Tagged!

My friend, Danielle, recently tagged me. Her intro is much more entertaining that mine could ever be, so go over there and read it before you go on. (The goldfish/mamba had me giggling!) While you are at it, her entire post is entertaining, so read the whole thing. She's so funny! (She learned it from me.) (That's a complete lie.) And she lives in Ecuador and recently spent Christmas in Colombia! And also she hiked Machu Picchu this summer. She's pretty cool. We were hallmates in college and nearly instant kindred spirits.

Anyway. 10 things.

1. I will have an incredibly hard time writing 10 little known things about myself because I am a very open book. So there isn't much about me that is 'little known'.

2. Even though I am an open book, I can keep secrets and I do. Don't get me wrong, if there is news to share that is exciting and NOT a secret, I'm all over that, but if a friend tells me something in confidence, it's in the vault. (Is it sad that I consider that a little known fact?)

3. I am going to do a triathlon in July. I am super nervous about it, but I am already 'training' and really excited. I need to get in the habit of exercising, so I decided to do something drastic to change my habits. Even more exciting is that Joel is doing it with me! Even MORE exciting is that our E8 college friends are too! So far, so good. Annie found a really helpful site to help us train.

4. I hate exercising. I am so very much NOT athletic. But out of all the athletic things, running, swimming and biking are the things I am the best at. That's not saying very much though, and I am sure if any of my high school running friends (Hi, David!) are reading this, they just spit gatorade all over their iphones. Because I was, really, really, not good at running. Once I got props from a coach . . . not for my actual skills, but because I had team spirit and brought cookies to each meet. That my mom had baked, so really it was her getting the props and not me at all.

5. I really miss Tuscany. Sometimes I look up real estate in Tuscany and dream of selling everything and moving my little family over there. But I won't. Mostly because, how would one even go about doing that, and also because I could never move the kids away from their grandparents. And all of our friends.

6. Well, my standby 'little known fact' is that I soloed an airplane on my 16th birthday. (And haven't since.) But I've used that so many times, I am pretty sure it's a well known fact now. It was pretty cool though, and seems like a lifetime ago.

7. I love marshmallows. A lot. I have really cleaned up our eating in the past year, and changed our buying habits. But I still really, really love marshmallows.

8. I have loved Diet Coke as long as I can remember. I didn't drink it (much) when I was pregnant, but other than that I can't remember not drinking it. When we went to Europe the Diet Coke didn't taste right at all, but the Real Coke was TO DIE FOR. Now the only pop I buy for the house is Coke- from Costco, in the glass bottles. It has like 4 ingredients and tastes different from Coke that you'd buy at the regular grocery store. It says, "Hecho in Mexico" on it, which I also think is funny, for some reason. It is so good. I don't drink it regularly, but it's basically the only soda I buy. I don't miss Diet Coke at all.

9. I love to cook and bake and sew and clean . . . when I don't have to. When I do, it seems like slow torture.

10. I didn't feel truly grown up until I was 28. Which is weird because I left for college at 18, got married at 21, had Madeline at 22, bought our first house at 23, had Garrett at 25, and bought our second house at 26. So I'd done a lot of grownup things. But I felt like I was faking it. (I was happy, but I still felt like a kid.) It wasn't until the year I was 27, which culminated in me turning 28 and Sara dying until I really felt like I was grown up. (It wasn't just 28 or Sara, there were lots of other things that year too.) It's interesting because I don't associate 'being grown up' as being sad. Something just changed and it is hard to explain.

As it turns out, it was only supposed to be 7 interesting things. But I am too lazy to change my numbers and figure which 3 things to cut, so there goes 10 minutes of your life you'll never get back! Ha!

As for tagging YOU . . . if you are on that list over there ----------------------------------->
I would love to read it! And if you aren't, but you are doing it too, leave me a comment! Consider yourself TAGGED. (Especially Judy, Allison, Teresa, Michelle, Paige, Andrea, Stefanie, Tonyalynne . . . )