Happy Birthday to Me… 39 Things for Age 39

Today is my birthday!!!!  It’s hard to believe I’ve entered my last year in my 30’s… I truly still feel like I’m 25 most days.  Although, I have to say, this pandemic has aged me a ton.  Haha.  It's crazy to think this will be my second birthday in a pandemic.

Every year on my birthday I share random facts about myself, and this will be the sixth year I’ve done it!  Can you even believe it?!  It gets harder and harder to come up with these each year, so hopefully I can come up with enough… and please forgive me if you’ve seen some of these before!  I always skim the previous posts before doing my new one each year so as to not duplicate facts, but I’m sure I miss some of them!

Here we go!

1/ I’ve been a night owl my whole life, and I’d much rather stay up late and sleep in than the other way around.

2/ That said, I fall asleep on the couch most Friday and Saturday nights while B rubs my feet.

3/ I was one of the OG Facebook users and I’ve been on there nearly 14 years… when I started my account, everyone was required to use a college email address to qualify.  Remember that?!

4/ I had chickenpox in first grade, and my brother who is 3.5 years younger than I am had it the same time I did.  It’s crazy to me that kids don’t have to go through that anymore. 

5/ I was always boy crazy growing up, and there was pretty much never a time when I didn’t have a crush on a boy… it all started in third grade. 

6/ Speaking of boys, I was also one of those girls who had posters of famous boys on my wall growing up.  My earliest famous crushes were Joey McIntyre (New Kids on the Block), Devon Sawa (Casper), and Leonardo DiCaprio (Romeo + Juliet, and of course, Titanic).  All three of them were on my wall right next to my bed at some point in time.

7/ The Baby-Sitters Club series was my very favorite growing up, and I had nearly every single book in the whole collection.  I sold the whole box of books in a yard sale for $50 when I outgrew them, and now I’m regretting it because I’d love to reread them all with Olivia (they’re very hard to find nowadays).

8/ I can recite nearly the whole movie Clueless from start to finish.  My friends and I probably watched it a hundred times when we were in junior high.

9/ I used to collect stickers, and I still have all of them today.  They’re all in a big scrapbook and the total collection amounts to 6,497!  I recently showed it to the kids, and they thought it was the best thing ever!

10/ I was a straight-A student in elementary school, eventually getting B’s and the occasional C as I got older… usually in math, but it was pretty rare.

11/ I got my first D ever in Physics in high school and I was devastated.  I tried SO HARD in that class but my brain just does not comprehend math and science mixed together no matter how hard I try. 

12/ I also got a D in Statistics in college because I had the worst professor in the history of all professors.  He would come to class smelling of alcohol most mornings... yes, I said mornings.  It was not a night class.  Enough said.

13/ I was put on the yearbook staff my senior year of high school (not by choice) but it ended up being one of my favorite classes I’ve ever taken.  I’ve always loved preserving memories!

14/ I was nominated for a city-wide Journalism award for my work on yearbook staff. 

15/ I don’t eat any kind of fish or seafood and I don’t know how to prepare or cook any kind of fish or seafood.  Nor do I care to learn.

16/ If you say something that triggers a song lyric, I will sing!  If you say something about September, I will surely bust out with some Earth, Wind, and Fire!!  And I feel like I know the words to more songs than the average person, so it happens very often.  My parents always did this when I was growing up, and I always rolled my eyes, and now I’m doing the exact same thing.  Brian does it, too, so we randomly burst into song very often.

17/ I don’t like old movies.  And I especially don’t like movies from the 80’s… sure, there are a few that I like, like Disney movies, of course.  But most of them?  No thank you.  Sixteen Candles?  Nope.  The Goonies.  So boring.  Dirty Dancing?  I haven’t even seen it.  I know so many of you are judging and hating me right now, but chances are, if it was made before 1990, I have no desire to see it.  Sorrrry.

18/ I’m godmother to three kids, none of whom are blood related.  And all three of them are now adults.  That makes me sound really old, but I was young when they were all baptized.  I was just 20 years old at the first baptism.

19/ I’ve gotten two speeding tickets in my life.  The first was when I was 22-ish, and to this day, I know for sure I wasn’t going as fast as the police officer said I was… I’m such a careful driver and I never go more than five over.  Also, it was 8 AM on a Saturday morning and I wasn’t even in a hurry… I was driving very leisurely, actually.  There was zero traffic on the road at the time, so I think he was bored and needed something to do, or maybe he was just having a bad day and wanted to take it out on someone.  The weirdest part was that he followed me for miles and miles past the point where he said he clocked me before he finally pulled me over… the whole situation was very shady, and I still call BS to this day. 

20/ The second time I was pulled over was when I was eight months pregnant with Olivia.  I was on an unfamiliar road, and the speed limit changed (not even sure why… speed trap, maybe?) and the sign was half-hidden under some brush (I literally drove back afterward because I didn’t believe that the speed limit had changed since I hadn’t seen the sign).  The police officer was sitting right past the sign, and he got me.  I thought for sure he would show me some mercy since I was eight months pregnant and had legitimately not known I was speeding, but he didn’t care AT ALL.  I was pissed.  Lol.  I mean, like I’d drive recklessly on purpose while carrying a baby in my belly.

21/ Both of my brothers called me Sissi growing up, and they still both call me that to this day… and they’re grown men.  Lol.  I can’t even remember the last time I heard one of them say my actual name.

22/ Speaking of nicknames, I pretty much have some kind of nickname for all of my close family and friends.  I’m the queen of giving people nicknames. 

23/ I have an irrational fear that people who I’ve met in the past won’t remember me.  Because of this, I will NEVER be the first to approach someone and say hi, because I don’t want to deal with the anxiety that will come when you don’t remember me, and I have to explain who I am.  Silly, I know.

24/ I can’t stand for anything to be obstructing my view in life – I like my back to the wall in any room so I can see the majority of the room.  I don’t like large centerpieces that don’t allow me to see the people across the table… even when there’s a cereal box on the table, I will lay it down on its side.  I don’t like anything obstructing my view when I look out a window.  When we were browsing condos for the beach, I nixed one of them simply because it’s set further back from the shoreline than the others, and therefore, the condo next door jutted out just enough to block some of the view from the coast.  Stuff like that drives me INSANE.

25/ I did a choreographed dance in the school talent show three years in a row in junior high – in 6^th grade, three of my girlfriends and I danced to “The Sign” by Ace of Base (LOL), in 7^th grade, one of my girlfriends and I danced to “Cotton Eye Joe” by Rednex, and in 8^th grade, I can’t remember how many of us there were or what song we danced to, but I definitely did it!

26/ When I have an alcoholic beverage with dinner, I prefer to drink almost the entire beverage BEFORE I start eating.  Once I start eating, I barely ever touch my drink, and by the time I’m done eating, I feel too full to finish it.  So please give me all the happy hours!!

27/ I don’t eat anything on a bone.  I feel like this has probably been mentioned before, but I feel so strongly about it, I figure it doesn’t hurt to throw it in here again!  I know, I’m a terrible southerner. 

28/ I’ve had the same big rock propping my door open since I was a kid.  It has made it through eight moves, and it is currently propping my office door open as we speak. 

29/ I went to college on a scholarship.  I live in Georgia, and our state offers the Hope scholarship to all entering college students as long as they meet certain criteria (maintain at least a 3.0 GPA and score in the 75th percentile or higher on the SAT).

30/ I worked full time during college, so it took me five years to get my Bachelor’s Degree.

31/ I’ve had four pets in my lifetime – a golden retriever named Clementine, a tabby cat named Monet (can you tell my Daddy is an artist?), a dog (part terrier, part poodle, part other stuff… didn’t know for sure because he was a rescue) named Bill, and a Yorkiepoo named Maui.  I don’t remember Clemmie too much because we had her when I was super young, but I did love all of our pets dearly.

32/ I will always and forever be a dog person.  There is nothing better than a lap dog who is always down for a snuggle. 

33/ I’m not a fan of cats at all anymore, but I do love me some kittens. 

34/ One of my favorite things I’ve ever done in my whole life was visiting the Grand Canyon Skywalk in Arizona back in 2009.  It was an incredible experience.

35/ I’ve flown commercial somewhere around 30ish times, but my first flight ever was in a four-seater plane in Denver, CO when I was 12 years old.  The plane belonged to my uncle, and he took my dad, my brother, and me up for a flight while we were there visiting.  I LOVED it.

36/ That said, I haven’t flown in nearly seven years, and that is mind-boggling.  The last time I flew, was to attend my cousin’s wedding in L.A. in August 2014.  I don’t like leaving the kids behind for long trips, so we’ve only flown twice since Jacob was born, once to New York City, and once to L.A.  We went from flying multiple times per year, every year to flying zero after we had kids.

37/ It took me almost this whole year to remember that I was 38, and now that I finally have it down, I’m 39.  Lol.

38/ I’m really not that worried about turning 40, but I do think it’s unbelievable that I’ll actually be 40 because I surely don’t feel like I am.  I still feel like I’m 25, so I’ll just stick with 25 forever.

39/ I do have to say, though, I feel like the pandemic has aged me, like, five years just in the past year, so maybe I should just stick with 30 forever…

I hope y’all enjoyed this pile of randomness!  Happy birthday to me!  And if you want to see any of the previous birthday posts, check out the links below!

34 Things for Age 34

35 Things for Age 35
36 Things for Age 36
37 Things for Age 37

38 Things for Age 38

*Linking up with My Glittery Heart, The Other Side of the Road, and The Sirois Family for Hello Monday.