To commemorate my 1,100th post and 5 1/2 years of blogging, I present to you 100 Things About Me. I’m thinking you’re lucky I didn’t go all the way to 1,100.
I’ve worked hard on this, although I fully expect that there are only three people who will read it in its entirety. HA! If you’re not my mom, my husband or Grace, and you read it all the way through, I’ll be surprised!
Without further ado:
1. I dislike stepping on a wet bathroom rug from someone who’s showered before me.
2. I never use the label “miscellaneous” for files. There is so much about life that’s miscellaneous, I don’t want my entire life stuck in one folder. Kind of like the “eggs in one basket” saying, I suppose.
3. I find it amusing that men watch TV so loudly because they “can’t hear the dialogue” and yet they can hear the word “sex” whispered from upstairs, in the shower, with two doors closed between.
4. Lipsticks that profess to be “12 hour color” never stay on my lips more than an hour. I guess I’m a nervous lip gnawer? When I die and they do an autopsy, they’ll probably find a rainbow in my a**, courtesy of L’oreal.
5. People who do not pre-write their checks while standing in line at the grocery store really annoy me. Come on… just write the date and store name, at least!
6. People who brake when approaching a green light also really annoy me. IT’S GREEN!
7. I believe that acne and bloating/water retention are defects in God’s creation.
8. I love elephants and red finger nail polish. Not necessarily ON the elephant, mind you.
9. I learned to swallow pills when I was 8 years old by swallowing M&M’s.
10. I also learned how to properly paint my fingernails when I was 8 years old. A lady by the name of Lynn taught me how. She was a beautician with a strange story. I’ve since learned that strange stories are fairly normal.
11. When I get sick, I REALLY get sick. My body likes to make a big show of things.
12. I called in sick once to work when I wasn’t sick. I ended up getting sick that day with a cold and was miserable. I haven’t faked sick since then.
13. I love onions and eat them raw, like an apple, every chance I get. I especially love onion hearts.
14. I also love eating raw potatoes. What a yummy, starchy treat!
15. I love beets and radishes, too.
16. I think I generally just love root vegetables, although I’ve never had turnips.
17. I despise mixed vegetables and, if you fix them for me, will totally insult you by not eating them. But I don’t mind vegetable soup.
18. I don’t eat seafood. Although, oddly, I get a craving on *very* rare occasions for smoked salmon or oyster stew.
19. I’ve never tasted alcohol, but I will sniff it and I like how it smells.
20. My father lost his family and, eventually, his life as a result of alcoholism.
21. I am easily addicted to things I like.
22. Those last two reasons are why I choose not to do drugs or drink alcohol of any kind.
23. I didn’t know a thing about fish until my former boss left behind a tank of 5 African Cichlids when he departed the company where we worked. I inherited them and resented them in equal parts. Now I love them and even have a fish blog.
24. I perform a 25-50% water change in my fish tanks once per week. The whole thing is a bit of a project and I have learned to go pee BEFORE I start. I’ve also learned it’s really important to their lives to do water changes, like I tell my husband, “Those poor fishies, always swimming in their poopy!”
25. I adore cats. It’s a tough decision I make everyday where I should start petting them… paws, nose, belly, ears or between the ears. Delectable. But I really don’t care for collecting cat-looking things, I much prefer the real thing.
26. I do collect nativity scenes. Someday, when I’m rich, I’ll buy the Waterford Crystal Nativity Collection.
27. If I eat an apple or orange first thing in the morning, I will barf within an hour. Same goes for the juice of those two things.
28. If I have a headache, often times if I eat an orange or an apple, it will help my headache go away. Let’s hope I don’t get a headache first thing in the morning.
29. If I eat something sweet and then smile while it’s still in my mouth, the back of my jaw gets a shooting pain on both sides.
30. Soggy bread makes me gag. Seriously gag. I’m gagging just thinking about it. Blech! No au jus with my roast beef sandwich, please.
31. When loading the dishwasher, I sort the silverware — putting spoons together, forks together, etc.
32. I have never owned an apron, but I own a gun and know how to use it.
33. I’ve also never owned an iPod or MP3 player.
34. I love snow, but hate being cold. Ahhh, the sacrifices I make for happiness.
35. I am obsessed with snowmen, inclusive of Frosty the Snowman.
36. I do not have a favorite season. I love spring, summer, autumn and winter equally. Halloween, however, is my favorite holiday, because my birthday is the day after.
37. I have a thing for black boots. Meaning I have many black boots.
38. I have chewed my cuticles/fingernails for as long as I can remember. When I was 12, my grandma offered me a box of ice cream if I would stop. I didn’t even consider stopping. I might’ve given it some effort if she’d offered me a box of chocolate.
39. I can never get saran wrap to stick to anything other than itself.
40. My ears are pierced twice. I’ve always wanted to get a third ear piercing, but have to find the “perfect” hoop to wear in it first.
41. I passionately and actively abhor mosquitoes. They are the only bug I’m truly phobic about and only because they are intrusive and violate my person.
42. I am also phobic of coughs and coughing. I will do anything and everything possible to prevent myself from coughing. I hate it that much. If you cough in front of me, you’ll more than likely get an evil-eyed look from me, and depending on how well we know each other, I might even yell at you to “STOP IT!”
43. When I have the time, I enjoy washing dishes by hand. It reminds me of my grandmother.
44. I cannot go to sleep at night until I have put lotion on my hands and some sort of lip sauce on my lips.
45. Once that’s done, then the sleep position aerobics begin. *sigh* I can’t fall asleep unless I’m on my stomach with my feet touching the footboard. When I wake up, I’m always on my back with my head crammed up against the headboard.
46. I am addicted to Orbit White Bubblemint gum. I expect that they’ll discontinue it any moment now. That always happens to me. Maybe I should take up alcohol and drugs, they never discontinue those things.
47. I hate microwaves that have follow-up beeps. As in, beeps that occur after the initial “I’m done” beep.
48. I find the sounds of freeway traffic to be soothing and I love road trips in a motorhome. Probably because of the road trips I took in my grandparent’s motorhome as a youngster.
49. A part of road trips that I especially enjoy are the sounds of diesel engines in semi-trucks & jake brakes late at night. Contrarily, I find the sounds of diesel engines in other vehicle types to be stressful and annoying.
50. Tanning booths kick my kidneys into overdrive. After 2-3 minutes I gotta go, gotta go, gotta go! For that reason, I’ve not been since I was 18.
51. The reason I went to a tanning booth when I was 18 was because it was a free “perk” for one of the pageants in which I competed. I competed in two pageants as a teenager. I didn’t win either of them.
52. As a teenager, if exposed to the sun, I always burned, blistered and peeled. I could never tan. As an adult, I can’t keep myself un-tan and I never burn. Even though I wear 30 SPF. Maybe it’s because I wear 30 SPF.
53. The sound of a lawn mower or chainsaw always makes me think of Saturday mornings. We can thank my grandpa for that one.
54. I plug my ears when I use a public restroom. Kind of an “ostrich with its head in the sand” thing. If I can’t hear you, you can’t hear me.
55. I love reading and, when I was little, learning to read was the sole reason I couldn’t wait to start school!
56. When I came home after the first day of school, I was very despondent. My mom thought something bad had happened, and it had! I was devastated because I hadn’t learned how to read that day!
57. When I finish a really good book, I often feel as if I’m losing friends.
58. I love Scrabble and personalized license plates.
59. I cannot whistle, but I’ve been able to blow bubbles with gum since I was about 6 years old.
60. A foreign exchange student from Sweden was the first guy who ever attempted to kiss me on the lips. He was really, really cute and sweet, and every girl in his high school probably had a crush on him.
61. It was the whole magnetic eye contact, slowly lean in, eyes fall closed, just like you see in the movies thing… I seriously could not move. Then, after our lips touched and he realized it was my first kiss, he backed off and offered to “teach me” how to kiss. I was so embarrassed that I told him no. I wish I’d said yes.
62. I was 14 and, to this day, when I think of that moment, I still feel my embarrassment all the way to the tip of my toes. God, I was so young.
63. Baking and gardening are two of my favorite things to do and I never feel as if I have enough time in which to indulge in them.
64. I’m not really a big fan of cookies. In particular, chocolate chip cookies… just not a big fan. Unless they’re straight from the oven, which is probably why I love baking so much. It also probably explains why I give away much of what I bake. Once they’ve cooled down, I’m just kind of over ‘em.
65. I cannot remember a time when I did not have bangs. I love my bangs and don’t care much for the looks of my forehead without them.
66. In my early 20’s, I ruined my hair by giving myself home permanents. Oh, how I wanted curly hair! I fried it so bad, and was so embarrassed about it, that I wore a ponytail wig for two years until my hair grew out to about shoulder length. Even then, my hair was terribly shaggy, and I found someone in one of those inexpensive places (like Fantastic Sam’s or Great Clips, someplace like that) who didn’t judge me, who encouraged me, and trimmed it up. Over time, she helped me get it all to one length.
67. My hair is now all mine, and I love having long hair.
68. I haven’t used shampoo in my hair since May 17, 2009.
69. When I was a teenager, our neighbor was an elderly lady who had long, gray hair which she usually wore up in a bun. I thought she looked very elegant. On the rare occasions when she wore her long hair down, usually early mornings out in her yard, I thought she looked beautiful.
70. When I’m old and my hair is gray, I hope to be elegant and beautiful.
71. Every morning before I leave my home, I ask God to allow me to be a blessing to someone that day.
72. I have a list of and pray for every person who has impacted my life… whether positive or negative. I pray a lot.
73. Early one morning in 1994, I took a picture off the balcony of the home I lived in at the time with a camera that used 110 film. To this day, it is still one of my favorite pictures.
74. I love weddings and birthdays, but I don’t like planning parties of any sort.
75. My first celebrity crush as a teenager was on Michael Jackson. That was back in his “Thriller” days.
76. I author 10 blogs.
77. I’ve been told that I’m quieter than one would expect if you meet me in person.
78. Pasteurized milk products make me quite ill. But give me raw milk and I’m fine.
79. I hate clutter and disorganization, it makes me feel overwhelmed, irritable and depressed.
80. I love having a routine, most of the time. I function better with to-do lists and scheduled time sets.
81. I like to plan ahead, work ahead and organize things. If I find myself procrastinating on something, it’s usually because I have an unresolved question that’s holding it up.
82. Survivor, the TV show, is the only television I watch with any consistency.
83. When I was a teenager, I self-taught myself calligraphy and made a bit of pin money from items I was commissioned to write. I haven’t written in calligraphy in y-e-a-r-s, but I thought about it when I read this story.
84. I also made pin money as a teenager from setting an elderly lady’s hair in rollers every Wednesday afternoon. I loved that lady.
85. I blew all my teenage pin money on chocolate bars and arcade games. Dark chocolate was (and is) my candy, and PacMan was my game.
86. I’ve kept a diary of some sort or another since I was around 9 or 10 years old.
87. If I had known that I loved swimming as much as I do, I would have begun swimming a long, long time ago for exercise. Green hair and weird skin conditions be damned. I love feeling healthy.
88. For most of my life, my daily & nightly activities were controlled by endometriosis, its resulting pain and weakened immune system – and just an overall feeling of being unwell.
89. Since endometriosis had infected my entire pelvic region, I couldn’t eat much of anything without feeling nauseated, oftentimes throwing up or dry heaving, accompanied by diarrhea and anxiety attacks. It was terrible and I hated myself and my life.
90. There were times when I gave consideration to suicide, because I believed it would be easier than dealing with the constant, unpredictable pain and betrayal by my own body. It seemed stronger and bigger than my mind, will-power and even God.
91. After my surgery in 2004, I was finally able to eat. And I ate and ate and ate and gained 20 pounds. So one might say I started swimming for vanity… to lose weight. The surgery made things better, but it’s a daily battle for me and I easily fall back into the pattern of fear and anxiety when I get shooting pains in my “lady parts.”
92. I do not automatically respect or trust people just because they have MD, RN, LPN, ENT, GYN, DDS, CMA or any other licensed medical abbreviation after their name. They had to earn that license, yes, but they still have to earn my trust and respect.
93. If you have one of those abbreviations after your name, I do, however, expect you to respect me if I’m sitting on your exam table. I’ve been through more than you can imagine in order to get there.
94. Likewise, just because a prescription is written, I do not automatically fill it. I research the hell out of it and decide for myself if I want to take it. It is my health and my body and *I* am the one who will be vomiting (or worse) at 3 in the morning if the medicine doesn’t agree with me.
95. I think babies are really cute and would love to have two or three of my own.
96. Family and genealogy, and the preservation of that is very important to me. I think it’s important to know from whence you came.
97. I will not tolerate abusive relationships in my life. Not from anyone — family, boss, co-workers or friends. Ever.
98. I still miss my brother sometimes (we’re estranged). Not as often as I thought I would, though. The latter part of that makes me sadder than the first part, and I don’t regret the decision I made.
99. I kept my maiden name when I got married. It was an intentional and important decision to me. For that reason, even though I know people don’t mean it to be, I find it insulting when they “change” my last name to his.
100. I have never loved anyone the way I love Tony. When I hear his car pull in the garage, or see his name in my inbox, or on my caller ID, my heart skips a beat and I thrill with anticipation of being near him.
And, bonus:
101. I started writing this list in July of 2007, over two years ago as of the posting date.
Jammie J's Quest 
That was a lot to read. I like 100. I feel the same way about you. I would add when I see your picture I relax and exhaul. Love you sweetie pie
Awwww. I relax and exhale AFTER the excitement of your homecoming! hehehe
Love you, babe. xo
awwww… that was really nice 🙂
you eat raw potatoes? is it delicious? i’m not sure i want to try it… hehe.
also, i hate saran wrap. i use it when i have to, but i can never get it to work… same with that other press and seal thing. never works. blah.
pin money? is that like extra cash? i have never heard that term before….
you are beautiful and elegant already. there’s no doubt in my mind … you will STILL be beautiful and elegant when you’re older. 🙂
i saw a very angry, aggressive older lady behind the wheel of a car. that’s who *i* want to be like when i’m older. hehe.
(how’d you know i’d read the whole thing? hehehe. you know me too well! hehe. 😀 xoxox)
Thanks. 🙂
I love raw potatoes. When I indulge in them in the raw form, I slice them up and then lightly salt them. They have the same texture (not taste) as an apple.
I think saran wrap is something that only mother-in-laws can do right. At least my MIL can get it just so. I’ll bet your MIL does too. You should ask her… hehe… random questions to your MIL.
Yep, pin money is like spending money. It’s an old fashioned term, I think. My grandma used to say it.
Awww, you’re a good friend (re: beautiful and elegant). 😆 at your aspiration of angry & aggressive. Still laughing!
I knew you’d read it because you stalk me. 😛
Awww….very nicely done, J. I enjoyed reading that a lot.
Hey! I just noticed the new banner up there. You callin’ me a turkey? LOL.
Ohhh, thanks. 🙂
HA HA! Yep! Not just any turkey, though, MY turkey! hehe
Met that neighbor lady in the store one time. She said you were so cute and had seen you running naked in the sprinkler one day (little girl). Then she realized that I was the neighbor on the OTHER side of her!
I’ve thought about Lynn at times, and wonder where she is and how her kids turned out. I hope she gets to see them regularly now that they’ve grown up.
Love you,
Wait, which neighbor? The elderly lady with long, gray hair? Yeah, it wasn’t me — I was a teenager, I didn’t go running around nekkid in sprinklers. Eep! 😯
Maybe I should do an Internet search for her, her kids. Or you could ask Dorothy, she might know. 🙂
Yeah, you were a teenager at the time. My shocked look is what clued her in that she had the wrong neighbor’s daughter–wrong neighbor–in mind.
#51: but you should have.
#71: have to remember that one.
Love you,
Oh my! That is pretty funny!
Man, I remember practicing and practicing for those pageants. I even had an “in” with the former Miss F****brook helping me with my stuff. It was rigged, I tell you, RIGGED! hehe
Thanks for having started this more than two years ago. You indeed plan ahead and work ahead! Cheers to your 1100th post and 5.5 years of blogging!
I’ve tried to read every 101 things you have written, though I suspect I may still miss a few out and can’t commit many to my memory.
Hey J., how do you blow bubble with gums? In Singapore, the sale of chewing gums are banned (unless the chewing gums have medical benefits!), and before the ban of the sale, I had yet to learn how to blow bubble with gums. Would this sound like a potential post to write about?
Now, see, I think you did just fine… you obviously read some of it. hehe
Are you serious? Chewing gum is banned in Singapore? 😯 Wow. I had absolutely no idea! I feel so sad for you. I can’t imagine not being able to chew gum… it’s an option I use to keep from eating stuff late at night.
There are some types of gum that don’t work well with blowing bubbles, like the kind we can buy in the gum machines as we exit the grocery store, but the type I chew it works just fine.
I beleive you are and always will be elegant and beautiful. You don’t need to wait until you’re gray.
See, I was paying attention. I even learned a few things.
Aww, shucks. Thanks. 🙂
It was really hard to come up with all those things. I kept lists all over the house.
hey, you got all your #s in there! i knew i could trust you! hehe…
it was good to see you today 🙂 and not just cuz you bring me deliciousness. 😀
LOL. i just saw the pics up there. yes, i will be your turkey any day. hehehe.
let’s get together soon… i guess next week is out of the question, but the week after for sure. 🙂
xoxox
I think it’s funny that my suggestion that I’d erred caused you to check. :lol::
It’s always good to see you. *happy sigh*
HA! Turkey, turkey, turkey! hehe
Can’t wait to see you again! 🙂
I guess you really can get to know someone from reading their blog. The only thing that surprised me was that you had never eaten turnips.
Do you think I’d like them? The name kind of scares me a little…
I read the whole thing! I had a million (OK, maybe 70) responses, but forgot them all! 🙂
Oh dear! Maybe that’s for the best, eh? Your comment could have been overwhelming if you had 70 responses! Eep!
I should have taken notes, and written responses when I was reading. But the majority of my responses were “I agree, no way! Really? and hmmmmm….” Wanna guess which ones went where? 😉
HA!! Nooooooo, I’ll just take your word for it. 🙂
If you dont use shampoo what do you use?
A mix of apple cider vinegar and water.
Survivor.. don’t you just love Russell, my favorite survivorist in several seasons
I’m annoyed that he’s kind of grown on me now. hehe
Well….I got through the whole 101…lol! And enjoyed learning all these very very interesting things about you.
BTW: #42….Gee, we WILL have a problem if my Lung condition happens to kick in when you and I asre together….Coughing?? OY! LOL! I do it a lot!
😆 Welllll, you didn’t cough that previous visit. I think I’m a bit more tolerant if it’s not a loud, piercing cough or if I’m not trying to concentrate on things. hehe
You just know how to push all of my OCD buttons. hehe. ;P
I pride myself on it, actually. 😛