25 Random Things About Me....

I am officially 'into' the facebook thing now. I have had a facebook account for awhile, but never really used until recently...now I love it! If you use facebook, then you already know about the '25 Random Things About Me'. It is starting to spill over onto lots of the blogs I read and since I have not updated in over two weeks and it will be a few more days before I have Valentine's Day pictures, I figured what the heck...so, here is my '25 Random Things' list: (By the way, for those of you that already read it on my facebook...I *gasp* found two grammatical errors that I have corrected for this posting...I should offer a prize for the person that can find them!!! Ha!!)

1. I only have to drive 8 blocks to work...my car doesn't even get warm by the time I pull into the parking lot! I do miss hearing the news and weather on the radio...I usually only get about two commericals.
2. I am trying to substitue Crystal Light for soda...I miss soda, but Peach Tea is a pretty good substitute. Those of you that know me best are shocked that I am making a healthy food choice! I am a skinny fat person. I look healthy, but I am certain that my soda and chocolate habits are waging war with my almost-30-year-old innards.
3. I just looked 'innards' up in the dictionary to make sure it was a real word and that I spelled it correctly. Although I am a science person, I feel that spelling/grammar tells a lot about a person, so I use the dictionary to 'double check' very often (at least 5 times a day...seriously). Now you will be searching my '25 things' for mistakes...
4. I hate conflict/confrontation. I try to avoid it at all costs...unless it is with my husband. We do not fight fair, but we do not fight often so it is no big deal.
5. I love my life. I could list a million things that I could be grouchy about, but who couldn't? Overall, I would not change a single thing about my life!
6. My husband and my girls have red hair....I hated red hair before I met my husband (truth be told, I wasn't a huge fan of it until I had my girls...sorry, sweetie!). Now, I can't go to the grocery store or the mall without getting stopped at least three times (no exaggeration) to hear about my girls' beautiful hair. Little old ladies love to tell me that they had red hair, or that they once had a husband/son/neighbor/niece with 'that red hair'. Will I be one of those old ladies some day?
7. I have been married for almost 8 years. I have two daughters...Isabel is 6 and Ashlen is 3. They are two and a half years apart, but they wear the same size clothes...people ask if they are twins all of the time (the hair thing is hard to get past). Isabel quickly replies "I have brown eyes and my sister has blue eyes, so we are not twins"...I wonder if I should explain fraternal twins to her.
8. I love to paint the walls of my house. The house is only 8 years old, but I can think of one wall in particular that has been four different colors.
9. My funniest moment in the classroom was after I told a student to wait until the end of class to use the restroom and he replied 'But, I'm Prairie Doggin It!!!'. That was my very first year teaching I almost peed my pants I was laughing so hard!
10. I allow students to be my 'friends' on FB, so I am keeping that in mind as I write my '25 things'. Teachers, do you let your students be your 'friends' here? I am torn...
11. My iTunes is set to shuffle all of my music and I just realized that I am halfway through a Christmas song...I love Christmas, but NOT IN JANUARY!!! One of my favorite songs is 'Son of a Preacher Man'...or, any song my dad used to blast on our stereo when I was little kid.
12. I am going to see two movies tonight!!! I love to watch movies, but could never begin to narrow down my favorites because it depends on my mood.
13. As much as I love to see movies, I am not a fan of television. I DVR Grey's Anatomy every week, but that is about it.
14. I couldn't wait to finish my master's degree, but I am already thinking that I want to start another one...could have something to do with the correlation between being in grad school and getting a cleaning person. I think my next degree will be in Biology and I think my next cleaning person will come on Mondays. Is it sad that I would rather write a research paper than vacuum?
15. I am the last of all of my friends to turn 30 and I am dreading it...you would think that I would be okay with it since I have already been to everyone else's celebrations! Nope. Could be because I can't decide how to celebrate...Vegas, Chicago, or sitting in my basement in my bathrobe...
16. I was the pull-up champion of my grade school in 3rd grade and 4th grade. I can still do a couple.
17. I have a really bad habit of picking at my fingers...it doesn't bother me at all, so I am not too worried about addressing the 'problem', but it drives my husband crazy.
18. I have a little white dog with a seizure disorder. His name is Rufus. He is cute, but free to a good home. I am only slightly kidding...any takers?
19. I love the smell of anything clean (soap, bleach, etc). I hate the 'imitation smell' of vanilla or baked goods.
20. I go to a different beach for vacation every year...this year is Virginia Beach! I love to fly, but my husband hates it. One year, I refused to drive to Florida with a 15 month old baby, so he drove to Florida with all of the luggage and picked us up at the airport...it was perfect!
21. My favorite food is cheese pizza. I could eat it every day and be happy. I also love seafood. There are very few foods that I will not eat/try. I do hate sloppy joes and lettuce (the iceberg kind...I like fresh spinach!).
22. I love to cook and bake. I usually plan dessert before I plan dinner. Once a month, I get together with a friend and we each make a double-batch of six dinners for the freezer. After only four or five hours, we each have twelve dinners in the freezer!
23. I love to take pictures. I am not artistic/professional about it...I just like to think that someday my kids will appreciate looking through thousands of pictures (I at least organize them by year). When I print pictures, I always print extras to give to everyone else in the picture. I have a really great camera that I don't know how to use. I want to take a class so that one day I can flip the 'dreaded' switch to go from automatic to manual....
24. I have a shopping weakness. I use shopping as therapy when I am bored, mad, stressed, happy, etc. My girls both have huge walk-in closets and they are both over half full (not counting what is in their dresser). Luckily, I also like to have garage sales...I sell most of what I buy within a year or two. I know it is sad and wasteful, but I think it is pretty harmless and lots of fun! The only problem is that I do not like buying winter stuff, so my closet is stuffed with warm weather clothes that can only be worn to work two months out of the entire school year.
25. This was fun...I hope I didn't bore you to tears! I looked in my dictionary at least five more times...now that I know you are looking for mistakes, I am extra stressed about it!!!

Valentine's Day pictures coming soon....Lots of Love to Everyone!!!