25 Things About Me

Katie posted a note on her Facebook page, linking me to create this same post on mine, but I'm opting to create a blog post here instead. I don't much care for messing with the post thingy in Facebook. Plus, I know I enjoy reading multiple posts from the bloggers I follow, so I'm feeling the urge to contribute. So. Here goes.

1. I am deathly afraid of spiders. Everything about them. Their legs. Their bodies. Their eyes. Their fangs. I don't care if they intend to bite me or not... but I know they all do! Find a dead one in the corner all curled up and dusty? He's just been waiting for the element of surprise, and is playing opossum! I don't remember where this phobia came from, but my first memory of hating/being afraid of a spider was made into an epic picture book that my sister created when she was very, very young. It's amazing. See, there was this spider in the bathroom we shared. And I was too afraid of it to actually stomp on it (and that ridiculous rule still stands to this day), but somehow I could get close enough to it to put a drinking glass over it. And I did. And I forbid Kristen from moving that glass until the spider had officially suffocated. I mean, what sister wouldn't turn this incident into an epic tale of triumph over evil?

2. I love doing laundry. I love to separate clothes into piles according to color. I love to fold t-shirts so that they're all exactly the same size, and fit three-across in the dresser drawer. It's a formula that took quite some time to perfect, and I'm proud of it!

3. I love, love, love used, broken, and messy art supplies. Yeah, new colored pencils and markers and stencils and drawing pads are nice. But they don't have a history yet. Old art supplies have a special smell to them. I used to have a special red round tin box of crayons in the entertainment center at Mama & Papa's house when I was little. Right next to the Chinese Checkers board game I insisted on playing with Mama every time we were over. That crayon box had a smell that I can still smell to this day. Old, broken crayons with the papers ripped back. It's a heavenly image, a heavenly smell. Broken, messy art supplies tell a sweet story. They have been used and have been loved. And they've worked hard to make me happy. Thanks, guys.

4. I still want to sleep with Kristen on Christmas Eve. There was something magical in our house every Christmas morning. It was brighter, more cheerful, more alive, more special than any other morning. The lights on the tree were left on all night that night. And suddenly, on Christmas morning, there were two, maybe three times the number of gifts under the tree as were there the night before. Our mom's once-a-year coffee cake is served, with extra icing on top. Sleeping with Kristen usually didn't happen the whole night of Christmas Eve, but we would always end up together in a bed before the morning came. And I miss that, now that I have this... boy. Not hatin', just sayin'.

5. My favorite color is purple. If you didn't know this about me yet, where have you been? I rarely wear the color, but it's in just about everything I create. Our great room and kitchen are a beautiful shade of purple, and I never want to give it up. Purple is a warmish-cool color. Not too intense from either side. It's comfortable and soothing to me.

6. I hate it when I don't have polish on my toenails. For some reason, I just have to have my toenails painted all the time. Red, pink, maroon, blush, whatever. I think my feet lack something without that color at the very tips.

7. I'm obsessive about my teeth. They're perfectly straight. They're always brushed clean. But I still get this tee-ni-ny bit of tartar in between my two front teeth on the bottom, on the back side, and I mess with it constantly with the tip of my tongue. Going to have my teeth cleaned is great, and it's always such a relief to finally have that tiny bit of tartar scraped off! Thanks, Mom!

8. Even though I keep my mouth clean, I have nasty-bad breath. One night, I woke myself up in the middle of the night from a dream. I was dreaming that I was taking out the trash, and it smelled just... like the dump. There were flies all around and everything. The stink in my dream was so disgusting, it woke me up. And I still smelled it! It only took me a second to realize what my dream really was: I was breathing into my pillow, and my stinky breath woke me up! Needless to say, this was a bad, bad incident, and mouthwash was immediately administered. But, yeah. Bad breath.

9. I can turn the tops of my ears inside out. Actually, it's not as gross as it sounds. The cartilage on the top of my ear (the part that loops over, the part that you tuck your hair behind) is pretty thin. It's been a lifelong habit of mine to flip that part of my ear back and forth, back and forth. If I'm bored or sitting still anywhere, you'll probably catch me doing this--while I'm talking on the phone, driving, typing a blog post, or even at the dinner table.

10. I have really, really, really dry skin. When I was a young teenager, I had totally bad acne. The kind that hurts. Yeah, I had pimples that tried to scar my skin. But the worst of it was the acne that wouldn't even come up to the surface. It was like a sore lump underneath. After several prescription topical creams and cleansers, my dermatologist prescribed Accutane, a harsh, radical treatment what basically turns off your body's ability to make oil. The medication worked, and I was left with only one spot on the side of my cheekbone that I have a little bit of scarring. But ever since the treatment, my skin has been soooooooo dry! I keep cocoa butter and shea butter readily available all over the house. I can't even use a regular bar of soap anymore--only moisturizing body washes for me! My nails and hair need moisturizing too. But no matter how dried out the rest of me is, I'll forever swear by Accutane--it saved my skin and my teenage years!

11. Like Katie, I love getting real mail. Letters, cards, anything hand-written and addressed to me. Chelsea and I did this all through college, to keep in touch and keep each other up-to-date with what we were each up to at our respective colleges. There's just something extra special, knowing that someone took the time to sit down, find a card or a pretty paper to write on, think about what to tell me, and write it all out for my enjoyment later on. I keep everything that's hand-written to me!

12. Taco Bell is by far my favorite fast food place! I don't care what you think, how you crunch your nose up at this comment, or how fast you shake your head. I love it!

13. No matter how much I fought it in the beginning, or how embarrassed I am to admit it, I love playing Carlton's online computer games with him. Enough said here.

14. I love butterflies. Not necessarily the physical insect--no, I don't think I ever had a pet butterfly as a kid. I love their vivid colors and patterns, their symmetry, and that cool curly thing they use to suck up nectar.

15. Since about a month before Christmas 2008, I have become super obsessed with knitting! I currently have two projects on needles that I have never attempted before, and when I can't work on them, I think about working on them. And while I'm working on one, I want to work on the other... and vise versa. I have so many patterns and ideas up my sleeve, and I just have to wait until I have the knitting needles emptied and ready to work on a new project.

16. I love so many different styles, patterns, colors, and inspirations that I don't know what my real taste for home decor is. In design school I studied anything and everything related to interior design, structure design, decorating, color theory, scale, texture, pattern, textiles, everything. And I loved every single bit of it... to my own demise!

17. I used to want to hate Martha Stewart. Can you believe that about me? Meeeee???? I find it hard to believe sometimes! She was so perfect and witty and competent, and somewhat snooty that it was just almost too much for me. I wanted to not like her, I really did. Then I watched an episode. Just one episode. And it turned my hateful world right around. Martha has three thumbs up on the TiVo now!

18. I am very, very proud of my Prismacolor collection! I have the biggest set you can buy and I love it! Can you guess how many different shades of gray there are in a full set? It's pretty much insane. I look down my nose at anyone who envies this majestic collection of markers!

19. I believe that hummingbirds are a little wave and a wink from heaven. I have my reasons. I have hummingbird feeders out to attract them. In the summer, I'll sit outside early in the morning and listen to them beep and chirp and zoom past my face, and just smile. There's still one hummingbird that regularly visits in the mornings, and sometimes in the middle of the afternoon. She's quite noisy and boisterous, so I pretty much always know when she's around!

20. I. Hate. Ants. With all the fiber of my being, I hate ants. They're sneaky, insistent, useless little creatures that show up for no reason and refuse to go away. Drippy faucet? They find it. Crumb under the kitchen table? They're all over it. Walking through the back yard barefoot? They're on your feet, biting you, and they don't even care that it hurts!

21. Whenever I stay in a hotel, I like to sleep with the AC on high blast, all the way cold. I love sleeping in a cold hotel room. I think it might be because I never had a choice in that matter when I was growing up! Our hotel rooms were the coldest, and by the time we left, that AC unit was just a-rattlin' and a-shakin', water puddling just outside our hotel window.

22. I forgive, but it's hard for me to forget. When someone close to me has betrayed me, that's how I see them from then on--a traitor. I have let a couple of very close, very best friends loose because they betrayed me, and I never have felt regret for it. There's nothing I've yet found that totally heals a true betrayal.

23. I get the true "Ahhhhhh" reaction from my first sip of a Coke. The Real Thing. I swear, this stuff has to still have cocaine as an ingredient!

24. I often have dreams that I'm smoking a cigarette. I have absolutely no idea where this comes from, or what it might mean, but I'm a smoker in many, many dreams! And there's always a relaxation, relief, and a sense of comfort that is very vivid from the first puff, and I can feel my edge come off. Scary, huh?

25. I only wear stud earrings. Dangle ones? Nope. I'm super paranoid about them getting hung up in my hair, or grabbed or yanked by me or someone around me. I don't care how big or small the studs are, they just can't dangle from my ears.



Okay, I'm done! Now it's your turn, fellow bloggers. Get on the 25 train!