Some of Me

GrandPooOfAwesome of It's All Relative? has a great new look with my favorite color. I ran into her online awhile back and encouraged her to just keep writing because she likes to. She asked me to blogroll her which I did. Apparently she likes the show Grey's Anatomy as I do. In Greys Anatomy Dr. Burke tells Meredith that there's nothing she could reveal about herself that he wouldn't want to know. GrandPooOfAwesome reveals her own stuff and then asks, "what should I know about you"?

I'm in the spirit of giving these days so I'll share:

*I love history and geography. I watch the history channel all the time. I also love the National Geographic channel and I DVR shows from both every week. I actually play around at Sheppard Software, taking geography quizzes or seeing how many U.S capitals I can remember. My children want to know why I do this when I don't have to do "school" anymore. They think I'm nuts. It satisfys my need to absorb things. I love learning. I have to be stimulating my mind constantly. It's not always a good thing when I want to relax or spend time with people, because my mind is often wondering off and into an entire different direction. My husband is always telling me to choose. Either I'm reading my book or watching the movie with him. I can't do both. I certainly try to.

*I'm a very good multi-tasker.

*I love to read. I can't cope without reading. For me, reading is like a breath of fresh air while standing in a smoke filled room. If I find a really good book, chances are I'll totally lose all concept of time and reality happening around me. I lose track of time, I forget to eat, I ignore my house, and I snap out of it long enough to feed my family peanut butter and jelly for dinner. Actually peanut butter and jelly sandwiches have been a regular fixture in this house for longer than I'd care to admit.

*Which brings me to reveal that I really don't like to cook. It has taken me years to figure that out. I know that sounds ridiculous, how can a person be thirty-two and not know they're not fond of cooking. It's true. I love the idea of whipping up a variety of fabulous dishes. The evidence is in my closet. I collect cookbooks. I have a whole bookcase full of them. I have about twenty folders full of holiday meal recipes and every other kind of recipe that you can think of. I have torn out recipes from my favorite magazines for years, then placed them in clear plastic liners and put them into binders. I have binders for chocolate desserts, muffins, fruit dishes, pies, cakes, cookies, soups, stews, vegetarian meals, chicken, ethnic, kid-friendly dishes, Easter menus, Christmas menus, Thanksgiving menus, and everyhing in between. If it exists, I probably have a recipe for it. And most likely, I've never even tried to make it. What kind of person collects hundreds upon hundreds of recipes and never even tries to make any of them?

One suffering from mental illness that's who. It's my dirty little secret. I'm a recipe hoarde. I think I like the idea of cooking more then I like actually cooking. Or maybe I just hate the prep part. Come to think of it, once I'm cooking it's not so bad. When it comes to the choosing, shopping, washing, chopping, measuring, and all the mess made as a result of preparation, I end up exhausted and reaching for the take-out menu folder.

I love to bake though. Go figure. I make the most fabulous cookies, muffins, breads, cobblers, and pastries this side of europe.

*I'm into trivia. I always have been and it's not something I conscientiously work at. I just seem to remember useless facts that for some reason or another, I find interesting. At times, I will blurt out these useless facts to innocent bystanders. I think a by product of my love of reading is the tendency to gain knowledge most people find insignificant. I then feel I must share with other people.

Like, did you know that Einstein approved the mold that is used for the Toblerone chocolate bar? Or that coffee beans are really the seeds of the coffee cherry? Coffee came from Ethiophia, not South America like many people think.

Did you know that it took approximately 70 days to mummify a person? Or that the first Egyptian King's tomb made of stone was Djoser's Step Pyramid, built around 2680 B.C? It was the first true Pyramid, the smooth shape didn't come until the reign of King Sneferu.

Greenland is the world's largest Island. Despite its name, it's nearly completely covered in ice.

The leading producers of cobalt ore, uranium and zinc ore is Canada.

Mauna Kea in Hawaii is the world's highest mountain measured from the sea floor. The total height of Mauna Kea is 33, 481 ft, but only 13, 796 ft of the mountain can be seen above sea level. Of course Everest is the mountain we all think of as being the highest, followed by Mt. Kilimanjaro in Africa. But, Mauna Loa is the world's single largest mountain.

Costa Rica has no army, unless it was reestablished since I last learned about it. After their civil war the army was abolished in 1948.

Nollaig Shona Duit means Happy Chrsitmas in Irish.

None of that was probably information that is useful or new to all people. Nor do most people care to have someone randomly share useless facts that their brain spits out intermittently. I never just ramble these things at people, but if something remotely connected comes into the conversation, my mind retrieves the data and depending on how I'm talking to, I'll just let them have it.

*I love movies. Since I am a Chrisitan, being a movie lover can be complicated. I feel the need to be careful with my choices, but I do watch a lot of movies that many of my staunch evangelical peers will not. For a lot of Christians, even Veggie Tales is questionable. I won't sit and watch something that relies heavily on using the Lord's name in vain, is riddled with foul language or gratuitous s*x. But, I do watch R-rated movies. I am inexplicibly attracted to a good story. A story full of humanity and struggle. Stories full of love and loss. Hope and heart. Stories full of the darker realities of our world, our minds, our hearts. Stories full of humor and the lighter side of life. I dedicate movies to people. I have an endless list of movies that I reach for in times of depression, celebration, certain moods, seasons of the earth, and seasons of life.

* I didn't get my driver's license until I was twenty. I learned on a stick shift, but after I almost snuffed out an old lady crossing the street I decided an automatic was a better option for me. And the shorter and slower moving people of San Diego.

* By the time I was twenty I had three children.

* I hate coffee. Once when I was about six or seven and my mom was trying to apply for social security death benefits for my dad, a receptionist offered me a cup of coffee. She had a sly expression that said, "I can see you want some. I won't tell your mother." I went over to the coffee pot, poured the coffee into a little paper cup with a handle and drank it as is. It was the most disgusting thing I had ever tasted in my short life. And I had been forced to eat pond fish with beets!

Perhpas the woman was being kind. Or maybe she was just bored. I think I saw a look of amusement on her face. I do love the smell of good coffee though but I won't even try to have any unless it's an iced mocha frap from Starbucks. Or unless it involves alcohol. Does Irish coffee count?

*Hot cocoa is my hot drink of the moment. The more whipped cream the better. I'm also a huge tea drinker. I drink black and green tea daily. I'm also a recovering chai addict.

*I'm a perfectionist, yet my house rarely stays clean and organized longer then two days. Which makes me regularly go insane.

* I'm intensely private. Which is ironic because I share intimate details of my life with complete strangers, and I have no idea why. Even more ironically, I don't share my blog with most of family and only half of my friends. I am very private about my house. I don't like it when anyone uninvited stops by. I keep my blinds partly shut and I screen all my calls. I would prefer to have a huge distance between my house and my neighbors. Say, like three miles.

* I first tired alcohol when I was about fourteen and visiting my grandparents in Michigan. I was having trouble sleeping because of the three hour distance and I did what I saw everyone in my family do. I reached for something intoxicating. I snuck into some of my grandpa's scotch whiskey. After a few nights of bedtime shots my friend and I got stupid and tried to see who could drink it faster. After feeling like my head was in a hoola-hoop competition, and watching her throw up greasy hamburger chunks, I not only didn't drink again for ages, I haven't drank whiskey since. I also worried that I had killed enough brain cells to insure failure in highschool geometry. My grandma never made a big deal about it nor punished us. She just made us clean up that disgusting aftermath, which was punishment enough.

* I've been with my husband since I was fifteen. I've wanted to divorce him and re-marry him at least a dozen times. But, I've held in there every time.

* I keep my christmas tree up until after New Year's.

*Purple is my favorite color. Followed by pink and then black.

* I can't stand lying. I think God is testing my patience and unconditonal love since my second child has practically been a compulsive liar since she could speak.

* I loathe commericals. Most people do I'm sure. But I'd rather pause the TV (gotta love DVR) and wait until I can fast foward to the show. This drives my husband nuts.

* I like to look up the meaning of words and browse through the dictionary.

* When I was younger I wanted to be a f-14 pilot, teacher, nurse, photo journalist, and dancer among many other things. I ended up a mom.

*I have been known to be brutally honest. I'm also a great listener and rarely judge others.

* My worse quality would probably be my tendency to be snarky and sarcastic. Or my propensity towards procrastination.

* I'm terrible about sending out thank you cards. I'm thankful. I really am. I'm also thinking of you on your birthday. I just think my telepathic abilities have evolved further than they really have.

*I'm the queen of typos. I think I'm in the hall of fame now. My friends razz me all the time. They're just all forks.

* I'm obsessive about taking pictures. Family and friends put me in charge of taking pictures at gatherings because of this and usually by the end of the day I've made a few enemies. Curiously, some people don't like it when you keep walking about the room, randomly taking pictures of them, especially if they are drunk or bending over. Or both. I also have a very hard time throwing out pictures, even when they aren't good. It's a sickness.

*I think I might be vain. Even though I don't like to admit it. I love to swim. Love, love, love to swim. As a child growing up in San Diego I practically lived at the beach. I was a fish. Yet, I haven't been in a bathing suit in public for about six years or more. I have a hard time dealing with the fact that my body went from Barbie to Mrs. Potatohead. This is not a good thing since I have children who also love swim and want a mom around. Who else is going to survive the onslaughts of LOOK AT ME-LOOK AT WHAT I CAN DO-WATCH THIS every two minutes.

That's enough of me for now.