25 Random Things

This has been going around Facebook. And since I'm in a blogging slump, I thought I'd post it here, too. If you read this and you have a blog, consider yourself tagged.

Rules: Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you.

1. I felt compelled, nay, duty-bound to correct the open parenthesis in the instructions of this thing.

2. I have a brown streak in my right eye. Mike calls it the sh!t streak.

3. Speaking of sh!t, I used to curse. A lot. It sometimes still trips me up. It's a terrible habit and I hate it about myself.

4. In 4th grade I lost a tooth in music class and got in trouble. I was chewing a Starburst candy when I wasn't supposed to be, which took out my loose tooth.

5. In 4th grade I cried in class one day. I can't remember why. Probably because of the teacher. I hated my teacher that year. What I do remember is the girl sitting behind me making fun of me and calling me a crybaby. I got up, slapped her across the face and said "Who's crying now?" 4th grade was a really bad year for me.

6. I went to Purdue just because Mike was there. I never admitted that to my parents and fed them a bunch of baloney about it being a great school for my chosen major, etc. But really, I was following a boy. Good thing that worked out.

7. I changed my major half-way through college. I decided I did not want to go to graduate school, so why major in psychology? I chose my new major based solely upon what I could still finish 'on time'. Why? Because I knew I wanted to marry Mike and didn't want to wait for that or be separated for school. Kids, I love my husband and my life, but don't do this. I now have a degree in social studies education that I pray I will never have to use.

8. In order to finish 'on time' I had to do some crazy stuff. I took all summer school available and took 21 credit hours + worked the semester before I student taught. Consequently Mike and I got married on a 3-day weekend I had from 'Maymester.'

9. Even though I don't want to do it, I have great respect for good public school teachers. One changed my life and I hope everyone had someone like Mrs. Wade. She saw potential and challenged me to do better than I had been doing in school.

10. The semester I took 21 hours, one of my classes was History of WWII. I think I might have failed it. The first day of class the professor made some sexist remarks. I showed him (ha!) by never returning to lecture and rarely cracking the book. The class had only 2 grades: the mid-term and the final. I got a D on the mid-term. When I checked my grade on the professor's door at the end of the term, he had me down for a B. It was barely mathematically possible, and not highly probable that I had aced the final. Still, I never said anything because I needed the class to graduate. I still feel guilty whenever I think of it.

11. My parakeet and my sister's hamsters all died one Christmas day. My family was heating with a wood-burning stove that winter because we were BROKE. My dad stoked the fire up really high so it would still be warm when we got home from visiting grandparents. It got too hot in the living room and the animals literally roasted.

12. Mike and I had the first fight of our marriage over a pot roast. I bought a roast that I had planned to get 3 meals out of. I didn't know it, but Mike didn't really like roast much. So he ate the *whole thing*. Makes sense, right? He did it so that he wouldn't have to eat it day after day. Mike didn't have a job yet post-college and I was still in school and working part time. We were broke and there was no more grocery money until my next payday.

13. We play card/board games as a family nearly every day. Our favorites are Blokus, Stratego and Apples to Apples Junior.

14. Despite going to nearly every GHS football game in high school, I never understood how the game worked . . . until Mike begged me to play Strat-o-Matic Football with him.

15. Not only was I a nerd in high school, I was a State Champion Nerd (English Academic Bowl senior year). Just because I used the past tense there does not mean I am no longer a nerd.

16. Thomas was born at 27 weeks gestation because I had pre-eclampsia. He weighed 1 lb. 14 oz. and was in the hospital for 2.5 months.

17. I totally believe that happened so that God would be glorified in his life. See John 9:1-3.

18. http://www.biblegateway.com/ and http://www.apologeticsindex.com/ are 2 of my favorite websites. And, um, FB if that's not painfully obvious by now.

19. I should be ordering homeschool curriculum *right now*. I promised Thomas we would do chemistry after we finished his astronomy text. There are only a few lessons left of that.

20. I didn't want to homeschool Thomas when we first started. I thought it was the best among some not-great options we had at the time. I love it now and cannot imagine doing anything else!

21. Sometimes I laugh so hard that I get tunnel vision and feel like I might pass out. This is usually Carrie's doing.

22. People who have known me awhile don't believe that I am an introvert. Really. Myers-Briggs even says so - INFJ for those who know the lingo. I am terrible at small talk and get incredibly nervous being around new people. I rarely make the first move in a new friendship. I often come across as self-centered because I am too nervous to ask people questions about themselves. I'm working on it, though.

23. I speak fluent Sarcese.

24. I went to 10 National Parks in 2008.

25. Mike and I were the Phi Kappa Theta Disco Dance Champions of 1990. Seriously.