20 Things About Me

I don't know why, but I just felt like writing a post like this today. I didn't even get one of those email forwards or anything. Maybe it's more for my own journaling purposes so my descendants will know more about me (if they ever bother to read my journals that is). I'm sure I'm leaving lots of things out, but this is what I came up with off the top of my head. Anyway, here are some things about me that you may or may not already know:

1) Fall is my favorite season of the year. Holidays galore, yummy foods, beautiful nature, plenty of great picture taking opportunities, and of course, the icing on my fall pumpkin cake - football. :)

2) Speaking of football, I love it. I wish it were a 12 month a year sport. I play fantasy football and am very competitive about it. I consider myself an honest person, but during football season I give thanks to all those hackers out there who stream the games online so I can watch them (since we don't have cable). Also, Scott and I went to rival Pac-10 schools and when our schools play each other we are not friends. Well, I'm not friends with him. He's much nicer than I am. And I'm a sore loser when my team loses. I'm still not completely over the 2OT loss to his team from last November.....

3) Getting hugs, kisses, cuddles or nice compliments from my sons makes me all melty and mushy inside.

4) Scott is gone a lot between work, bishopric duties and school. I really don't like having him gone so much, but there is one sweet little side effect that I do relish. On the nights he's not home I don't have to make dinner. The boys are more than happy to eat chicken nuggets, frozen pizza, corn dogs or even mac and cheese. And we always eat off paper plates so I don't have to do extra dishes. Something that wouldn't fly if Scott were home.... :)

5) I love Christmas music and I love to listen to all the classics. My favorite Christmas cd is Clay Aiken's. Seriously. His voice is amazing and he sings the songs in such a pure and beautiful way. The way they should be sung. None of this hip-hop Christmas or country Christmas or Elvis Christmas. I just like them the way they were intended to sound. Call me a snob if you must.

6) My favorite restaurant is Gustav's. It's german food and I would eat there 3 times a week if we could afford it and if Scott would agree to it. It's not his favorite, but he's been great about indulging my Gustav's cravings during this pregnancy. Their chicken schnitzel w/spaetzle noodles and braised red cabbage makes me happy. Literally, eating that food alters my mood. :)

7) Speaking of cravings, I've had a few that I've noticed during this pregnancy. At the beginning, it was anything citrus. I'd blow through cartons of OJ and Newman's Own Virgin Lemonade and Limeade. Like 3 a week. I couldn't get enough. Besides that and Gustav's I've also been really big on croissants with prosciutto, shrimp, and pop. Unfortunately the pop gives me terrible heartburn, so I have to weigh that decision every time - "Is it really worth it?" The answer is usually yes, followed by about 5 tums. With Mister I craved fruit punch flavored Gatorade (by the gallon, let me tell you), southwest eggrolls from a restaurant near our house and jalapenos on my sandwiches. Which also gave me terrible heartburn, but somehow I always wanted them anyway. And I don't even like spicy food. With Pumpkin I craved cherry Icees. A slurpee would also do in a pinch, but I preferred Icees. No other flavor was acceptable.

8) I've lived in the Pacific Northwest for over 8 years now, and I consider myself to be used to all the rain now, but I can't deal with it the way the natives can. I refuse to go for a walk in the rain without an umbrella (something a lot of natives don't even own, let alone use). I don't like to let the kids play outside in the rain (especially since I have to be out there with them). They beg and beg and beg, but to me, rain equals indoor play time. If it's not too cold, I'm ok with it, I'll just stand under my umbrella while they splash and play, but when it's in the 40s or colder, that's where I draw the line. It'll be pouring rain and half the time I have to force my kids to put on their raincoats and close-toed shoes. They're just fine in a t-shirt and flip flops, thank you very much. But strangely, my favorite time to go on a hike is in the rain. There's usually so many trees making a canopy that you don't get wet much at all, plus the trails are usually deserted. Big bonus. :)

9) I long to travel somewhere, anywhere, that involves an airplane to get there. I was fortunate enough to grow up traveling the world and I get itchy feet when I don't get to travel as often as I'd like. But these days, having to pay for the trips myself, combined with low funds and small children, that doesn't happen much anymore. At this point I'd be excited to fly to Boise - I miss all the anticipation that goes into preparing for a trip that involves an airport. Somehow a 7 hour drive with young kids just doesn't have the same ring to it. :) Oh well, all in good time. We all have to pay our dues, I understand.

10) I love learning languages and all about other cultures. I speak English (obviously), Spanish and Norwegian fluently. I can understand and read Swedish and Danish, and have also studied Portuguese, French and German. I think that's one of my major talents in life, is learning new languages. They just come naturally to me. When my kids are all in school someday, I'd love to take up French again. I loved that language and I was sad when I graduated from college and didn't have the opportunity to study it every day anymore.

11) I am a nerd. I loved school, especially when I got to college and could choose which subjects I wanted to take. I absolutely love learning about history. I minored in humanities (even though I was already a double major) just for fun because I loved the classes offered so much. I graduated magna cum laude. But at the same time I made time for a social life. I was in a sorority in college and definitely had fun with my girlfriends. My favorite board games are Scrabble and Trivial Pursuit. I've been known to play those games by myself, and I've also been caught browsing through dictionaries and foreign language verb conjugation books just for fun.

12) I have studied abroad twice in my life. I was an exchange student in Norway during my junior year of high school and in Spain during my junior year of college. I loved living in Europe and I have a very special place in my heart for those two countries in particular.

13) I married younger than I ever thought I would. I was 23 (yikes!) at the time but when you know, you know, right? I was 23 and Scott was 22 (yes, I robbed the cradle a bit) which is crazy young, but we just celebrated our 7 year anniversary, and 8 years together, earlier this month and I have never regretted the decision we made. I wouldn't say it's an ideal age to marry, but it's worked out well for us. :)

14) I have some funny food quirks. I like my meat and cheese sandwiches prepared a very specific way or I don't enjoy them as much. I like my mom's egg salad and chicken salad better than anything I could ever make myself. Even if I follow her recipe, they just don't taste the same. I'm not big on steak and will generally never order it at a restaurant. Sadly, that's Scott's favorite food. On the nights I don't feel like cooking I'll just put some dry rub on a steak and let him grill it up when he gets home. I don't like potatoes (another of Scott's favorites). Not mashed, not baked, not scalloped, not in potato skins, not in soups, etc. I like french fries, tater tots and hash browns, but those must be crispy and fried so as to not taste too much like an actual potato. I refuse to eat bananas or have them in smoothies. They are too slimy. Strangely though, I love banana bread and my mom's chocolate chip/banana pancakes.

15) I'm very temperature sensitive when I sleep. If the room is too hot I have the most horrific nightmares about my children dying or me trying to save them from some impending disaster. For a while I was having them so often that one of the main reasons I was working out (aside from trying to lose weight and be healthy) was to ensure that I'd have the stamina and/or lung capacity to save them should such a disaster ever actually happen. Crazy? Paranoid? Maybe, but it made me feel better anyway.

16) I never liked working out until after Pumpkin was born. I'd tried many times in my life to force myself to like it. I'd make myself do it for months, hoping it'd become a habit that I didn't mind. It never took. But for some reason after Pumpkin was born I would work out and think "hey, this doesn't suck." So I stuck to it and eventually started to enjoy it. One of my favorite workouts is to run along a 3 mile nature trail here in town with my friend. We'd go early on a Saturday morning and run 6 miles together - the length of the trail and back again. I can't wait to be done being pregnant so I can take up running again. I really miss it, strangely enough.

17) I am a big fan of naps. I take one whenever possible. But I'm no good at catnaps. I need it to be at least an hour of sleeping time. So factoring in time to fall asleep and then come out of the grogginess, I need at least an hour and a half. Otherwise I feel more tired afterward.

18) I love spending time with my family. Not just my immediate family of husband and children. I love my parents, siblings, in-laws, etc. I've been blessed with family that I genuinely enjoy being around. I wish we lived closer to more of them and I get so excited whenever we go see them or they come see us.

19) I am terrible at keeping in touch with people who don't live near me. I'm not good at calling or emailing, generally. I do have one friend who's been my friend for about 20 years now (am I old enough to say that?!) that I write letters to. She's the only person I've ever really done that with and we write back and forth often. I have to say, I love getting a nice hand-written letter in the mail instead of the usual bills and junk mail. It all started back in high school when I went to Norway. She was the only one who wrote to me - I'd get her letter and sit down that night and write back, then she'd do the same. We did it again when I was in Spain, and now as adults living far away. It's a wonderful little tradition we have going on. :) But with all this distance between family and friends I'm so glad to have blogs and Facebook to keep up with everyone. It's so much easier and makes the distance between us feel smaller.

20) I love photography. I got a dslr camera 2 years ago for Christmas and I've been having so much fun learning to take beautiful pictures. I love to read books about photography, lighting, exposure, aperture, seeing things creatively, etc. I find it all so fascinating. I like to take my kids out and do little mini photo shoots with them just to practice. Mister is really good about smiling for the camera now. All I have to do is point it in his direction and he'll smile for me. Pumpkin is a work in progress in that department. Fortunately he's getting old enough now to understand the value of bribes, and it's slowly coming along. As much as I love photography, I've only done portraits for others twice. I feel like my own pictures are great, but I feel so much pressure when I'm doing them for others that I feel like they don't turn out as well as I'd like them to. So I want to practice with others for a while first, but eventually I'd like to start earning a little money on the side with photography. Lately though, with how big and uncomfortable I'm feeling, all that sounds like a lot of work and not much fun. I'm looking forward to the new baby's arrival so I can get back into it again.

Ok, I hope I didn't bore you to tears with that novel I just wrote. Sorry for no pictures again. They're still stuck on my external hard drive and we can't figure out our home computer but don't have the extra money right now to get it fixed, so the pictures will just have to wait.