Happy Birthday to Me… 40 Things for Age 40

Y’all, I am FORTY today.  4-0.  I still can’t believe it.  Do I still have to say I’m 40 if I only feel 25?! 

As you’re reading this, I’m frolicking through Animal Kingdom at Disney World, so I’d say that’s not a bad way to spend my fortieth… at least at Disney World I can still pretend I’m a kid!  ;o)

Every year on my birthday I share random facts about myself, and this will be the eighth year I’ve done it!  It is now ridiculously hard to come up with new stuff for these posts, but, somehow, I always manage to do it.  Sometimes, I’m sure stuff gets duplicated from previous years, but I try my best to come up with new and fresh facts!

Here we go!

1/ I don’t like thrillers or horror movies or anything murder-y.  Real stuff in the real world is already bad enough, so I don’t need to fill my brain with fake bad stuff, too.  I don’t usually say never, but I will never be one of those women who listens to murder podcasts while cleaning the house.  #HardPass

2/ My favorite cake is Funfetti… and not a homemade one.  I want the Pillsbury box with canned frosting.  It’s been my favorite since I was seven years old and my Momma still makes it for me to this day.   

3/ I’ve always been told that I have pretty handwriting, and I have to agree.  #PatsSelfOnTheBack

4/ I will not get in water that I can’t see through.  If it’s murky then that’s a hard pass for me, dawg.  Therefore, most lakes, rivers, and oceans are off limits.

5/ That said, I’m an excellent swimmer – and a strong one at that – but I’ll still pass on the murky water.  I don’t need some lake monster pulling me under.  Haha.

6/ I have never taken swimming lessons, though.  My parents taught me to swim in our neighborhood pool and then I lived in the pool every summer until I got a job.

7/ I don’t like camping, watching movies about camp, or hearing people talk about camping.  It bores me.

8/ I can’t stand when people dog-ear books.  Please be respectful of your books, people! 

9/ That said, I love a good, old book that’s falling apart.  #MakesNoSenseIKnow

10/ I remember my dreams most of the time, and I remember them in great detail.

11/ I kept a dream journal for a while when I was a teenager.  I still have it.  #OfCourseIDo

12/ 90’s romcoms are my favorite kind of movies ever and it kills me that they don’t make them like that anymore. 

13/ Christmas has always been my favorite holiday, but I almost love Thanksgiving even more because I still get to anticipate Christmas… and it’s always the anticipation that’s the sweetest!

14/ Fall and spring are my favorite seasons… fall for a million reasons, and then probably spring next because I like when the weather isn’t so extreme.

15/ January and February used to be my least favorite months, but for the last few years, August has been my least favorite.  You would think I would love it since I’m anticipating fall and college football, but no.  I HATE the extreme heat and it just puts me in a funk that gets worse and worse the older I get.  #SorryDad  #AugustIsHisBirthMonth

16/ I broke my foot at work when I was in my late teens, but the doctor didn’t x-ray it, so it healed wrong.  When I went back a second time because I was still having so much pain, he finally x-rayed it and it had broken and healed wrong, but by then it was too late to do anything about it.  That foot still swells every single day of my life.

17/ I don’t like anybody waiting on me to do something.  If I have a task that needs to be done for somebody, I will do it immediately because I can’t stand having it hanging over my head.  I return calls and texts immediately (unless I’m driving, of course).  I pay people back immediately.  I rarely borrow anything from anybody because I can’t stand knowing that I owe somebody something.  I even get major anxiety if I’m ever holding up traffic to back out of a parking space.  I know, it’s dumb.  #IAmWhoIAm

18/ The only beverages I will drink in entirety are water, hot tea, or any alcoholic beverage.  I would never drink an entire can of soda or bottle of juice.  Or milk.  Not even chocolate milk.  I love having orange juice when we have breakfast for dinner, but I literally only pour myself enough for about three sips because that’s all I want.  The amount in my cup is actually laughable.  #IfItHasCaloriesButNoAlcoholThenIDontWantIt

19/ I don’t eat pizza crust.  It’s just a waste of calories.  Give me all the good parts with the sauce, cheese, and toppings. 

20/ Come to think of it, I think I’d much rather just eat a bunch of pizza toppings mixed up in a bowl together.  Y’all can keep the crust!

21/ I actually don’t like any crust – bread crust on sandwiches, pizza crust, ends of hot dogs and hamburger buns, ends of tortillas on tacos – I’d rather just have the middle stuff and leave the bread.  I’ve hated them my whole life, and I grew up giving my crusts to my dog, Bill.  I swear, that’s why he lived so long.  ;o) 

22/ I actually don’t eat the ends of French fries either.

23/ Green Skittles were always my favorite growing up, so when they changed them from lime to green apple, I quit buying Skittles.  They recently changed back to lime, and I was the first one in line buying a pack.

24/ I hate western themed everything – movies, music, clothes, décor, etc.  If it’s western-themed, count me out.  It’s even more boring than camping stuff.  #MyDadJustDisownedMe

25/ That said, tumbleweeds are hilarious.  I mean, hilarious.  My friend, Jeannine, and I once laughed hysterically for, like, an hour straight talking about tumbleweeds.  And all these years later, they’re still funny. #WildWildWest

26/ I think sushi is tremendously overrated.  And don’t @ me and tell me it’s because I didn’t get the right kind.  I worked for a Japanese company for 15 years, and I’ve probably eaten better sushi in my life than most people because I’ve eaten it at authentic Japanese restaurants with businessmen who only speak Japanese.  Doesn’t matter the quality or the kind… it’s overrated.  #SorryNotSorry

27/ I will try most foods once, unless it’s a bug.  A few things on the list of “different” things I’ve tried are snails, cow tongue, octopus, duck, and squid.  Not crazy exotic stuff, but definitely not normal in the American culture.

28/ I went to school with Fidel Castro’s granddaughter in middle school.  She and her mom snuck out of Cuba with the help of some local people in the 90’s, and they hid here for a while.

29/ I’m loyal to a fault.

30/ I always have gum.  #JustCallMeMonica

31/ I still remember the combination to my lock in high school.  #8-20-38

32/ And speaking of high school, a guy I went to high school with nicknamed me “Locker Blocker” our senior year.  He had the locker under my top locker, and I always made it to the lockers before him, so he always had to wait on me to finish up before he could get in his, and he always claimed that I made him late for class.  (All in good fun.)  Hence, the name. 

33/ When I was a kid, I used to wake up in the middle of the night screaming because I had such bad shin splints.  I clearly remember my mom blaming it on my jelly shoes (remember those?!).  Hahahaha.

34/ I wash my hair every single day of my life.  I can’t skip a single hair wash, or my hair looks absolutely disgusting, and it makes me feel disgusting, too.  Dry shampoo is gross.  I never use it.

35/ I got to see the Olympic torch in person in 1996 when the Olympics came to Atlanta.  The parade went through my hometown, and we got to see it run through.

36/ In one of my previous random facts posts, I mentioned that I would not drink beer out of a can.  Well, I’m happy to report, that I do now drink beer out of a can.  It’s the only way to drink my beloved IPAs since the majority of them come in cans.  So, I went from never drinking beer from a can to always drinking beer from a can.  Haha.

37/ When I was a teenager, I would get bored during the summer, and I’d paint my room and rearrange the furniture while my parents were at work.  I’d go find some random cans of paint in the storage closet, and by the time they would get home, my room would be a completely different color, and the furniture would be in totally different spots.  My friend who lived across the street would help.  I can’t believe my parents let me do that… I’d die if I got home one day and Jacob or Olivia had painted a wall in our house.  Haha.

38/ I suck at snow-skiing.  I’ve been five or six times in my life, and I was horrible every single time.  In the past, any time I’ve tried to do something new, I’ve always been able to excel at it with practice, but nope, not with skiing, and I think that’s why it was so frustrating.  The first slope I ever went down, I stopped halfway down the mountain and cried.  Then I popped my skis off and hiked the rest of the way down.  It was so bad.  Eventually, Brian’s BFF helped me get a feel for it by letting me ski down with him since he was always on the ski trip with us.  I would stand behind him, put my skis between his skis, and wrap my arms around his waist, and we would ski like that.  It was exhausting for him, though, because he had to brake constantly, and he had double the weight since all of my weight was behind him, too.  I started skiing like that with Brian, too, and I was eventually able to go down a slope by myself.  Slowly.  And I still hated it.  Haha.

39/ I also suck at knee-boarding (in water).  We used to take Brian’s BFF’s boat out all the time and everyone would water-ski and knee-board, and I couldn’t even pull myself up on the board.  Lol.  Although, I suppose the real problem was that I didn’t want to get in that nasty river water.  #NoWaterThatICantSeeThrough

40/ The only reason I ever got in the water that day and tried was because I had two beers first.  Otherwise, it would have never happened.

I hope y’all enjoyed this pile of randomness!  Happy birthday to me!

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37 Things for Age 37

38 Things for Age 38

39 Things for Age 39