – I can’t even stand the smell. Most other fruits I don’t like the flavor or have an issue with the texture – though I am getting much better.

18. I really believe that processed food is really bad! And I’ve done such a good job of avoiding it that most processed foods I don’t even like anymore. Food without high fructose corn syrup really does taste better. I’ve even got mom reading labels.

19. I have large parts of the periodic table memorized, but I still have trouble with times tables and spilling words like piece and friend.

20. I really feel like I should move and live somewhere else, but I don’t know where to go. I thought in my travels I would find somewhere that I just couldn’t leave, but so far no luck.

21. The only class I have not taught is biology. As the end of each school year approaches I wonder what it is I will teach the following year – my first though is biology. 8th grade physical science was never on the list, but look I am currently teaching that. Now my first thought is seventh grade (which is biology also).

22. I sweat a lot. And I am sort of self conscious about it and sort of not. In my sweltering classroom armpit rings are mostly unavoidable, so though I think its gross I do my best to ignore them. My feet sweat a lot too and I am self conscious about how badly my feet smell after a long day.

23. I suck at sticking to a budget. If I see it and I want it, pretty much I’ll buy it. The only good thing about me not being able to stick a budget is that I do have mental limits on how much I will spend on something. And let me tell you, it’s hard to find things under ten dollars sometimes.

24. Baked goods are my arch nemesis. If it is baked and homemade I will eat and eat and eat. Mental limits don’t work. And me learning to bake… well that’s why I run.

25. I don’t think I will ever get tired of walking down the beach and looking for shells. Even though I have thousands, I still look. My favorite shells are not even whole – they are the little purple pieces. The purple pieces are where the adductor muscles of bivalves like clams and oysters attach – and they are the hardest part of the shell, which is why I guess they stick around.