I’m going to get around to editing this to make it easier to read, but for now, I’m moving it to a page instead of a post as is.

The “25 random things” note has been passed around facebook, I did it twice, because it was fun, but I realized that if you are coming here to read my blog and you aren’t in my immediate family, then you probably don’t have much to go on about who I am. So, I will share some things about me.

(if you are on my facebook, the first 50 are old, so if you’ve read them, you can skip down.)

1. My younger brother and I are exactly 11.5 months apart, and for exactly 2 weeks of the year, we are the same age.
2. I wore contacts for 16 years, but have worn glasses for the last 2. Prior to wearing contacts, I wore glasses for about 6 years.
3. My kids are the most beautiful people I’ve ever met. I may be partial, but my daughter is the most beautiful girl I’ve seen. (And yes, she looks like me…)
4. My skin is so dry right now that it hurts.
5. I have about 6 veggie tales episodes committed to memory, and I know just about every silly song. I used to hate veggie tales. It still annoys me.
6. I’m not very good at starting a fire.
7. I can grill better than my husband. (Sorry, Sam!)
8. My husband can cook better than me.
9. I gave my daughter the middle name “Elena” because of a sweet little girl I met in a daycare.
10. My son’s middle name is “Cole” because Sam likes the movie Mr. Holland’s Opus.
11. I taught myself to knit.
12. I can knit and crochet and sew, and I sewed myself a skirt and a pair of pants. I’ve worn the skirt a couple of times, but I never quite finished the pants because I messed them up.
13. I really hate basketball. I mean, really, honestly, I can’t stand watching basketball. Football is rather boring to me, too, and I will not watch baseball on tv. Soccer is really the most interesting game.
14. I played soccer for the first time my senior year of college, and scored 3 goals on a girl who had been playing for the school’s soccer team. Granted, this was indoor soccer, but I was actually pretty good.
15. I’m terrified of getting hit in the head or face with a ball of any shape or size. I got hit with a basketball too many times when I played in middle school.
16. I hate cleaning. My house is usually a mess, unless people are coming over. I actually enjoy the thrill of rushing around to clean everything all at once, but there are days I wish I were rich and had a maid.
17. I would prefer to go to bed at 9 and get up at 9 in the morning. That would be a good night’s sleep.
18. I don’t really like Bible names, (as in: naming your kids with Bible names) but my name is a Bible name. My kids’ names are not. Not even in another language.
19. I gave in to my husband’s constant begging for a wii. I just want to say that I was going to let him get it, but I had my own ideas about the timing.
20. I was born without a thyroid gland. I take a pill every day for it.
21. I should be doing the laundry right now.
22. My son was diagnosed with failure to thrive in November, but gained 2.5 pounds in one month between December and January. He’s doing much better. I don’t make enough milk, apparently.
23. I have a rocking couch.
24. I loved being pregnant, but always thought I looked fat rather than pregnant.
25. I have very vivid dreams and often wake up confused because of this. There are times when my dreams seem so real that I don’t know what day it is when I wake up.

1. When I was in high school, I secretly desired to have 12 kids. Now that I have 2, I can’t possibly imagine having more than 4.

2. I’m better at mechanical and wood-related tools than my husband. But he’s still better with the computer. I put together most furniture that we buy that needs to be assembled. (exeption: ONE rocking chair from Wal-Mart.)

3. I cannot stand sleeping with lights on or noise, but I’ve usually always shared a room with someone who needs this to fall asleep. And my husband snores. So if I don’t get to bed before him, I have a hard time falliing asleep.

4. I am obsessed with almost anything I come into contact with that I have the slightest interest in. I’m like a sponge, I try to soak up all information until there is no more space. It drives my husband crazy.

5. I’ve read the Harry Potter books about 5 times in less than 2 years. All of them. I’ve read the 7th one at least 10 times.

6. I’m a very disorganized person, but I’m working on being more organized. I’ve realized that my disorganization comes from having far too much crap around the house.

7. When I was 4, my brother accidentally pushed me into a pool, and I couldn’t swim. Until a few years ago, I couldn’t even put my face in the water when I was taking a shower. I still can’t swim very well. And if you try to dunk me, I will kick you somewhere that you’ll regret.

8. When someone asks me if I’m scared or nervous about moving to Egypt, I have to be honest, I’m not. Maybe I’m overconfident, maybe I’m just crazy, but I think it will be fun.

9. I’ve always wanted twins, a boy and a girl, for as long as I can remember. Maybe one day.

10. My dad and I can have a 3 hour conversation about absolutely nothing.

11. I beat Super Mario Sunshine.

12. I play the computer games Pharaoh and Roller Coaster Tycoon obsessively.

13. I have ADD, I think.

14. I hate snow, but I used to love it. I used to build snow forts and one year when we had an ice storm our backyard froze over about an inch and I got out my mom’s ice skates and skated on our frozen yard.

15. I have an obsession with collecting things. For example, we started getting Nour a bunch of Little People sets, and for some reason, I felt like we needed to get *all* of the sets, instead of being reasonable, and just having a few. No, we don’t have all of them. Thankfully, my husband is not crazy like me, and set a limit.

16. I can’t stand it when parents are uptight about their little ones. I want to tell everyone to RELAX! I don’t wipe every toy that’s been in my child’s mouth once, and I don’t freak out when I don’t know where a toy has been. And neither of my kids has gotten a serious illness from a strange toy. From other kids breathing on them, yes, from a toy, no.

17. My original career plan was to become an architect. I love Frank Lloyd Wright’s designs, I think he is one of the best architects of the last century.

18. I am terrified of speaking in public due to an embarrassing moment from 4th grade. If you weren’t there, you don’t need to know what it was, but it scarred me for life.

19. I take my beliefs very seriously. It would take too long to explain here, but I’m a Christian, I believe that Jesus died for my sins, I believe he is God, and that if you don’t follow him, yes, you’ll go to hell.

20. Sometimes I still wish Santa Claus was real.

21. I’m good at math, horrible with finances.

22. My top favorite movies are The American President and The Siege. Both have Annette Benning, who is a fairly good actress, but she’s not the reason I like the movies.

23. Learning Arabic is THE hardest thing I’ve ever done. It’s like re-learning everything you’ve ever learned, because someone finally told you that you were doing it all wrong.

24. I’ve had a VBAC. I had a Cesarean with Nour, which was very traumatic, but Alex’s birth was probably the most satisfying thing that I’ve ever done (so far). (VBAC=Vaginal Birth After Cesarean)

25. If I had anything to do over, I would have tried to be a little nicer after I broke up with my high school boyfriend. I kind of ripped his heart out and stomped on it, for no good reason. So I’m sorry about that (He knows this already).

51. My husband and children are somehow directly related to ancient Egyptian pharaohs. I don’t know how, and neither does my husband, so don’t ask us, but he knows that they are.

52. I’ve only been away from my “home” on Christmas once, in 2003, when we traveled to NYC to be with Sam’s family at Christmas. It was very difficult, and we weren’t even gone a week.

53. I lived in Cincinnati for 5 years, in the dorm at college for 2.5 (including 1 summer) and in apartments for 2.5.

54. I’ve lived around the Columbus, Ohio area for the remainder of my life, including the first 18 solid years in the same house that my mom grew up in. She lived there for almost 50 years.

55. My celebrity crush for a very long time has been Matthew Perry. I don’t know why, I just think he’s cute. He’s not too hot, so he doesn’t get a lot of attention, but I like him.

56. I used to know at least half of the Friends episodes by heart. I can tell you what season an epi is from, and usually know what is coming if I’m watching it.

57. My mom and I both watch NCIS, but “found” it separately. She likes it because of Mark Harmon (Gibbs), I like it because of Abby Sciutto, the goth forensic scientist.

58. I have tried to dress up as Abby Sciutto for Halloween, but never managed to do so yet.

59. I dressed up as Hermione Granger the last two years, but for some reason everyone just kept calling me Harry Potter, even WITH the crazy bushy hair and Hermione’s wand.

60. I made my kids’ Halloween costumes myself last year. Alex was the Tin Man and Nour was Cleopatra (fitting, I know.)

61. I never knew before last year that Cleopatra had twins with Mark Anthony. Strangely enough, so did J-Lo. (sorry about that, just had to throw that in.)

62. I have signs posted all around my house right now reminding my husband and myself to clean up after ourselves. I hope they will work.

63. I have 2 calendars in my house, and they are about 2 feet apart. One is a nice one my mom gave me for Christmas and I’m using all the nice gardening tips in it, the other is our planning calendar.

64. I thought the last 24 episodes of Heroes were horrible, yet still continued to watch the show in hopes that it would get better. I’m told tonight that it has. I have to watch it later. Probably tomorrow.

65. I used to be really mean to my mom. I’m trying not to do that so much anymore.

66. I will watch anything with Tony Shaloub in it. He’s a really great actor.

67. I would only live in one state and one city outside of Ohio, and that is…. New York City. Yup. I would totally live there.

68. I hate southern California. One word: Four-o-five.

69. I would love to be able to grow citrus fruit in Ohio.

70. My absolute favorite season is fall, even though it becomes winter, which is my least favorite. I wish that it was always fall. Or spring, I can handle spring.

71. I really wish that I was still a kid and it was socially acceptable for me to run around and splash in the rain, because I love that. I ruined a white strawberry print dress once because my aunt let us play in a mud puddle when I was little. I liked that dress, but it was more fun to play in the rain.

72. I have also been hit in the head with a baseball, to add to being hit in the face with a basketball. The baseball thing was when I was a lot younger (5-6). I remember it happening, but the next thing I remember is being put in the bathtub at my house afterwards.  I may have had a concussion. The baseball was hit foul at one of Matt’s games. I don’t think he’s the one who hit it, though.

73. I would consider being a surrogate mother if Sam would ever let me (not a chance, according to him).

74. I’m very competitive at really random things. I try to beat other people’s scores at Tetris, or other strategy games. But I’m not athletic at all.

75. My wedding was less than 24 hours before my cousin’s (second cousin–but we went to school together), and we WENT to her wedding the morning after ours. Everyone thought we were crazy.

76. I’m afraid of the ocean, but I’m also constantly worried that my kids will be afraid of things because of me, and I want them to enjoy things even if they scare me.

77. I give Sam compliments a lot on his photography because he is really hard on himself, and I get annoyed with him when he won’t take them.

78. I’m terribly inconsistent as a parent. I never stick to my own rules.

79. I have a lot of unanswered questions about evolution. Like, how did evolution know to make a male and female of a new species at around the same time close together so they could mate? I think this is a serious question that needs answered. I’m not being sarcastic, I actually want to know how that works.

80. A running joke between my husband and myself is calling a quesadilla a kwe-sa-dill-ah.

81. I am very introverted around new people, but I will talk to people at a party if I’m comfortable enough, and if I get sucked into a conversation.

82. I can type without looking at the computer and know when I’ve made a typing error, and fix it without checking to make sure it is right. I don’t know how many words per minute I can type, but I’m fairly fast.

83. I had five roommates in college in 3 years. Two of them were really gross, one of them I have blocked out most of the memories of living with.

84. I have a photographic memory, and I’m good with names, and I could probably name 90% of my graduating high school class if you gave me enough time.

85. I love drawing things, particularly building designs, and am rediscovering an artistic ability that I haven’t used since middle school.

86. I was in the top 10% of my high school graduating class, and was in the National Honors Society. I graduated college cum laude. My high school gpa was higher than my college gpa and I worked harder in college.

87. I obsess over presidential elections on election day only. I can’t stand political ads on tv, radio or in the mail. But I love watching the states change color, and the last three elections I stayed up till midnight to find out where the last few states might go (even though the most recent election was basically done long before that point).

88.  I attended the last game played at Cinergy/Riverfront Stadium (a soft-ball game played by Pete Rose & co.) and the first game played at Great American Ballpark (an exhibition game). I got up at 4:30 in the morning on December 29, 2002 to watch them implode Riverfront at 8:00 that morning. It was really cold.

89. I went to New York City in July of 2001, and we didn’t visit the World Trade Center because we said we’d do it the next time we came. We actually did, but for obvious reasons, it wasn’t quite the same.

90. I’m addicted to my DVR. I’ve had it for almost 3 years, and I am having a hard time trying to give it up. I don’t think I’ll be able to do it.

91. I was in Marching Band from 8th through 11th grade, and I occasionally use the phrase “this one time at band camp.” Oh, and I played the flute, and 2 years was in the flag corps.

92. I once considered being a music major until my sister told me how hard it would be, since she had also considered it.

93. I believe that God does amazing things when we finally stop asking him to. He does things in HIS time. This happens regularly in my life.

94. I sucked my thumb until I was about 8, only at night, though. I quit cold turkey by “hiding” my silky in the linen closet. I used to sleep only with a blanket with a silk binding on the edge and I would twist it in my fingers. To this day, I love silk binding, but I don’t suck my thumb anymore.

95. I could do second grade math at the age of 4, but if you asked me to multiply right now, it would take me a rather long time to do the work.

96. Sometimes I dream in Spanish, and I have no idea what is being said.

97. I’m a shy environmentalist, but I’m not afraid to try something new if I think it is more environmentally responsible.

98. I sewed all my kids’ cloth diapers and covers myself. I bought the material at Joann Fabric and online.

99. There are probably a lot more things I could think of, but for some reason every time I sit down to write, I forget most of them.

100. I love to write, but I’m terribly inconsistent and really need to work on getting myself on a schedule.

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading something about me, I’m not trying to make this a meme thing, because, well, I don’t really like those. I just like to share who I am, and hopefully someone can relate to something.