100 Things About Me

Since SP4 is about to start up I thought I'd go ahead and do this in the interest of putting more of myself out here for people who didn't already know me from LiveJournal before they started reading this blog.

1. I've done a list like this in the past. I think it was 2002, but I can't find it in the livejournal's archives so this is a whole new list.
2. I've had a blog at livejournal and before that at Diaryland since about 1999 or so. I opened my blogger account back then and never used it until this past year when I rediscovered it and decided to put all the knitting here.
3. I'm from Fort Smith, Arkansas. Growing up I always thought I'd move away from here and from the South in general as fast as humanly possible never to return. I was wrong...after traveling around a bit I figured out it's kind of nice here.
4. I love the low cost of living here and the fact that it's within driving distance of big city tyle bussle should I want that. At times I do wish we had a decent yarn store though.
5. I had my son Ian when I was just barely 20. He's 12 now. His father and I were never married, had only dated 6 months, and had just recently broken up when I found out I was pregnant. The first couple of years we had a hard time figureing out how this whole parenting thing would work. There was a lot of frustration and yelling etc. We've got it totally nailed down now. The relationships that my son and I have with him and my son's extended family is something I consider one of my greatests accomplishments in life.
6. I look way younger than I am and I don't really try too hard on the skin care front. I just wash my face and put moisturizer on the dry areas. Sometimes not even that much...I often fall asleep with makeup on.
7. I am frequently carded when buying cold medication because clerks think I might be under 18.
8. My husband is 43. (11 years my senior) He has been mistaken by hotel and store clerks for my Father. haha He hates that.
9. My Dad died in March 2001 from lung cancer. Both my parents have smoked for as long as I can remember. Mom still smokes, which I find amazing after watching her husband suffer and die, but whatever.
10. I'm relatively healthy for a girl who gets almost no exercise, but I am trying to make more of an effort to eat right and move around more this year.
11. I get a migraine headache about every 4-6 weeks. This is not something I can function through. I have to take meds and lay down in a dark room and sleep till it goes away. I get "halo" things that block out about 90% of my vision and it is considered a serious health condition for which I get to use Family Medical Leave time at work otherwise I'd be so fired.
12. I own a really awesome treadmill I bought last year, used for three months till I was relatively fit and then abandoned.
13. I gained 30 lbs since I quit walking and started eating chocolate every day, drinking regular cokes, and sitting on my ass. oops.
14. I own two houses.
15. The one I don't live in is next door to my Mom's house and is still full of junk I left there when I moved.
16. This year I plan on fixing up the extra house and renting it out to someone. This is kind of scary to me.
17. I was an art major in college but never finished after I got knocked up.
18. I work in a factory. It's really boring and not fun in any way but it pays ok.
19. My dream in life right now is that the husband will get a fabulous job which pays enough to take care of all our bills so I can stay home to take care of the house/sell junk on ebay then eventually open a nice yarn store here if nobody else has done it by then.
20. I've lived in my house for a year and still haven't painted any walls. They're all white and boring. I've only hung about three things on the walls too so they are also pretty bare.
21. I like mid-century modern stuff, but I tend towards a jumble of styles with probably too much clutter for anything to look realy modern once I've had a crack at it.
22. I've had lots and lots of different hair colors. It used to change almost weekly. Green, Red, Blue, Orange, Yellow etc etc
23. I have a lot of gray in my hair because when I was 18 my head was shaved and got sunburnt pretty badly.
24. I once hitchhiked with a friend from Reno to SanFrancisco, down to Santa Cruz, and back over the course of about two months. We mostly slept outside in parks and under bushes on freeway medians in our tent or under tarps in sleeping bags. This voluntarily homeless trek was really really fun and I don't regret it at all.
25. After that experience I have very little sympathy for most of the homeless. A LOT of the people we met along the way were there by choice (though they wouldn't tell you this), working the system, and had a ton of advice on how to get free stuff, avoid getting a job, and how to collect welfare in multiple states. It really was just a different lifestyle to them.
26. I am a libertarian.
27. I tried to learn to knit for about 7 years off and on before I finally figured it out in April 2004 with the help of videos I found online.
28. I love trashy tv stuff.
29. I used to wear a lot of black, but recently I just wear t-shirts and jeans or dresses and jeans all the time.
30. When I was growing up someone gave me a big stack of Teen and Seventeen magazines from the early-mid 70's. This was the early-mid 80's. I learned how to put on makeup and fashion stuff and about lots of no longer popular bands/actors from those magazines. I think that is why I was always just bit wacky with my fashion and tatstes later on.
31. I haven't painted in about ten years, but I recently bought supplies in an effort to have something to hang on my walls.
32. Art is about salesmanship. Its all kind of a scam, but I like it.
33. I know way too much about Andy Warhol and his hangers-on due to an obsession I had in high school/early college.
34. I also know way too much about beatniks and beat poets/writers due to another obsession I had.
35. Currently the obsessive nature is focused on knitting.
36. Since I started knitting I don't read many non-knitting related books. weird.
37. My current husband is husband #3...he's a keeper.
38. I've always wanted to have a nice garden like my Grandparents used to have. I buy seeds, plan, and then usually never plant it.
39. My bedroom is really really really disorganized. You don't even know...
40. I can make vegan versions of almost all traditionally non-vegan southern food including chicken fried steak made from chickpeas and oats and sausage made from blackeyed peas.
41. I am not vegan or even vegetarian.
42. I used to look pretty goth and still do sometimes even though I've never really identified myself as such. I just like black clothes.
43. I took a second job at a bookstore coffee shop mostly so I could learn about the different coffee drinks and not feel like such a dork when trying to order fancy coffee. I ended up meeting my current husband there.
44. The older I get the less I care what other people think of me.
45. I never really cared all that much to begin with so #44 is kind of scary to my family and friends.
46. I tell you what I think if you ask, so don't ask me if you don't want to know.
47. I'm not very attached to my material posessions...all that shit can be replaced.
48. When I was 13 I got braces and had them till I was 16..headgear, rubber bands, and all. I had really scary bad teeth before then.
49. I have a small collection of glass orbs...crystal balls and paperweights.
50. I have two cats. Miss Kitty Fantastico and Bungee
51. I like to go hiking and camping and do outdoorsy stuff, but I don't really identify myself as outdoorsy.
52. I sunburn super easily.
53. I can't swim.
54. I see dead people. For real. I'm not a flake about it though.
55. I sometimes just know stuff. I'm not a flake about that either.
56. I live right next to a cemetery. It starts on the other side of my back fence.
57. When I was a kid we had the ghost of a mute black man who liked to hang out at our house and play fun tricks on my Mom like hiding the last of the coffee. He once woke her up at night when I had a sudden high fever and I was rushed to the ER. The doctor said if they had let me go much longer I'd have bain damage. I remember seeing him in the hall when I'd get up to go to the bathroom at night. We called him "Ghost John" and I didn't realize this shit wasn't normal till I started kindergarten and made the mistake of talking to some other kids about him.
58. When I was 13-14 plastic items would fly across the room and hit me for no reason. It got very tiresome. The biggest was a penny bank shaped like a clown that flew about ten feet to smack me in the leg.
59. All that plastic stuff flying and hitting me freaked out some of my "friends". They stopped coming over and stopped having me come over to their houses. They would still see me at school, but kept their distance. This sucked.
60. The lady who was part of the scott peterson jury who has the bright cherry red hair makes me happy for some reason. Just seeing her hair cheers me.
61. I have one small tattoo.
62. I have two larger tattoos planned but I haven't gotten them yet...maybe I'll get one after I climb that mountain this summer.
63. I have to lose 30lbs and get in good enough shape by July or I'm not going to be able to climb that mountain.
64. I don't mind getting old.
65. Damn, I'm running out of stuff about me to tell you.
66. I like tea. Mostly black teas, but not earl grey. It tastes like shaving lotion.
67. I like caffeine. I refuse to give it up.
68. I don't think people should be trying to blame others for them being obese. If I'm fat it's my own fault for putting that crappy food in my mouth to begin with.
69. I'm a Certified Quality Technician.
70. I don't hold many grudges.
71. I'm not really a music person. I like music but it's not my life...I mostly only listen in the car or if I'm cleaning the house or something.
72. My favorite movie EVER is Harold And Maude.
73. I used to work as a Pre-Board Screener at the airport. I got paid minimum wage and the job itself sucked, but there was a lot of down-time during which I got to read many many books.
74. I found two guns in the three years I worked at the airport.
75. I have one sister. She lives in Oklahoma with her husband and three kids in a trailer on a bunch of land. They have horses and cows and stuff.
76. I'm the oldest, but people always think my sister is older because she wears a lot of makeup and still has 80's hair.
77. I'm Irish, Scottish, English, and Cherokee Indian mostly.
78. I hit back.
79. I can't swim. I sink like a rock despite my high body fat %.
80. I like to bake bread, but haven't made any in over a year. I'm not sure why.
81. I'm short...like 5ft3 at the tallest.
82. I handle stress very well.
83. When my Dad died I was the one who made all the phone calls to the funeral home, and to relatives to let them know he had died. This sucked, but I was the only one of the three of us able to do it. (see #82)
84. I like Thai food.
85. I like Mexican food too.
86. I don't like any type of seafood. If it lived in the water I'm not eating it.
87. I love my family.
88. That includes my son's dad, stepmom, sister, grandparents, uncle, and aunt.
89. I've helped lots of people move.
90. I love my house. It was built in 1952 and has a very 50's happy family vibe in it.
91. I knew this was my house the first time we came in to look at it.
92. I love my old house too even though it needs some work before I'm going to feel comfortable asking people to pay me rent to stay there.
93. I like to travel and see new places.
94. I also like coming back home.
95. I always want to keep learning new things.
96. I doubt I'll ever go back to college.
97. I wish there were more hours in the day for me to get all my projects done.
98. When I do have time off, I spend a large bit of it catching up on my sleep.
99. Desperate Housewives is about to come on so I need to finish this list.
100. YAY! I'm done!