42 Bits of Trivia about This ALMOST 42 Year Old

I will be turning the great, big 42 on Thursday.  That's a 4.  Followed by a 2.  I still haven't adjusted to being 40, and here I am 2 years into it.  (And I can hear my dad now saying, "Try being old enough to have a daughter who is 42!) 

It's like people actually knew my birthday was coming, because I've been showered with lots of awards lately.  (The equivalent of love in blogland.) 

The always hilarious ladies Beth (from Writer B is Me.  She and I have a whole lot in common.) and Kari (Miss Bloggypants.  You may remember her as being the big winner in the pig poetry contest.) were each kind enough to give me a Liebster award. 

When I said I could always use more sunshine, Lizzi said, "Well, have a Sunshine Award!" 

Since it is my almost 42nd birthday, I'm combining these awards to give you 42 things you may not know about me, in the form of questions the ladies asked and arbitrary facts pulled out of my brain.

First, the questions from Beth:


1. Have you ever seen a ghost? I have never seen one, but I am told there is one in my house.  I have also been to a local establishment featured on Paranormal 911.  Bits from the show are in the "Spooky Speakeasy" episode.  I got to see the "evidence" and hear the owner and other workers talk all about it before the show even aired.  It was completely creepy.

2. If you had to be one, would you be a vampire or a werewolf? Why?  Neither.  I don't like to scare people for real.  Just little scares, like jumping out when they turn a corner kind of scaring.  That's fun.  Biting someone's neck and sucking his blood?  Not so much.

3. If you could play a professional sport, which would it be?  Swimming.  I looooove to swim laps.  The quiet.  The feel of the water over my skin.  The feel of my muscles getting stronger with every stroke. 

4. Switch lives with an actor/ess for a week. Who do you choose?  Jada Pinkett Smith.  I want to spend a week with Will.  That man has cracked me up since the day he sang "Parents Just Don't Understand".

5. Do you have any tattoos?  Not a one.  I don't see the point of them. 

6. Tell me something embarrassing.  Does it have to be about me?  Shoot, half this blog is about embarrassing things about me.

7. What’s the craziest thing (in your opinion) you’ve ever done?  Probably white-water rafting a level 5 river (That's the highest it goes.) on our 10th Anniversary trip.  There were only 5 of us in the raft, and I was the only female.  We rode the rapids, went down a waterfall (then walked back up the shore to ride it again, then turned around and surfed the waterfall) and jumped off a cliff into the rapids.  It was crazy exciting.  There was a guy in a kayak videotaping our trip.  I was laughing in a high-pitched, screamy kind of way the entire time. 


8. Have you ever met a celebrity? Who?  I ate dinner at a restaurant 2 tables away from Oliver North.  OH!  And I hugged Yakov Smirnov when COW and I saw his show in Branson, MO, on one of our adventures before kids.  (He is so a celebrity!)

9-11 last 3 combined: you go to the movies – do you get a) coke, or b) pepsi, a) popcorn, or b) no popcorn, to see a) chic flic b) action/adventure c) horror movie?  I get a Sprite and popcorn with light butter to see a comedy.

And now for Kari's questions:

1.  What is your favorite cartoon character? Why?  I will always have a special place in my heart for Clifford and the gang.  When the big kids were little, they were allowed to watch TV at 5:00 while I got dinner started.  Clifford was usually on PBS at that time.  They, and I, thought it was the best show.  Phoenix and Buttercup even went as Clifford and Chleo for Halloween one year.

2.  If your house were burning down, what three objects would you try to save?  My jewelry, photo albums, and purse.  You'll see the reason for the jewelry later.  The photo albums because I spent a lot of time and effort putting them together, and I want to always have the images from the kids' growing up.  My purse because with having to replace everything, it will be a whole lot easier if I have my ID, bank cards, health insurance card and everything else I keep in there.

3.  Name a gift you will never forget.  There are so many of them, but the biggest was the tennis bracelet COW gave me in the hospital after having Cuckoo.  As he handed it to me, he said, "Thank you for having our babies.  When you think you want more, look at the bracelet.  It is your reminder that I'm done."  I never took that bracelet off for over a year.  Then one day, while driving to school, I realized it wasn't on my wrist.  I got sick to my stomach, having no idea when or where it fell off.  As soon as I got home, I began calling people I had seen in the three previous days to ask if they had noticed it on me.  The second person I called said, "I doubt this is it, but Eli (their son) found a bracelet in the parking lot of the restaurant where the team ate dinner (at a tournament three hours away from home at 9:00 at night).  It's silver with diamonds I was hoping were fake.  For some reason, we didn't make him give it to the manager of the restaurant.  I was just about to call them to let them know we found a bracelet."  I raced to their house.  The bracelet was mine. 

4.  Name one thing you really like about yourself.  My ability to make people laugh.

5.  Does your name have a special meaning and/or were you named after someone special?  As everyone who has seen my name on a standardized test knows, my name means "follower of Christ".  (There are never enough spaces to put my full name on the bubble sheet, so my first name is always cut off at "Christ".)  However, that is not why my parents gave me that name.  One of my dad's girlfriends was named Christine or some variation of it.  He liked the name, so Christine I became.  Except they called me Crissy.  I finally became Christine when we moved to Indiana.  I am still known as "Aunt Crissy" or Chris to the relatives.

6.  What is your favorite season (winter, spring, summer, fall) and why?  It makes me laugh that "winter, spring, summer, fall" had to be specified.  Just making sure I don't say "football"?  Anyway...spring is my favorite.  I survived the cold days of winter, for one.  Everything blooming and growing and smelling pretty just makes me happy.  As does the knowledge of the months and months of warm weather ahead.

7.  What's the weirdest thing you've ever eaten?  I'm not all that adventurous in my eating habits.  I guess the weirdest would be ham hocks.  They look nasty when you open them up, but man, are they yummy.

8.  Do you have siblings?  If so, how many? (brothers? sisters?)  Pull up a chair... There are four "original" kids:  me, my sister, and two brothers.  When I was three, we found out I had an older half sister.  After my parents divorced, my dad and stepmom then added my two younger half-sisters to the mix.  For a while there, I also had a step-sister and step-brother.  My mom was remarried to a man who had 2 children.  (His wife and his other two kids had died.)  They were older, though, and I never lived with them.   I haven't seen them since my step-dad passed away 17 years ago.  (My youngest brother keeps up with my step-sister on FB, though.)

9.  If you had this week to do over, what would you do differently?  Went to church Sunday morning.  We were planning on going at 5:00 in the afternoon, but then the tornadoes came through.  It really isn't a good idea to get in the car for a 20 minute drive when tornadoes are touching down all over the state.  We didn't get to go to church this week, and it makes me sad.

10.  What was the best vacation you ever had?  Every single one has been my favorite.  We always have great fun on our vacations, so there is no way to choose.

11.  Have you ever been told you look like someone famous? If so, who?  People tell me all the time I am the spitting' image of Heidi Klum.


Facts about myself:

1.  I was kidding.  I don't look anything like Heidi Klum.  More like a tall Rhea Pearlman.

2.  I was in an improv troupe in college. 

3.  I have never taken even a sip of coffee.  Or tea.

4.  I took a baton twirling class when I was a kid.  I don't remember liking it.  Actually, I remember my mom and our neighbors trying to stuff me into a car while I screamed my full head off and fought with all my might to NOT go to baton twirling class.

5.  I once had to go to the hospital when my mom spilled hot carrots on me as she went down the line and served them to us kids.  I had to wear a nasty cream and stay out of the sun for what seemed like an entire summer.

6. When teachers would ask what nationality I was, I answered, "I'm half Canadian.  I don't know what I am on my dad's side."

7.  In reality, I'm German.  Almost completely.  My mom is a Canadian citizen, but her line goes farther back than that.

8.  I wear a size 9 shoe.  On my left foot.  My right is more of a 9 and a half.

9.  I rarely wear makeup.

10.  I helped put myself through high school by doing a work study stapling Bingo cards together.

11.  And then volunteered at my high school's Bingo while my grandma played and my grandpa called the numbers.  (Bingo is big in Canton, Ohio.)

12.  While in high school, I was on the swim team and swam every event at least once.

13.  I had chicken pox in kindergarten, but had the mildest case ever seen.  Somewhere around 5 spots.

14.  My first car was a Ford Tempo.

15.  My second car was a BMW.  My dad was on a classic car kick and sold our Tempo to buy an old BMW.  It was the nicest car I've ever owned. 

16.  I've been in two car accidents in my life.  Both were minor fender benders.  The first was in the BMW.

17.  When I was 14 I had my first job.  I was as a bus girl at a restaurant in which my aunts, grandma, and dad had previously worked.  My grandma and dad still worked the register on Sunday nights while I worked in the dining room.

18.  I was PTO president at my kids' school for two years.  I loved it.

19.  My nickname in high school was Spaz.  It was given to me by my track coach.

20.  (This one's for you, Jen.)  Through all my years of elementary school, middle school, high school, and college (in which I had a minor in the subject), I never got anything but an A in any math class.  I love math.

How's that for an overload of info you didn't need to know?

To the nominees...

Just about every person I know has received one of these Liebsters at some point.   Instead of "making" them do another acceptance post, I'm just going to give you a list of some new blogs I've read recently which you might enjoy.

Sandy from Mother of Imperfection

Inion N. Mathair - I actually just found them yesterday, but read about 6 of their posts in one sitting.

Katherine at Curiosa Kat

Lizzy from The Muddle-Headed Mamma

Elizabeth from Blending a Family of Dorks

Sarah from Amycake and the Dude

P.J. from A 'lil Hoohaa

Kevin from Pregnancy from a Guy's Perspective (except the baby is 2 months old now)

I do believe my work here is done.

I don't know how much posting I'll be doing the rest of this week.  On my birthday I will be attending a concert.  Pink's to be exact.  Yes, Pink.  Not something I chose for my birthday, but the tickets were free, we'll have a lovely dinner beforehand, and we will be in some good company throughout. 

Don't forget to join us on Saturday for the big 25th week of the 10 Things of Thankful.  I do believe Lizzi has something special planned.  Of course. 

Have a lovely day!