100 Things About Me

Or however many I get to before I run out. I don't even know if I'll be able to come up with 100 things about me. We'll see.

1. My middle name is the same as my Grandma's middle name. I'm the only girl in my immediate family to have a middle name. I think it makes the others jealous.

2. One of my nieces also has the same middle name as me. I call her "my little namesake," even though our first names are different.

3. One of my other nieces really IS named after my grandma. I'm kind of jealous. It's a cute name. But I wouldn't have liked it when I was growing up.

4. I got my first name because my sister's best friend in first grade was named that and she liked it. I don't think my parents were terribly discerning about what they named us girls. One of my sisters got her name because my parents were expecting (wanted) a boy but got her instead and didn't know what to name her and they were listening to the radio in the hospital and a song came on that they liked so they named her after that.

5. But that's not as bad as some people I know who are crazy baby namers. One of their kids is named Trixie Petunia Pineapple and their latest one is called Ruby Buttercup. No, I'm not making that up. But it's not really about me either, so I'll move on now.

6. I have four sisters and one brother.

7. I am the youngest.

8. There is a 20 year difference between me and my oldest sibling.

9. I have 27 nieces and nephews.

10. My nieces and nephews are now getting married and having kids of their own. I have 15 grand-nieces/nephews. I think. There may be some I can't think of because there are so many. That number is likely to change soon.

11. I have short fingernails. I always have.

12. Luckily for me I can use my piano playing as an excuse for having really flimsy nails. And teeny nail beds. I could never be a hand model.

13. My hair is really fine. Baby fine, really. This means it's difficult to have it long. When I was a little girl, everyone wanted Dorothy Hamil's hair style. Including me. Then I just looked like a boy, which made me mad when people would ask my mom how old her little boy was.

14. I was a tomboy growing up. Was it from the short hair and always being mistaken for one? I don't know. I'm still kind of a tomboy, actually, but more girly. That doesn't make any sense.

15. I have worked for the same company for almost 10 years. At my 10 year anniversary, I will get a fancy dinner with my boss and a plaque with my picture on it and a pen. I will not get any extra vacation or a bonus. I don't like that idea very much.

16. I lived in Chile for 16 months.

17. I am fluent in Spanish--reading, writing and speaking. In fact, I can write it better than most native Spanish speakers.

18. My college degree is in Spanish. It was a no-brainer after living in Chile for 16 months. I tested out of the first 3 years of college Spanish in one afternoon.

19. But then it took me an additional 8 years to get my degree because I hate math. I had one math class I needed to take to get my bachelor's degree, and I put it off for 8 years.

20. Generally I am not a procrastinator. Just when it comes to doing something I don't want to. Usually I am pretty good at finding a back door for accomplishing things I don't want to. I was unable to that time.

21. I ended up getting an A in that stupid math class I put off taking for 8 years.

22. I got kicked out of BYU. No, not for that reason. It's because I didn't want to go to any of the GE classes. I was an A student for my major classes, and a D student in the others.

23. I thought my parents were going to be really mad when I had to make that call home. They weren't. They're very cool when they need to be.

24. My AA degree is in Broadcasting.

25. I ran the student AM station in junior college.

26. Come to think of it, school has always been an issue with me. I had to start kindergarten later than my parents wanted me to because my birthday was 2 days after the deadline.

27. My family used that year that I should have been in school but wasn't to teach me to read and write.

28. By the time I got into kindergarten the next year, I was a smarty-pants who was bored with the idea of playing in the sandbox and wanted to just read.

29. After testing me to make sure I wasn't crazy, the school let me combine kindergarten with first grade so the next year I just went directly into second grade.

30. I have never fully recovered from that. I went from being the oldest in my class to the youngest, so I always felt like there was something I just wasn't getting.

31. Then, to top it off, halfway through my second-grade year, I had to switch schools because of a change in the bus routes, believe it or not. I got put in the "dumb class" which meant my teachers stopped expecting great things out of me.

32. I used to work in a shoe repair shop. I liked it a lot -- I could read, and inbetween, got to polish shoes. Easy job.

33. I like reading. A lot. No, really. A lot a lot.

34. My favorite genre is mysteries.

35. I also like children's literature too, though, 'cause you don't have to put up with all the smut and stuff that comes pretty standard nowadays with adult novels.

36. I have two fat hairy cats. They shed a lot and have fishy breath, but they love me. And I them, come to think of it. They are not allowed to die, ever.

37. Those are the only pets I have had since I was a kid and we had a dog that we were taking care of for a family friend. I thought Pandora was mine and wasn't thrilled with the idea when her "real" owner came to get her after a few years. That sucked.

38. That's how old I am right now, until December 6.

39. December 6 is also Saint Nicholas' day.

40. I am not Catholic.

41. So why should I care about Saint Nicholas' day? Because that's Santa Claus and I love Santa Claus.

42. I prefer rainy days to hot days.

43. I live in southern California.

44. That poses a bit of conflict between the weather and my comfort during the summer months.

45. I like air conditioning.

46. My hands are generally cold.

47. I am an enigma wrapped in a puzzle. Okay, not really. I am just full of contradictions.

48. I taught early-morning seminary for 7 years. That's a church class for high school-aged students that takes place prior to school. At

5:50
. A.M. In the morning. That's early.

49. I am often tired.

50. I like naps.

51. I used to be athletic. "Used to be" only because I sit on my rear-end all day long now at a desk job. I still like sports; I'm just not so great at playing them due to gravity.

52. In high school I played softball, volleyball and basketball.

53. I only played basketball for one season though because it was stupid. I made the varsity team right off the bat, but didn't know that meant the coach was only using me for practice and pre-season games. As soon as the season started he moved me to JV where the coach was stupid and never let me play. So I didn't dress for the last game and gave the coach a piece of my mind and walked off the court just before game started. That was like three things right there for the price of one, so I'm skipping to number....

56. My junior year in high school, our softball team won our league championship. We did it with 11 girls on our team. Our team motto that year was "Put a cast on it and play." My thumb has still never really recovered from playing catcher for a professional fast-pitch pitcher during practices.

57. Neither have my knees.

58. I liked volleyball. It was fun. But I am short and not terribly good, so I don't really have anything to brag about.

59. I started golfing about four years ago after a lifetime of mocking it. I really like it a lot.

60. I now have bursitis in my hip from golf.

61. First thing in the morning getting out of bed, I resemble a 90-year old woman what with all the gimping, limping and moaning.

62. I have no tattoos.

63. My ears are double-pierced, but I only wear one pair of earrings.

64. When I get hungry I get very cranky. Sometimes there is no warning between the time I get hungry and the crankiness. Sorry about that.

65. I am snack-impaired. Because I get so hungry all of a sudden, if I start eating a snack I don't know how to stop until I am full. Then it's time for dinner or lunch or whatever, and even if I'm not hungry, it doesn't really matter because I was hungry like 20 minutes ago.

66. I could stand to lose some weight. I'm working on that right now.

67. I have fairly terrible handwriting. It's legible, but not pretty.

68. My fine-art abilities are about the same as a third grader. Maybe worse. Stick figures are a stretch for me.

69. I don't like going to the beach. I know. I can hardly believe that either.

70. I love being in the mountains.

71. I don't think I could ever live for a long amount of time in a land-locked state. I don't know why. It's not like I'm claustrophobic or anything. I can't even see the ocean from here most days. But when I picture a map of the United States and think about living somewhere in the middle of it, I get a little uneasy.

72. My idea of a great night out is dinner then a musical. A play or movie is good too, but unless I've had a nap before hand, I will almost always sleep during some of the play.

73. My favorite food is Mexican. Or Tex-Mex or Baja or whatever it is that we mostly have in California.

74. I also really like New Orleans style food. Mmmm, jambalaya.

75. I love mint-chocolate chip ice cream.

76. If there is only strawberry or vanilla ice cream in our freezer, I generally don't eat it.

77. I hate butter-brickle ice cream. What is that, anyway? It was (probably still is) my mom's favorite ice cream so it was always in the freezer. She was lucky I didn't like it or else she never would have gotten any.

78. My favorite hangout when I was a kid was either the library or the acacia tree in our front yard.

79. My favorite hangout now is the library. It would be a tree if there was one suitable for climbing where I live.

80. People always think I look like someone they know. I'm not and you don't, though. Nope, not even your sister's best friend from grammar school. Not her.

81. I frequently will sing silly songs and make up my own words. I enjoy doing that. Sometimes I come up with some really clever ones.

82. My friends often give me weird looks and I don't always know why.

83. What? What are you looking at?

84. Sometimes I am only funny to myself. Good thing I like myself.

85. I often think my two best friends are talking about me behind my back in front of me. They tease me about that, but seriously. Why are they whispering?

86. I was the first kid in my high school with a computer. Everyone else was still turning in hand-written essays while mine were all fancy-schmancy from the word processor. It was a Commodore 64.

87. I used to be able to type 90 words per minute.

88 - 92. Countries I have been to include: Canada (Victoria); Mexico (Rosarito, Ensenada and Nogales); France; England; and the Bahamas.

93. I am going to Guatemala this summer on an archaelogical dig.

94. In October, I am also going on a cruise to the Grand Cayman Islands and Jamaica.

95. I know. Cool, huh?

96. I have a great life. And not just because of the vacations.

97. I'm hungry, and it's lunch time and that's pretty darn close to 100.