110 random things about me (in which i am rather rambling)

hello.
this could take a while...

1) i like to write and type in lowercase
2) i like the colors pink and green, separately and together, but i was never even remotely interested in being in a sorority
3) however, i do wear hand-me-down sorority tees (from my sister, 12 years my junior) quite often...in fact, i have one on right now...and it is pink!
4) that being said, i would make for a pretty good episode of “what not to wear”
5) i am 37 ½ years old and my wardrobe can hardly be considered “grown up”…sometimes this bothers me, but mostly, not
6) i can fall asleep in the tub, but rarely ever get the chance to…the last time that i did, a little finger dipped down into the water to poke me awake; that little finger belonged to eme who wanted me to bring her back to bed, which brings me to the fact that
7) all 3 of our girls have always slept with either both or one of us or with each other…all together, they have spent (and this is very generously overestimated) a month’s worth of nights in a crib. in fact, for cate, we didn’t even bother to put up the crib
8) this whole sleeping together thing is not for everyone, but it works for us. granted, it will be nice when all 3 of the girls will sleep together and we get our bed back for us
9) i have spent 2 ½ years (and counting) of my life nursing 3 children…i cannot even put into words what this means to me
10) it’s probably been more than 5 years since i have had a beer (see previous random thing)
11) i enjoy a good beer
12) being a mom is the most important (and scary, and rewarding, and difficult, and tiring, and wonderful, etc.) thing i have ever done
13) i would like to think that i am pretty good at it
14) october 2008 was a busy time for us: my youngest sister, celie was married, eme was 3 (on the 8th), lily was 5 (on the 15th), we had our 9th anniversary (on the 16th), and cate was born on the 17th
15) we got to the hospital at 3 a.m. and cate was born at 4:16 a.m. …if it would have been allowed, we would have come home that afternoon
16) i sometimes feel guilty that all 3 of my pregnancies and deliveries were so easy (even though lily’s wasn’t quite as easy as eme’s and cate’s)
17) i sometimes feel guilty about silly things
18) i have 3 girls, i am one of 3 girls, my mom is one of 3 girls, and so was my maternal grandmother (although she also had 3 brothers)
19) the girls’ full names have 5, 6, and 7 syllables (what can i say? i like long names, but also nicknames): lillian florence (lily), emilie catherine (eme), catherine elisabeth (cate), and yes, two of my children share my first name, and one shares my middle name
20) and they all share my maiden name too, as the guy i married has the same last name as me
21) i’ve always liked my name (lucky me)
22) except for the year i was in 6th grade and a certain boy used to always call me “flo” and do the whole “kiss my grits” routine
23) “alice” was never a favorite show of mine, even though i did like mel, but that vera…definitely one of the most annoying characters ever
24) back to #20, wade and i have been together for most of my time in high school, then college, and after (12 years), and in 2009 we will be married 10 years…so, for more than half of our lives we have been together. awesome.
25) i am so very grateful to have the life that i do
26) before i stayed home with our girls, i taught elementary school (6th and 4th grades) for 8 years
27) i miss teaching, but not school (if you are a teacher in a public school, i don’t need to explain), but mostly, i miss my students
28) i feel so fortunate that i have the opportunity to stay home with our girls…while it’s not the best choice for everyone, it’s the perfect one for me, and i would never want to have it any other way
29) once i had children, i quickly came to realize that the right choice is the one that is the best for you and your family
30) i try not to be judgmental (but i have a really hard time dealing with ignorance)
31) i don’t always succeed, but i think that i am a fair person
32) while being home with my girls all day long is far from idyllic, so many moments throughout each day make me feel so proud to be their momma…they are wonderful, creative, sweet, thoughtful, funny, bright people, and quite frankly, i adore them
33) but i do yell sometimes
34) i usually do not give a fig about what other people think about me, but sometimes i do care
35) i think that kindness is under-rated and that, more than likely, the mightiest word is love
36) i don’t care to hear poems read aloud; i appreciate poetry much more when i can see the written word…case in point is elizabeth alexander’s poem written for barack obama’s inauguration (see the last 5 words of #35). beautiful.
37) i do adore the written word and think that my girls do also
38) we have over 1000 books in our home…yes, i counted. maybe 20 of those are for wade (and that’s probably an over-estimation)
39) i read “to kill a mockingbird” at least once a year… it always feels as though i am reading it for the first time
40) i adore (ADORE!) neil gaiman…i have 2 books that he has signed, one with a drawing of a rat holding a balloon for my birthday
41) before i was married, i spent way too much money on buying the original Sandman comics (i think that i have all but 2) and the trade paperbacks
42) i much prefer the term, graphic novel, to comic book
43) the newest books to come into our house were for christmas…a few for the girls, illustrated by lisbeth zwerger (amazing illustrator) and one for me, “stitched in time” by alicia paulson (one of my favorite bloggers)
44) i think that the community of art/craft/momma blogs defies words, and over the past few years, it has become a part of the fabric of my days
45) i have never kept a written journal (except for in english classes, and that is a totally different animal)
46) i started a blog in july of 2008…i suppose that it is my journal, but really it is so much more
47) i have made amazingly wonderful, generous, and kind friends through this whole blogging phenomenon (if someone 5 years ago would have told me that i would be writing this, i would surely have given that person a “yea, right” look)
48) i hope to actually get to sit down and visit with some of those ladies, on the porch at clotilda (you know who you are)
49) i spend way to much time on flickr (and now facebook, which probably deserves a number of its own, but i just can’t go there)
50) it’s really easy to spend time throughout the day on the computer when it is in the kitchen and one has a 3 ½ month old breastfeeding baby who only naps while being held
51) i am sometimes inspired to the point of being paralyzed (flickr and blogs can do that to a girl)
52) even though i will be 38 this summer, am married, and have 3 children, i still think of myself as a girl
53) i like to go to the movies alone
54) i saw the last harry potter movie alone at 11 p.m. (thanks, wade!)
55) while getting out of my car to go to that movie, i witnessed 2 drunken teenagers, presumably boyfriend and girlfriend, yelling at each other. the girl started to hit the guy, and i yelled at them that i was going to call the police if they didn’t quit it immediately. the girl’s friends dragged her away, and the beaten-guy and another girl and guy were left. i could tell that he was furious, so i talked to him for a bit. he actually calmed down and listened to me. then he thanked me. can you believe that? i got back in the car for a minute, not quite believing what i had just done, and extremely thankful that it all worked out.
56) i find it next to impossible to see/hear something that is just so wrong and not do anything about it
57) sometimes i think that i should mind my own business
58) i was paid to draw a design to be printed onto fabric…1000 yards of fabric; it hasn’t been printed and likely never will
59) i was tremendously flattered that someone thought me capable of creating a design to be printed on 1000 yards of fabric, and in the process i met an inspiring businesswoman and lovely friend who creates "sweet clothing for hip girlies" (which my girlies have been the lucky recipients of)
60) the greatest disappointment in my life was due to a language barrier (see #58)...not between her and me, though
61) i feel incredibly fortunate that in 37 ½ years, i have only had one really big disappointment
62) i miss my grandmothers so very much, and i think of both of them every single day
63) if i could ever see a ghost, i would want it to be my aunt leesie…she is in my heart and on my mind daily
64) my 2 cousins (her daughters), becky and claire, are like my sisters
65) i wish that colorado and london were not so far away as i miss having my actual sisters around
66) i have lived in south louisiana all of my life and feel incredibly blessed because of it…i don’t think that i could ever live anywhere else
67) my mom and dad are remarkable people
68) i am the oldest…i am 4 years and 1 day older than my middle sister and 12 years older than my youngest sister (does this sound like a math problem? don’t worry…it’s not)
69) i am married to such a good guy, and he is also the best poppa ( i knew that a long time before we ever thought about getting married and having kids)
70) my heart sometimes feels like it will burst when i see him with lily, eme, and cate, especially when he plays “the spooky song” (his rendition for them of an old black sabbath song) on his guitar for them
71) i can listen to ben harper, the indigo girls, natalie merchant, paul simon (especially the graceland cd), elizabeth mitchell, dan zanes, and wilco for ever and a day
72) the radio in my car and in the house is always tuned to our local public radio/npr station…i love “this american life”, “a prairie home companion” and “wait, wait, don’t tell me”
73) at one time i had 12 pairs of doc martens…for our wedding reception, i wore the flowered boots
74) in junior high i rocked the multiple-swatch-watches-and-black-rubber-bracelets look
75) i didn’t take final exams my junior year because i was thrown from my horse and broke my collar bone…i still have a bump on my right shoulder, a get-well note from andre' dupont, and a decent chemistry grade on my report card to back this up (thank goodness wade was there when it happened)
76) the first horse that i owned was an ex-race horse, which i was reminded of every time i rode him along side of the railroad track (or any other straight-away, for that matter). i rode him one more time after my shoulder healed, and then i sold him shortly after
77) i have ridden a horse in the mountains of switzerland, but never on a beach
78) riding is the only sport that i have ever excelled in
79) i have had a dog, cats, a ferret, a hedgehog, a guinea pig, mice and rats for pets…rats were by far the best pets
80) one of my rats was hairless…i named her, scully, because she looked like an alien; celie used to call her, finkle…she is buried in the pet cemetery at my mom and dad’s
81) wade was (and is) allergic to all of the rodents, and the hedgehog…it took us quite a while to figure that out
82) my other rat, nimh, moved to colorado with my sister, sally, when we discovered wade’s problem…she is buried at turquoise lake
83) as much as i have always loved animals, we have no pets
84) when i was a kid, i wanted to be a horse trainer or an archeologist
85) i have been a maker of things for as long as i can remember
86) i love fabric, and i like the term, sewist…i sew for my girls but wish that i could have time to sew more
87) i *heart* polka dots and stripes, especially on children, preferably together
88) there are so many things that i still want to learn how to do
89) i can throw a decent pot on a potter’s wheel
90) i procrastinate
91) i am empathetic
92) i’m a pretty good speller
93) i have made 11 quilts, but lily, eme, and cate are yet to have their own
94) i joined an internet quilting bee so that i would complete some quilts for my girls this year
95) handsewing the binding onto a quilt may just be my most favorite part
96) i think that i enjoy handsewing so much because i am usually doing it in the midst of our daily life, often with a baby on my lap and children playing nearby…i really believe that the essence of this somehow imbues whatever i am making with an undeniable special-ness
97) sometimes i make up words
98) i always have some sort of handwork around, usually embroidery + sometimes knitting…i love the sound of a needle stabbing through fabric followed by the swish-y sound of thread being pulled through
99) my 20th class reunion is this year…i suppose that i will go
100) i wish that i knew more about my cameras. i take pictures daily, and i know enough to get by, but i would love to be better
100) i love to bake (and eat) fresh bread
101) i think that people have way more talents than they give themselves credit for
102) i drink too, too much diet caffeine-free coke
103) my hair used to be curly, but during and after 3 pregnancies, it is straight
104) i don’t own sunglasses, slippers, eye shadow or an i-pod, and my cell phone is so old that it’s been mistaken for a tv remote control
105) i love dr. who, in all his incarnations, but especially david tennent’s version of the doctor; torchwood is also a favorite…captain jack is quite the character
106) ”the princess bride”, “the crow”, “big fish”, “the nightmare before christmas”, "milo and otis", and “bringing up baby” are movies that i could watch over and over again
107) i am terrible at time management and stay up too too late (you don’t even want to know how long it took me to type all this up)
108) i could eat an avocado every day
109) i love to go to the thrift shop, which is what we call it instead of thrift store (thanks, dan zanes)
110) in 5th grade (i'm almost sure it was 5th), i was an angel for the christmas play

oh my goodness. did you actually read all of that? well, if there's anything else that you would like to know (be polite, please), just ask.