50 Things About Me

Hello out there, blog world.  I realize it's been a while since I've blogged - for one reason or another life has been busy or exciting or exhausting, and by night I've been caught up in the blogs of various adoptive families (wherein one always leads to another, which leads to another, which leads to another...) and now for the first time in a good couple of weeks, I think I may have less than 15 tabs open at once...

I also realize the blog has been very serious lately - and for good reason, as the situation right now is dire and prayer is still urgently needed.  But I've learned something... even when we're praying our hardest, even when the rain starts to fall and we have no shelter... there's a rainbow - God's promise - in the sky, if you just look for it.  So even though times are still hard and prayer is still needed... it's time for something a little less serious for a moment.  So, borrowing from a social networking trend, and to add to the brief 'about me' in addition to my blog posts that concern my own life, I'm going to share 50 things about me.  I expect them to be random.  Because...

1. I'm very random.
2. Lately, I haven't been able to sleep until the early morning hours, and these blog posts keep striking me in the middle of the night.
3. I started writing this 50 things a long time ago.  Like, days.    
4. My favorite lotion is from Mary Kay.  It's some sort of... red tea and something... it was a gift from a daycare parent years ago and I ran out last winter, I was very sad.
5. All my favorite names start with M or A.  Funny, considering 2 of my DBKs are M and A!
6. Tonight... no, every night... I really miss my best friend Angie.  
7. The other day, I watched Wife Swap, and I enjoyed it.  I now know the real meaning of 'guilty pleasure'.
8. I have a silly band shaped like a cat and a bracelet I made on my right wrist. They both mean a lot to me for different reasons, but I bet when people see them, it further cements in their mind the idea that I must be a child.
9. I look ridiculously young for my age.  When I did service learning at a middle school while I was in college, I often heard kids exclaim "That kid is DRIVING?!" as I pulled out of the parking lot.  I'll bet if I put pigtails in and overalls on, I could pass for under 12.  Professional acquaintences who are police officers want to use me in sting/undercover operations.  Have I made my point yet?  
10. 8th grade was my favorite year of school, and social studies was my favorite class.  I retained more information there than I did from four years of college.  Go ahead.  Ask me the capitol of Minnesota.
11. Once again, these things are going to be very random.  Please tell me that counts for another thing.
12. I don't like dogs.  I put up with them when I visit friends, I even bear a little bit of affection for some of them, but I'm not really a fan.  I don't even like puppies.  Cat person all the way.
13. I have a collection of Polly Pockets that most four-year-olds would envy.  
14. I have endometriosis and it sucks.
15. My favorite show is Bones, but I can't watch it until I know everything's going to be cool between the two main characters.  Permanently.  NO SPOILERS!  Unless you just wanna say "Everything's good". That, I'm cool with.
16. I've seen Hannah Montana in concert.  A certain little girl had never been to a concert before and had her heart set on it.  We had a blast, and I know the words to all the songs.  I am not ashamed.  I was told I was "The best Katie in the whole world" that night.  <3
17. I still sleep with my baby blanket.  And a stuffed dolphin, and A's elephant when she's not here.  Once again, I am not ashamed.
18. I'm always cold.
19. I'm convinced I'm going to repeat myself.  Whose idea was it to make this fifty things?  But now that I'm committed... well, I'm committed.
20. I know way too much about car seats even for a car seat tech.  I can probably give you weight stats and compatibility issues for any seat on the market.
21. I love babywearing.  It's so much more comfortable to shop with little man in the moby than it is to lug an infant seat around.  I'm currently enamored with my borrowed Baby K'tan.  
22. I'm seriously afraid of bugs.  Like, unnaturally.  I can't sleep if I know there's one in the room.  I will go completely berserk in public if a bee buzzes by my ear.  It is embarassing.
23. I also have an irrational fear of oil wells.  You know the ones that pump the oil out of the ground rocking back and forth?  *Shiver*  Stupid things have almost made me wreck my car twice.
24. Lee's famous recipe may be my favorite food ever.  I really want some right now.  
25. I'm running out of things to say about me.
26. I'm a fan of attachment parenting.  Or in my case, attachment... whatever the heck it is I do.
27. I'm getting sick.  My temperature never runs over 97.1 unless I'm sick.  'Normal' is positively miserable.
28. 28 is my favorite number.
29. Blue is my favorite color, and it has been since it was purple for a little while, and before that blue again, and before that it was briefly orange because it was the color of Josie's hair from Josie and the Pussycats (the cartoon.  I feel like I'm aging myself here.)
30. I was bullied as a child to the point I had to see a therapist.  I had literally no friends for three months.  Very few of my peers from that time period even remember the way they treated me.  It's given me a need to go on an anti-bullying crusade.
31. I believe very strongly in a lot of causes.  I only have a blog for one.
32. I'm pro-life and unapologetic about it.   I'm not an extremist and I'm not unsympathetic, but I believe in the sanctity of human life from conception.  
33. I don't understand why Christians don't practice/celebrate the customs of the Jewish people from whom we are derived.  Why did the coming of Christ put an end to those things?  This is not me being a smart alek, I'm seriously curious.  
34. I write short fiction and nonfiction stories, as well as fanfiction.  Yeah, I'm a nerd like that.  Poetry, too.  
35. My friends and family mean more to me than anything in the world.  Each and every one of you.  Even those I've never had the priviledge to meet.
36. My favorite smell is apple cinnamon.
37. I'm thinking way too hard about these 50 things.  I need one of those question-answer survey things instead.  
38. I have a black cat named Boo who turned one this week.  He's currently vying for my attention.
39. I have an unhealthy addiction to Dr. Pepper.
40. I enjoy playing with Legos to an inappropriate degree for my age.
41. I don't actually believe in ghosts, but I like to explore things that are 'haunted' because they often have really interesting histories, and because it's really fun to make fun of ghost hunters... in a friendly, jesting way ;)
42. I became the fourth generation of my family to graduate from my college in June.
43. I've been nauseated for six months.  No, I'm not pregnant.  Well, I mean, anything could happen, but if that's it, you'd better get the Pope on the line.
44. I've kept journals since I could write.  I don't remember ever throwing one away, but there's one I can't find and it drives me crazy.
45. Being a teenager was very, very hard for me, and with few exceptions I wouldn't do any of it over again if you paid me.  I wouldn't change it if you paid me either.  I believe my experiences make me who I am.
46. I'm intensely fascinated by history, particularly the human side of 'stories' you've known for years.  I'm curious about what it was really like to live through a time period - not just who the important people, places and dates were, but what life felt like.  Because of this, I do and always have done a lot of independent research.
47. It's February in Ohio and we still haven't had a snow that covered the tips of the blades of grass.  Maybe Al Gore was onto something...
48. I hate my curly hair.  If it didn't feel selfish and wasteful I'd have it straightened again.  I think I look frumpy.
49. Frumpy is a really funny word, if you think about it.  A lot of words are like that... like oligodendrocyte and hippocampus.  Hooray for being a health ed major!
50. The last ten things have taken me an hour to come up with, so I'm really glad this is over now.  Questions?  Five things about you?