25 Things about Me

This "25 things about me" list has been around for awhile, but it is still fun to do. Here are my 25 random things.


1) Though I will listen to almost any music, I HATE country music. When I hear that twang, it makes my skin crawl.

2) I have never found a cheese I don't like and if I thought my digestive tract and my waistline would put up with it, I would become the world's first cheesatarian.

3) When I was 15 years old, I was "banned" from my best friend Shannon, for being a bad influence on her. I think there may have been some confusion about who was leading who down the wrong path. Almost 30 years later she is still my best friend.

4) I met my husband while working in Portland and after a series of conversations found out that he was likely a counselor at a camp I attended when I was in 5th grade---eeewww!

5) In 2000, I traveled to China with my grandmother and had the chance to see the Terra Cotta Soldiers in Xian. It remains one of the most amazing things I have ever had the privilege to see.

6) I have one of the longest college careers in history. I started college right out of high school, but due to jobs that required travel and a lack of funds, it ended up taking me 20 years to finish my undergraduate degree and another 3 to finish my graduate degree. 23 years of college has got to be some kind of record.

7) For my last class in my last quarter of graduate school I went to Italy for 3 weeks. My final grade depended in part on working with a restaurant to develop, eat and share a 6 course Italian dinner. Tough job-but someone had to do it!

8) I am distantly related to Ripley of Ripley's Believe it Or Not

9) I share a birthday with Albert Einstein. I like to think that I take after him in brains and not hair style.

10) I have only one good party trick. All of my fingers are double jointed and I can bend my fingers backward at a 90 degree angle to my hand. I never knew this was abnormal until I was an adult.

11) When I was pregnant with my first child, my husband wanted to find out the sex of the baby. I told him that he could find out if he liked, but I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I would never produce anything but girls. I have two daughters.

12) I also knew without a shadow of a doubt that my sister would only ever produce boys. She has 3 girls. Something went amiss with this theory.

13) I will eat popcorn as a meal at least once a week.

14) I love reality TV. I like anything that shows people chasing and reaching their dreams.

15) In her 20's, my sister jumped out of a plane. It made me wonder if we were really from the same gene pool. There is NOTHING that would make me jump out of a perfectly good plane, unless it was on fire.

16) One of the first songs that my children learned from me was the Oscar Meyer B-O-L-O-G-N-A song.

17) My first car was a green Vega. I plan to print out a picture of it and show it to my children when they start asking for their first car.

18) Both my mother and my sister have a green thumb. Mine is decidely black.

19) I worked for Nordstrom for 16 years and STILL miss my employee discount.

20) I am a Pisces-a sign that is supposed to be creative. I can barely draw a straight line.

21) I once cut my foot on coral while snorkeling in Hawaii and was convinced that I was going to be eaten by a shark while bleeding in the water.

22) I should have been born during the depression-I love a full pantry and freezer. I could feed 20 people at a moment's notice any day of the week.

23) My children are the greatest gift I have ever received.

24) Every animal I have ever had has had a people name, not an animal name...until my husband adopted and named a stray cat-her name is Zingo. My other animals? Lola and Mimi.

25) Last year I was diagnosed with cancer. At the time I was diagnosed, the 25 things about me would have all had to do with cancer. This year I am a survivor and out of 25 things, only one has to do with cancer-and it gets bottom billing.