Seven Random Things

*Updated with hair pics!!!

Being random.

That's pretty much how my brain works anyway, so this should be easy.

The Mommyologist tagged me in My Seven, where you have to list seven random things about yourself. I just adore her- she's like my long-lost sister and we've discovered all kinds of odd things that we have in common, including being from the same hometown, though neither of us lives there now. We'd so be inseparable and combat the motherbitches if we lived anywhere near each other. We're going to meet irl soon, though, and I'm superexcited about it. Jealous? You should be.

Anyway, here's my random seven:

1. I can't whistle. I've never been able to whistle. At the end of the year in kindergarten, our teacher had us all on the carpet for circle time and called us up one by one to do an end of the year evaluation, asking us all sorts of things: letters, numbers, colors, to jump, skip, etc. And one of the things was to whistle. And I couldn't. I remember her laughing at me, trying to show me how to do it and making me try several times, before finally letting me sit down when she saw that it wasn't going to happen. I was in tears, thinking that I would not be allowed to move on to first grade because I couldn't whistle. I still can't whistle, though now I have Hubs laughing at me for this, instead of my kindergarten teacher.

2. Speaking of a teacher, if you asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, back when I was in school, I would have told you, I don't know, but definitely not a teacher. And yet, that is what I ended up going to school for and working as for almost 6 years before my oldest was born. I loved it, but don't know if I'll ever go back. It's way time-sucking and I don't want to take that much time away from my family. Too much to do after school hours with planning, grading, etc.

3. But, back when I was a teacher, I used to drink Mountain Dew like it was water. Several cans a day. It was an addiction. If I didn't have a stash at school with me, and the soda machine was out, I was a grump and my students knew it. When I got pregnant with Monkey, I gave up caffeine. My students noticed that I was drinking Sprite instead and one of them actually came up to me and asked, "Is the machine out of Mountain Dew again? When does the Pepsi guy come? Do you want me to tell the office we need Mountain Dew?" I didn't resume my addiction, ever, and look at it like an alcoholic looks at drinks: one is too many and a thousand never enough. Hubs calls it my liquid crack.

4. Speaking of soda: I said "pop" for the first 21 years of my life, because that was what it was called where I lived. But, when I moved to NC when I was 22, I started calling it "soda," and even when I eventually moved back to PA, I continued to call it "soda" and didn't care that everyone else called it "pop." I'd've just had to change back anyway, since we're back in NC now.

5. Speaking of living in different places, I lived in Rochester, NY for one year of my life. This is like the lost year, since I usually gloss over it. Here's what I usually say: I lived in PA until the day after my 22nd birthday when I moved to NC to teach. Was there for about 7 years, when we moved to PA shortly before the birth of my second child, to be near family. After about 4 years, we recently moved back here to NC and we're hopefully here to stay. What I usually neglect to mention is that after 1 year of teaching in NC, I moved to NY and was there for slightly less than a year. Because all that sounds like tmi and too complicated to explain in passing conversation. But, I moved there with my X, after he got out of the Marine Corps; we were engaged. When things went bad, I went back to NC. I hated NY. That winter I lived there was the snowiest one they'd had in 75 years or something like that. And for that area, that's saying a lot. I try to pretend that that year didn't happen.

6. Right before I left NY, I went from my blah brown to blonde. Brown hair can be gorgeous, but mine was a blah brown, not a fabulous one. When I'm stressed about something and feel like I have no control, I take it out on my hair since that's an easy thing to control. Color, different cut, new style, etc. Btw, I'll post pics of my new hair soon. There was a small animal left on the floor of sil's salon after I had all that hair cut off. I say it was about 8 inches, Hubs thinks more like a foot. It feels fabulously healthy.

Here's the before pic: This was in September, at my brother's wedding(that's him, blurred out). No changes since then, though my hair probably grew about 2 inches.

Here's right after I got home from getting my hair did(from above brother's wife- she's fabulous!)

She straightened it to within an inch of its life.

Day 2: not fighting my hair's natural tendency to go all over the place- this is after an hour or two spent out on the beach. Yes, it's ME!




7. Speaking of making changes to feel like I'm in control, I also got a tattoo right before I left NY. It's not something that I think that I ever would have done at any other point in my life. But, I was in the mood to do things that were not in character for me. And I thought a tattoo proved some sort of point. If I remember correctly, I was in the mindset of I'm in so much pain from a broken heart that even a tattoo won't hurt. Yeah, right, that sucker HURT. And yes, it's a tramp stamp...though that was before they were called that. And NO, they didn't start being called that because I got one, either.

There's my 7, that I managed to loosely connect: that's actually the way that my brain works: taking one little detail about what I was saying or someone else was saying and going off on a tangent. Luckily, on here, I can edit myself and at least try to have a direction to what I was saying. But, it was fun to have an excuse to be random.

Now, if this had been an email, I never would have done this or forwarded it on. Yet, somehow, in bloggyland, I'm perfectly okay with this sorts of things.

I'm now supposed to tag 7 more bloggers that I want to learn more about. And I usually think it's a cop out if someone gives it to all of their readers. If I read that on someone else's blog, especially if it's an award, I won't take the award or do the little game. Because I think that it's not really meant for me.

However, it's Saturday morning and I'm feeling a bit lazy. Plus, I really do love to know more about all of you. Makes me feel more like I'm talking to my friends rather than just to strangers, which is what freaks out Hubs about blogging.

So, YOU, yes, YOU, are tagged!