The One Where She Got Tagged...Over and Over and Over

The latest Facebook craze is tagging 25 of your friends in a “note” in which you write 25 random things about yourself. Then each of those 25 friends is supposed to do the same thing. I have been tagged about fifteen times, but have thus far resisted the urge. I am not going to post 25 random things about myself on Facebook. I mean, all those people are friends, and I have basically no idea who reads this blog, so naturally I would rather post here. Consider yourself warned…

25 Things About Me You May Wish You Didn’t Know

1. I have spent five and a half years pregnant, 135 hours in labor, and about nine years nursing babies...and you thought elephants had it bad. Oh, and once, I was asked when I was due, about three months after I had one of my kids. It was a grocery checker, and I wanted so badly to get her fired that I sat in my car for fifteen minutes debating how to go about it.. You are NEVER supposed to ask that. Even if you can see the baby’s head actually coming out.

2. My bedroom is so messy right now that you can’t see the bed.

3. I had to go to the emergency room because I almost had a heart attack from taking 12-hour Sudafeds every 12 hours for two days. I don’t make a very good drug user.

4. Once I pretended that my kids were someone else’s because they were so embarrassing. But in a sort of kharmic switcheroo, twice I have breastfed other people’s babies. Believe me when I tell you that it was an emergency both times.

5. In 2007, I read about 90 books. In 2008, about 30. This year, I’m shooting for five. And I’m going to count it if it is the same book five times. In fact, if I flip through a recipe book, I will probably count that.

6. Until about two or three weeks ago, I only had Facebook friends who “friended” me. I didn’t initiate friend requests. However, my self-esteem was flagging, so now I shamelessly cull my friends’ lists for new people to friend.

7. I can eat a dozen hot Krispy Kremes washed down with a Diet Coke, before leaving the Krispy Kreme parking lot. I like guilty, furtive eating binges. When I was little, my mom used to freeze dozens of quart-sized plastic containers of sweetened strawberries. I used to sneak those and eat them like do-it-yourself sorbet, scraping as I went with a spoon, and leaving the empty containers under beds and behind couches. She always knew it was me, but I thought I was pretty sly.

8. I only shave my legs once a week. Unless I have to wear a dress mid-week, and then I take one for the team and do it again.

9. I used to have a red, heart-shaped mark on my lower abdomen. But (please see item #1 for full explanation) unfortunately it has been stretched out of shape, and now I think it might be the mark of the beast or something. Not that I know what the mark of the beast looks like, but I’m just saying…

10. I have sort of ugly feet. I even dropped a table on my foot while working at a law office when I was first married, and now the big toe on my right foot grows some pretty crazy looking nails…I don’t look so hot in sandals. But not as bad as my brother-in-law Joe.

11. I was asked to bring homemade lasagna to a “Sweetheart Dinner” for church once, and I made three containers of Stouffers and stuffed it into my own casserole dish, and everyone asked me for that recipe for months. Suckers. That was the same “Sweetheart Dinner” where someone had the bright idea to have the women come dressed in their wedding gowns. That was wrong on so many levels. They deserved the Stouffers for that one.

12. In third grade I stole arts supplies from my school classroom. My mom made me take them back and tell Mrs. Gunthner that I stole. In retrospect, I think a case could be made that as taxpayers, we actually owned the art supplies. And Mrs. Gunthner wasn’t very nice and forgiving. I’m a little bitter.

13. I don’t like to drink milk. Maybe it has something to do with when we lived on the ranch, and used plastic buckets for milking the cows, and once my mom decided to clean the bucket with PineSol, and then all the milk tasted like PineSol after that. Or maybe I just don’t like milk.

14. I don’t wear a watch very often, because I usually don’t really care what time it is.

15. I would like to waste my life away watching TV. TV is awesome. There are about 75 shows that I would like to Tivo and watch. I could watch all day and all night, and eat goodies. I would blow up like a balloon, and pretty soon wouldn’t even leave the house to go through a drive-thru. I would have to have all my high-calorie junk food delivered, and eventually they would have to remove a wall of my house so I could be taken out the window by a big hauler so that they could bury me in a piano box or something like that. I only watch about an hour a day right now. But someday…let’s just say I haven't ruled that out.

16. I love the smell of dish soap. And laundry soap. Mmm. However, my love for those smells does not extend to their related tasks.

17. Ninety percent of my wardrobe consists of v-neck t-shirts. One should always accentuate the positive.

18. Once I had to do a five-page research paper in Spanish on a Latin-American subject. I did not feel like doing the research, so I made up one about how the ancient Mayans were actually people from the Book of Mormon. I did not back my claim up with a single shred of research. Señora Cardoza did not appreciate that at all. Oh! And, that same year, I wrote a children’s story for Spanish entitled “Elefante Embarazada,” which I blithely assumed meant “Embarrassed Elephant,” and as it turned out translated to “Pregnant Elephant.” I think she actually did appreciate that one.

19. I don’t like chocolate all that much, but I really like seeing other people enjoy it.

20. I only ever tell the truth on my blog, even though it would be ever so much funnier and more interesting if I were to invent a really horrid mother-in-law to bash, or if I seemed mad about stuff all the time, or pretended to drink to excess, or if I constantly made fun of people and things. Sorry so bland.

21. I only really enjoy playing games if I win. But I am pretty good at hiding that fact most of the time.

22. I must be a really poor time manager, because despite the fact that I have not implemented my TV-watching plan, I still don’t seem to get much done. What do I actually do all day??? The answer to this one may be related to #14 on my list.

23. One time when I couldn’t find a car ride back to BYU in Utah from my Northern California home, I talked my dad into getting me a ride in a little four-passenger airplane that took off from Montague Airport (try looking that up…you probably won’t find it). It was the middle of the winter and snowing, and I sat in the co-pilot seat the whole way. Now that seems a little crazy. Of course, once we kids rode to Arizona in the back of my dad’s pickup. I guess the airplane seems relatively safe…

24. The most expensive item I own, including cars, is my piano. Once a babysitter allowed the kids to hit the piano with some object or other, and broke a key. I couldn’t afford to have it replaced, and so I superglued it back on. I keep reminding the piano tuner to order a replacement key, but in more than a decade, he has never remembered to do it, so it is still superglued. I still remember that babysitter. She has kids of her own now. I hope they are hell on wheels.

25. Last one. I would probably do most anything for you. Please try not to take advantage of that fact.