Day 6: The Pursuit of the Trivial

List 30 interesting facts about yourself.

Mother of pearl.  Really?  Kill me now.  I am so tempted to copy one of the eleventy-two of these I've done in the past.  But I won't.  Because I'm stupidly honest like that.

1.  I hate mushrooms.  I will not eat even a little teeny tiny itty bitty piece of a mushroom willingly.

2.  I'm very crafty.  I have dabbled in scrapbooking, needlepoint, jewelry making, rubber stamping, knitting, crocheting, quilting, and making clothes, among other things.  I've got projects from pretty much every department of Michael's and Joann Fabric scattered around my house.

3.  I love photography.  Nearly all of the pictures on my walls are my own photography.  I covet a new camera, preferably a Canon EOS Rebel T3i DSLR with a Canon EF-S 18-55mm IS II lens.  (Here is a link, just in case you want to buy me one and make all of my photography dreams come true.)  I love nature/landscape photography the most.

4.  I am left-handed.  2/3 of my kids (both boys) are left-handed.  My mom and one of my three brothers are left-handed.  Think it runs in the family or something?

5.  My eyes are very light aqua and are incredibly light-sensitive.  I have to wear sunglasses pretty much 365 days a year.

6.  I prefer cats over dogs.  Don't get me wrong--I love dogs.  Just as long as they belong to someone else.

7.  I love sappy, romantic movies.  And movies based on Jane Austen novels and movies about people in Victorian-type eras.  (I love period dress.  All those beautiful ball gowns!)  I despise horror movies and will not watch them.

8.  Speaking of movies, I have never seen Twilight or any of its sequels.  Don't want to either.  I'm Team Nobody.

9.  If you want to make me really happy, give me a task, along with a notebook and a pen.  I will make list after list until your project is as organized as can be.  I'm a listaholic.

10.  I love school supplies, especially notebooks and pens.  What can I say--I need someplace to write down all of my lists!

11.  I love meat and don't think I could ever become a vegetarian.  I'm trying to lower my consumption of meat, but a life without bacon is a life I don't wanna live, so I will unabashedly eat meat forever.

12.  I love to shop and am an avid bargain-hunter.  I don't remember the last time I paid full price for an article of clothing.  The clearance rack is my best friend, and I love coupons.  There's nothing I like more than getting an item of clothing that started out at $25 for the bargain-basement price of $4.

13.  I hate coming up with 30 interesting facts about myself.  (Yes, I know that's cheating.  Call the Blog Police and turn me in.)

14.  I want to use some of my in-laws' land to start a small Christmas tree farm.

15.  My hubby and I went to Ireland for a (very) belated honeymoon in 2002.  It was an amazing trip and I reallyreallyreally want to go back someday very soon.

16.  My dream vacation would be an extended trip to Australia.

17.  I've never been to Disneyworld.

18.  I'm trying to figure out a way to go to nursing school.

19.  A million years ago, I went to Duquesne University and had a double major of elementary and special education.  Now that I have kids, I can't imagine being a teacher for a living.  I think I'd go insane.

20.  I was raised Catholic and spent 22 years in the Catholic church before getting saved and becoming a born-again Christian.

21.  I was 24 when I got my driver's license.  In the almost 16 years I've been driving,  I've never had an accident, a speeding ticket or even a parking ticket.

22.  Speaking of driving, I can't drive a stick-shift.  I fear that I wouldn't be coordinated enough to figure it out.

23.  My mom and I are very close.  In fact, I consider her my best friend.  My other best friend is Kim, with whom I've been friends for almost 28 years.  She's pretty much the sister I never had.

24.  Todd and I knew each other less than 8 months when he proposed.  My first engagement ring was a marquis-shaped sapphire surrounded by tiny little diamonds.  It's since been replaced with a diamond.

25.  I've never smoked a cigarette.  Not even a single puff.  I've also never tried any kind of illegal drugs.  I was always kind of scared to do it, and it never really appealed to me anyway.

26.  On a good day, I can type almost 100 words/minute.

27.  I love animated movies.  I can watch them over and over.  And I've been known to cry during sappy or sweet scenes.

28.  One of these days, I'm going to follow through on my plan to "go off the grid" as much as possible.  I want to plant a raised bed garden, get chickens and goats, and install a rainwater catching system and solar panels, along with starting a compost heap.

29.  I love trivia games.  Having a head filled with useless knowledge is a distinct advantage over your opponents!

30.  I made it through this blog post!  Hopefully some of these facts are at least semi-interesting!

Day 5: This is the end, my friend

Has there ever been time when you thought about ending your own life?

Honestly, there hasn't.  I think it's partly because I'm too scared to do it, and partly because above everything else, I am an eternal optimist.  I am convinced things will always get better (and they always have).  Now that I have kids, the thought of dying at all makes me sad, and to die by my own hand and leave them behind to deal with the aftermath of that makes my heart hurt.  There have definitely been times when I wanted to crawl under my blankets and hide from the world forever, but to end it all...nope.  I just couldn't bring myself to even think about it.

Day 4: Losing my religion

Note:  the views expressed here are strictly my opinion, and are based on my own personal experiences.  This isn't a debate, so please don't tell me how wrong you think I am if you disagree.

My views on religion:

I'm a big fan of God.  I'm not a big fan of "organized" religion.  As a child, growing up in the Catholic church, something always felt off to me.  I thought it was because I wasn't doing enough to immerse myself in the church, so I threw myself into every activity I could to fill that void inside me.  It wasn't until I was older that I realized it had nothing to do with the fact that I wasn't doing enough for the church, it was that the church wasn't doing enough for ME.  It felt like our parish had become about little more than money and politics, and God was nowhere near the top of the list.   It wasn't until I met Todd and started going to his non-denominational church that I understood what it meant to feel at home at church.  Too often, with organized religion comes the desire for more bodies in the seats, and the quest for warm bodies frequently leads to greed and corruption and the pursuit of power.  I prefer a congregation where God is the primary focus, and everything else is secondary.  I'm not dissing *all* organized religion; the fact that I attend a church at all is proof of that.  But my own experience with a specific religion left me feeling empty and unfulfilled.

As for my actual beliefs...well, that's a post for a different day.  Day 18, to be exact.  I guess you'll just have to come back to find out what I believe in, won't you?  ;)

Day 3: Snortin' and drinkin'

Your views on drugs and alcohol:

I'm guessing my views aren't really innovative or controversial.  Alcohol is fine in moderation.  Don't ever drink and drive.  I'm not really a drinker; I can probably count on one hand the number of drinks I have in a year, but I'd never tell anybody else not to do it as long as they're responsible.  As for drugs...well, drugs are bad, mmmmkay?  Seriously, I'm on the fence about marijuana and legalizing it.  Having never tried it (really, never!) I have no idea how it affects the body, and the arguments for and against legalizing it contain such conflicting facts it's really hard to say.  As far as everything else goes, it's illegal for a reason, right?  I can't really see how anybody could say meth or heroin or cocaine or whatever should be legalized.

So yeah.  Drink in moderation and don't do drugs.  There's your PSA for the day, courtesy of little ol' me.

*cue "The more you know" music and the shooting star*

Blog Challenge: Day 2

Where you'd like to be in 10 years...

Oooh, this one is a toughie.  I'm hoping that by that point I will no longer be a stay-at-home-mom, since my kids will be nearly sixteen, eighteen and twenty-three by that point.  (They won't need me here after school by then, will they?  Pleasesaynopleasesaynopleasesayno!)  If my primary dream of winning the lottery and becoming a lady of luxury hasn't come true by then (and since I don't actually play the lottery I'm guessing it won't), I'd like to have a career going.  I'm hoping to go to school in the next year or two--for what exactly, I still don't know.  I'd like to get into either the medical field or maybe go to beauty school.  (Two very different career paths, I know.)  My cousin and I have talked about going to the local community college together and taking some non-credit courses in floral arrangement and party planning.  (Another dream of mine is to open a floral boutique/party planning business.)  With Sam and Norah being so young still, it's going to be hard to do nursing school because you have to be available pretty much 24/7.  I've been thinking of taking a phlebotomy certification course as a way to get myself into the field and then adding to it with a laboratory assistant certification and then maybe become a medical assistant.  After caring for my mom while she was sick and giving Jake his weekly injections, I know that I'm less squeamish than I ever thought I was.  On the other hand, I also have a real interest in becoming a stylist and doing hair.  That would definitely be the more playful and fun job!  No blood or guts and the only crying is over a bad haircut.

Sometimes thinking about the future makes my head spin.  I have a LOT of planning to do.  Maybe tomorrow I'll buy a lottery ticket...

And the challenge begins!

*deep breath*

Okay, I'm ready.  30 Day Blog Challenge begins...NOW!

Day 1:  Your current relationship, if single, discuss how single life is.

My current relationship status is married.  I haven't been single in for what feels like 150 years.  In reality, it's nearly 18 together, 16 married.  Holy cow.  That's a looooong time to be with just one person and still both be alive.

Todd and I have been together since just after my 22nd birthday, and I'll be 40 in two weeks.  We met on December 31, 1993 at Rodeo, a country-western line dance saloon.  (Stop laughing!)  The next morning, when my mom asked me if I'd met anybody the night before, I told her I met the man I was going to marry.

  On August 27, 1994, Todd proposed during a dinner cruise aboard the Liberty Belle Clipper.  He was so nervous he dropped the ring and it almost went through the boards of the deck.  It was so cute!  I knew something was up, and everybody in my family was acting squirrelly and giving me sappy smiles and "awwww"ing a lot.  He even asked my dad for my hand in marriage.  Such a traditionalist, my guy is!  On September 9, 1995, we said "I do".

The past 16 years have been full of ups and downs.  Some of the ups have been amazing (the births of our 3 kids), and some of the downs have been devastating (the deaths of my grandmother, my niece and my father).    We've overcome the tough stuff and we're still together.  There are times where we want to absolutely KILL each other, but we work through it and get over it and move on.  He drives me nuts at times, and there have been moments where I haven't been sure we'd make it.  But despite those bad days, there isn't anyone else I can imagine growing old with.  Like he always tells me (in his best Forrest Gump voice) "We go together like peas and carrots, Jenny."

Todd and I have always said we wanted to follow in our respective parents' footsteps:  we both come from families where the parents have 40+ year marriages.  We're nearly halfway there...I think we might must make it!

*tap tap* Is this thing on???

Instead of apologizing for being a terrible blogger and making half-hearted promises to be a better blogess, I think I'm just going to go ahead and BLOG, already!  Thanks to a friend, I have a 30 day blog challenge to inspire me.  Some of the questions are silly and shallow ("What are the first 10 songs that come up on your iPod on shuffle?") and others are much deeper ("What are your views on religion?").  It definitely runs the gamut from the mundane to the fantastic.

I'm starting December 1st.  This should be interesting.  And hopefully lots of fun!