73 Things

1. One of my favorites things to do is orga­niz­ing get togeth­ers.
2. Wal and I met when we both joined a social club in Green­wood, SC. If you’re think­ing Buena Vista think again.
3. When I was a lit­tle girl my mother would lose me on a reg­u­lar basis. It wasn’t her, it was me. I would won­der off all.the.time.
4. When I was 10 my best friend Paula and I stole some lip gloss. The man­ager saw us and chased us shout­ing that he knew where we lived. We were soo scared he would find us that we both cut our long (down to our butts) hair. The Mon­day after our ‘theft’ be both sported fab Dorothy Hamill hair cuts (and some bub­blegum scented glossy lips).
5. While liv­ing in Green­wood I lived in 7 house/apartments in 8 years.
6. Since 1995 this is the longest I have lived in one place. It’s been 2 1/2 years.
7. I never attempted to buy alco­hol until I was all legal. I ordered a scor­pion bowl at a Chi­nese Rest. They didn’t check for ID. It was then that I real­ized I could have been drink­ing sooner.
8. I did how­ever take some birth­day money and treat all the neigh­bor­hood kids to penny candy from the candy store. $40 goes a long way when you’re buy­ing penny candy. I was nine. My mother was NOT amused.
9. I am first gen­er­a­tion Por­tuguese Amer­i­can. I hold dual US and Por­tuguese cit­i­zen­ship.
10. My fam­ily is loud, lov­ing, they bicker and tease and shout. I have spent so much time on my own that I now find it dif­fi­cult to be sur­rounded by them for very long. The chaos gives me headaches. This makes me sad.
11. I have a cook­book addic­tion.
12. I also have a kitchen gad­get addic­tion.
13. I have a BSc in Psy­chol­ogy– what a waste of time it is. I should have got­ten some­thing a bit more prac­ti­cal. I wish some­one had warned me.
14. I some­times find it incred­i­ble that I am a stay at home mom. I believe I am a good mom. My daugh­ter is almost always smil­ing and loves to kiss and hug.
15. The sum­mer I was 12 my best friend and I ate pan­cakes for break­fast, lunch and din­ner.
16. My favorite non-alcoholic drink is cof­fee milk. I love Auto­crat Cof­fee syrup. If you know what that is you know where I’m from.
17. I used to live in very high heels.
18. I can’t play any instru­ments or carry a tune.
19. I’m afraid of ski­ing and yet I’m going ski­ing in March ’08. In FRANCE where they have really HIGH moun­tains– EEEK!! I went ski­ing for the first time and loved it.  There were many tears but the fun fac­tor was greater than the fear fac­tor.
20. I have asthma and almost died 3 times before the age of 5.
21. I’m very very short– 5′
22. I’ve dyed my hair every color and loved it best when I was blond.
23. I secretly want to sail around the world with Wal and Squidge.
24. When I started school I didn’t speak Eng­lish. Now I can barely have a con­ver­sa­tion in Por­tuguese– this makes me very very sad.
25. I would love to make a liv­ing as a pho­tog­ra­pher.
26. I’m think­ing about writ­ing a cook­book.
27. I miss my best friend every sin­gle day.
28. I wish I was moti­vated to lose 20 lbs.
29. I had a recur­ring dream that ended up being a mem­ory I had for­got­ten.
30. I thank my lucky stars every day that I met Wal and that he is my best friend (but not best friend from #27).
31. I’m a lib­eral.
32. Being a stay at home mom was not the career path I envi­sioned for myself.
33. I worry that no one will hire me when I go back to work– I’ll be at least 42 (if I have another baby).
34. I’m hop­ing to get knocked up this fall (2008).
35. I used to smoke and stopped when I got preg­nant with Squidge.
36. I once went to the ER with severe back pain– I couldn’t moved and had to be wheeled in. Turns out I just needed to take a MAJOR dump.
37. I gig­gle when­ever I thing Squidge is going to have an Eng­lish accent.
38. I’m from New Bed­ford, MA and PROUD. All you bas­tards that go ‘Oh’ in your patron­iz­ing way when I tell you where I’m from can KISS MY PORTUGUESE A$$.
39. I love being crafty.
40. 2007 I con­quered my fear of bak­ing.
41. I’m a good cook.
42. I love liv­ing in Man­ches­ter.  I just wish the sum­mers were sun­nier.
43. Dri­ving on the left still freaks me out some­times.
44. My thumb is a nice shade of green.
45. I’m hop­ing I turn into an eccen­tric old lady.
46. I’m look­ing for­ward to being old enough not to give a rats a$$.
47. Some­times I phys­i­cally ache with love for Squidge.
48. I secretly hate that Squidge is appar­ently the spit­ting image of her pater­nal grand­mother.
49. I once hit a kid with my car. In my defense he did dart from between some parked cars. He just rolled across my wind­shield and kept on run­ning.
50. I love to travel
51. I’m a cat per­son
52. The older I get the more I real­ize I’m a snob. I’m ok with this.
53. I’m a carb junkie
54. I force myself to eat some fruits and veg because of Squidge. I don’t want to pass on any of my food hang-ups
55. I try to never say would have, should have, could have about major things in my life. I try to not have any regrets and I stand by my deci­sions. I might not be happy with the out­come but the deci­sion was made and hind site will kill you.
56. Very often I would be com­pletely and utterly in love with a boy only to intro­duce them to one of my friends and then have the boy tell me he thinks my friend is hot and could I fix them up.
57. I want to be tall and leggy and flat chested. I’m the exact oppo­site.
58. My daugh­ter is named after a char­ac­ter in a JD Salinger short story. Any guesses?
59. I always worry that I have offended my friends. Except Wendy because she knows me so well and just gives me sh!t if I say or do some­thing stu­pid.
60. My favorite movie of all time is To Sir, with love.
61. I haven’t rid­den a bike since I was 17.
62. I peed my pants on an amuse­ment ride once. I haven’t been on one since for fear it will hap­pen again.
63. While liv­ing in SC I would get so bored that I would go to Wal Mart and fill my cart up with things I wanted then just aban­don it.  Woohoo fun times!
64. I am the old­est of 3.  I’m 6 years older than my sis­ter and 10 years older than my brother.
65. I always think that peo­ple dis­like me.
66. In ele­men­tary school I was bul­lied into being nasty/hurtful/horrid to a friend by a bully.  The next day no one was talk­ing to me because of what I had done. The freeze out was ini­ti­ated by the same girl that had bul­lied me into say­ing those nasty things.  It was the single.most.scaring episode of my school career. I still regret what I said to that girl and think of her when­ever I visit my home­town.
67. I can’t eat cold fruit.  I think it’s unnat­ural all fruit should be room tem­per­a­ture.
68. When I was 20/21 I stole my best friends boyfriend. I could not help myself. I have never or since felt an attrac­tion to some­one as great as I did for him. He turned out to be a bit crazy (men­tal!!) and stalked me when I broke up w/ him. I still regret it to this day. It was the first time I real­ized I had it in me to be a truly hor­ri­ble per­son. My bf and I are no longer bf, not because of her but me. She for­gave me but I have yet to for­give myself.
69. I rode a bike for the first time since 1987 this past sum­mer (2009). It felt amaz­ing and I won­dered why it took me so long to get on a bike!
70. I’m run­ning a mil­i­tary style 10k this spring! I’m a lit­tle shocked that I’ve agreed to it and will let you know how that goes!
71. Work­ing on self con­fi­dence.  I had it once. Now, not so much.
72. I’ve very par­tial to gin and ton­ics.
73. I’ve also been know to drink some red.
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