25

Everyone and their dog is doing this on facebook. My coworkers and I had a big discussion today at work about how lame this whole 25 Random Facts thing is. But secretly? I really want to do it. I'm facebook friends with the girls at work, so I had to secretly stash it on my secret blog because yeah, we have also talked repeatedly about how lame blogs are. I just smile and agree...

1. My freshman year of college, I went to Mt. Bonnell three times in two weeks with three different boys. Mt. Bonnell is a scenic overlook that is up in the hills above Lake Travis. It's very make-out-point like, even though places like that really only exist in 80's movies. I somehow managed to have three different boys take a liking to me at the same time and they all had the idea to take me to Mt. Bonnell. I kept telling each one that I had never been there before, even though some of these outings were only days apart.

2. I love cereal and eat it every morning for breakfast. I don't have it with milk though. I love it dry. I do pour it into a bowl and eat it with a spoon, even if its just plain, dry cheerios.

3. I've had my cat Gus for almost a year and a half. I never paid the pet deposit at my apartment. I used to try to hide him and not let him go near the windows, but now i don't even bother. I open the blinds halfway every morning for him to look out while I am at work.

4. I have been pulled over for speeding four times, but only gotten a ticket once. It was in a construction zone and I was going 26 over, so it hurt pretty badly.

5. I have totaled two cars. The first was in high school on my way to school, the second about three years ago, on the way home from work. But I was having to work on a Saturday, which sucked, so I always felt that I wasn't supposed to be driving in that spot at that time. Both wrecks involved me rear ending the car in front of me. Hmm. That's always your fault, right?

6. Sometimes when I am running, I start to make up dance routines to the music I am listening to on my iPod. They are always elaborate drill team competition routines from my high school days, and I always insert a lot of spins and turns into them, probably because I could never do the spins and turns very well. If I am running on a street with no cars/people, I even act out the arm movements as I imagine a flawless team of girls doing my perfect routines.

7. I also pretend that the music i listen to in my iPod is a soundtrack to my life, as if i were in a movie. I play out all kinds of scenarios, some real, some not, that fit perfectly with the song. I obviously wish i was on an MTV reality show.

8. My entire elementary school years, I wanted to be a teacher. I still have days where I wish I had been an education major and was teaching 3rd grade somewhere today. I think someday I will still be a teacher.

9. My senior year of college, I went with four friends to Mardi Gras in New Orleans. It was just how you would imagine Mardi Gras on Bourbon Street to be - crowded, messy and incredibly fun.

10. The summer before I started fourth grade, I spent several weeks with my cousin in Oklahoma. She always wanted to ride bikes, but I didn't know how to ride a bike and was too embarrassed to tell her. So I always acted like I hated riding bikes. By the next summer, I had learned to ride my bike and my cousin came to stay with my family for a few weeks. We rode bikes every day and she always asked me while I suddenly liked to ride them. I never fessed up. I did however fall off my bike that summer, and break my arm in two places. It sucked.

11.My favorite movie is Love Actually. My favorite book is Atonement. My favorite band is The Fray.

12. I love, love, LOVE listening to Kidd Kraddick in the morning. It reminds me of my dad driving me to middle school at MIS and I still listen to it as I get ready and drive to work every morning. I feel like they are my friends.

13. I once won a cell phone on the radio by calling in with the list of the five top songs of the day. I called before they had even played all the songs, just to make sure I had the number right. The DJ himself answered and when I told him I was calling early to test the number, he told me he would let me win. So I stayed on the line with him while he finished playing all the songs and then started the contest. Caller number 10 or something was supposed to win, but he totally cheated and just pretended that I had called in at the correct time. He was very sleazy and was making jokes with me that I was too young to understand. I never used the cell phone because my parents wouldn't commit to the two year contact to activate it.

14. My boyfriend pretends that Carrie Underwood is his ex-girlfriend, so I pretend that Justin TImberlake is my future BF.

15. I hate voicemails and avoid checking them until I absolutely have to. This means I usually have to go through three or four two week old voicemails to hear one when I finally need to check it. This same rule applies to work. I despise coming in in the morning and seeing my voicemail light blinking. Please, just email me instead.

16. At the end of college, my friends and I had rituals that involved eating terribly. Every Sunday night, we went to Chili's and ordered chips and salsa and the fried chicken strips. Tuesdays was McDonalds happy meals, sometimes even the two cheeseburger meal. With fries. Thursdays we went to Taco Cabana and ate tortillas and burritos and tacos. Fridays was happy hours at the Merc. It should be no surprise that I gained the freshman 15 during my senior year.

17. When I graduated UT, I literally left Austin after the ceremony to go start my job in Dallas. I drove with my mom, while my Dad and siblings pulled the U-haul home. I cried until at least Temple, at which time my mom told me to get over it and shut up. No part of me wanted to leave my life in Austin as a student living with all my best friends and having zero responsibility other than going to class and passing the tests.

18. Once I got back to Dallas and started working, it amazed me how much easier working full time was, compared with being in school. My job was demanding and I often worked late hours, but once I left work I didn't have to think about it until the next day. I didn't know what to do with myself in the evenings, since I didn't have to read, write papers or study. It was a weird feeling.

19. Now, I would love to go back to school. I miss sitting in class, taking notes, learning new things. I hate to see shows on TV with college kids in it because I am immediately so envious of them. It's not so much the lifestyle I miss anymore, but the actual being in school and getting to read and learn about so many new things. Yes, I am a bit of a dork.

20. I am really good at being a bridesmaid.

21. I do not like cheese. I will eat foods with cheese in them, as long as it is not one of the main ingredients. For example, I do not like and you couldn't pay me to eat macaroni and cheese, cheeseburgers, string cheese, anything with alfredo sauce or cheese enchiladas. Queso is the absolute worse offender. Yuck.

22. I had an internship at the Make a Wish Foundation in college. Among other things, I was trained as a wish grantor and assigned a kid whose wish I got to help grant. He was a high school student who had overcome a brain tumor and wished for a vintage Les Paul guitar. I know nothing about guitars, but we did get him what I later found out was a pretty amazing guitar. Autographed no less.

23. It is incredibly hard to think of 25 interesting facts about myself. Have I mentioned that I have an incredible boyfriend?

24. I won third place in the 2nd grade spelling bee. The word that I got out on was avenue. I also won 1st place in the Geography Bee in 4th grade. I beat a 5th grade boy in the tie breaker round and had to skip recess to take a test one day to try and make the regional round. I was so mad about missing recess that I raced through the test without even really trying. I remember my teacher asking me if I was sure I didn't want to look back over my answers before I turned it in and I just wanted to get outside and play with my friends. I never made it to the regionals.

25. In grade school, I read almost every Baby Sitter's Club book, in order. I say almost because they were writing them faster than I could keep up and I ended up losing interest around book number 82. I still have all of them, in big plastic tubs in my parents' attic.

Whew. Your turn.