100 Meme Part II

This is a list of 100 things about me, for your reading pleasure. I am breaking the 100 into 5 parts so as not to bore or overwhelm ;) You can find Part I here.

21. I didn't like drinking coffee until I met Mike. I worked for Starbucks and hated coffee! Then I met Mike and he introduced me to flavored refrigerated creamers and I fell in love. Now I can't really start my day without at least one cup of coffee.

22. I have almost completely weaned myself off of diet soda. I used to be a 2 to 3 cans a day diet soda drinker and now it is one a day, if that. I think that my coffee drinking has helped decrease my soda drinking, so really it is probably just a wash in terms of affecting my health in a positive way.

23. I love Mexican food. A lot. Cheese dip with jalapenos, refried beans with cheese, cheese enchiladas, bean burritos, shrimp fajitas, etc. But I have noticed that I feel really yucky after I eat all that stuff so I try to limit my love to once a month or less. It always makes me stink like Mexican food for hours and I am always really thirsty after I eat like that.

24. I used to be able to drink plain water, after meeting Mike I am now addicted to flavored water and find it very difficult to drink plain water. We keep a pitcher of crystal light grape/lemonade in our fridge at all times now. My favorite bottled flavored water is Powerade Zero Grape.

25. I like to keep fresh flowers in our kitchen as much as possible. I actually stole this great habit from my awesome Sis in Law (Karen). She inspired me when I first met her because every time I went to her house she had fresh flowers everywhere. So now we keep the vase in the kitchen filled with fresh flowers as often as we can. It is such a little thing but it really perks me up and makes the kitchen feel really good.

26. Mike is the green thumb of our family. He had many indoor plants when I met him and we still have many indoor plants around our house. He waters them and repots them as needed and I love it! I love having green life around me without having to do anything. His green thumbness extends outside too. He makes our yards (front and back) beautiful every spring and he has the girls planting flowers every spring and I just love it.

27. I love music of all kinds. Again, Mike introduced me to something new when I met him. I had never liked country music in my life and then I met Mike and he swayed me. Now I listen to country music along with everything else. I don't know a lot about music but I just buy what I like. Right now my ipod playlist consists of Black Eyed Peas, Mumford and Sons, Adele, Snow Patrol, Tom Petty, Indigo Girls, Miranda Lambert, Pearl Jam, Lady Gaga, One Eskimo, Nina Simone, and Brad Paisley. Yeah, I am all over the place!

28. I am a consummate communicator and documentor. I love to document my life with photos and words, as you can tell from this blog and my last blog. I am not into being a fancy photo taker by any stretch but I love to remember through photos and stories. I guess I am so obsessed with photos and stories because I have a TERRIBLE memory so I need all the help I can get.

29. I love to travel. LOVE! I have been to France twice and Italy once. I lived in South Korea as a child (1yrs to 4yrs old). I haven't travelled out of the country since I went to France the last time in 2001. But since I met Mike I have travelled consistently and I have LOVED it! We go to the beach all summer long, we go to Michigan every summer as well. We go to West Virginia every Thanksgiving and Mike and I snuck away for a trip to Las Vegas when we were first dating. I love getting out of my own life for a little while and remembering all the beauty and differences in other places.

30. As a child I always wanted a stronger bond with my family, I always wanted a bigger family and a closer family. I vowed as an adult I would be closer with my family and my kids would have a close relationship with their grandparents, aunts, and uncles. I am very, very proud and glad to say that I have achieved those goals. Mike's family has been an inspiration to me over the years because they stay close, even when they're half way around the world they stay in almost constant contact and Mike's Mom is very close with all her brothers and sisters despite not living near each other. And Mike's sisters both live out of country but constantly send gifts and videos and pictures for Bailey and Evelyn to look at and remember them by. And my brothers and their wives are always asking about the girls and love spending time with them as often as they can. And of course both Mike's parents and my parents are very involved in our kids lives. They visit all the time and send cards etc. as well. I love that my kids know where they came from and have a real relationship with their extended families. Ask either of our daughters what the love the most in the whole world and they will say my family. They say it all the time, without being asked even. I think that because they both went through their parents being divorced they have a more intense need and value of family relationships and bonds. They both want to make sure that no matter what happens they have their family and their family has them. It is very sweet and only a little sad.

31. The one activity I actually enjoy doing with my kids is coloring. I love drawing and coloring with them. I don't play barbies or dress up or any of that but if I am not too busy and they ask me to color with them I always sit and do it with them. It is really relaxing to color for me. I am not an artist at all but I have always appreciated art and I have always enjoyed making art. I used to paint, before Evelyn came along and I really enjoyed it. Painting is on my list of things to do again once I have the time. My maternal grandmother was a great painter, my Mom, Sally, has her mom's oil paintings all over her apartment.

32. The other thing that I really really miss doing is playing guitar. I used to be pretty good at playing the guitar. My big brother Paul taught me everything I know and I still LOVE playing guitar even though I am very very rusty. Someday when I have time I want to take lessons again and reteach myself guitar. I remember my Mom, Sally, used to play guitar and sing to us when we were going to bed as little kids. I would love to do that for our kids.

33. I haven't spoken to my Mom, Sally, in months. That is a source of great sorrow for me. It is my choice not to speak to her but it still makes me very sad. When Evelyn was a few weeks old Sally moved to North Carolina from Atlanta. Since she has been in North Carolina I have seen her a handful of times. Thanks to my amazing Sis in Law (Chantel) Sally was at Mike and I's wedding. But I haven't seen Sally since then, that was almost 2 yrs ago. Sally has some very serious emotional issues and for self preservation reasons I choose not to speak to her. Especially since I found out I was pregnant, I don't feel like I can take on her stuff while I am so delicately trying to balance my own stuff at this point in my life. She calls often and I ignore the calls and messages. I know eventually I will want to speak to her again, eventually I will feel safe talking to her again but that time is definitely not now.

34. I have a very weird fetish about deboogering my kids. Bailey won't let me do it but I still do it to Evelyn. I can not stand children with snotty/booger filled noses! I always check Evelyn's nose before school, every day and I help her blow her nose and get all the boogies out. When she was a baby I had plastic tweezers and I would use them to pull the boogers out her nose. Yeah, I am WEIRD! And I already have a set of plastic tweezers waiting for Levi.

35. I am the same way about my kids finger and toe nails. Mike takes care of Bailey's nails and I get Evie's nails. I hate looking at dirty, long finger nails on anyone so I am zealous about my kids nails, mine, and Mike's nails.

36. I am very easily affected by words, emotions, and visuals around me. I take on the moods of the people I am around and people's words affect me very strongly. If someone uses very positive language toward me I feel positive, even if I am in a foul mood. And it goes the other way as well. I have to be careful what I read and watch because it affects me so much. Not that I don't like dramatic and diverse things in my life but I just have to be very conscious about what I see, hear, and watch because it affects how I interact. I don't want to be mean to my family or sad for no reason if I don't have to be.

37. I love to read. I don't read nearly as much as I want to. When I do feel that I can read it is usually on vacation or if I don't have a job. I am lucky in that I have many sources for GREAT book recommendations, my entire family (mine and Mike's) loves to read and has great taste in books. I am very much looking forward to reading in the months ahead.

38. This is the first time ever that Evelyn and Bailey have been gone for more than 3 days and I haven't had pangs of missing them. I think a lot of it has to do with the craziness I have been going through at work and the impending reality of Levi's arrival. But it is interesting. I wonder how my relationship with the girls will change when Levi is out of my body.

39. I am doing an internal happy dance right now and I feel slight (very slight) guilt about it but I am super happy because Evie's birth Dad is leaving the state for a year again and so I get to have Evie all the time and not have to deal with him! Yeah, I should feel more guilty about how happy I am but I just don't care. As ex-spouses go he is certainly not the worst but he is definitely NOT the best. I know from first hand experience how much better an ex can be. Bailey's Mom is wonderful! We have our differences with her sometimes but for the most part she is on the same page with us about how to parent Bailey. That is not the case with Evie's Dad. So yeah, I am a bad person, yadda yadda, but I am so glad to get Evie all to ourselves for a whole year! Especially with Levi being around it will be so awesome to watch her and him bond! Bailey is with us most of the time as well so all 5 of us will get to bond so much!

40. But don't get me wrong, I will miss having our kid free weekends that we have gotten used to in the last year. But those weekends would be over no matter what since we will now have Levi for the rest of our lives. It is going to be so strange to full time parent with a partner that I actually trust and truly love.