Tag: Random Facts

My friend, Liz, tagged me to list 6 random facts about myself and to subsequently tag a few other bloggers to do the same. Before I list my random facts, let me tell you a little bit about Liz (she's the pretty lady to the left of me in the picture--this OLD picture, by the way)! She and I have been friends since, gosh, March 2004. We were stationed together at Fort Bragg, North Carolina and she actually replaced me as the Adjutant (for my civilian friends--Human Resources Officer) for the Air Traffic Control Battalion we were assigned to at the time. Fortunately, it wasn't because I got fired, but transferred to another job. Thankfully, I only moved up the street because we were able to remain friends through my other close friends (i.e. Chrissy, the other girl in the photo, and my other best buds, Jocelyn and Melody).

Anyway, let me just say that the moment I met Liz, I thought she was gorgeous. And she has such a wonderful personality and, if I may say so, is very intelligent and talented. Would you believe me if I told you she's a pilot? Well, she is. Too cool, huh? Her husband is also an Army pilot and they have two beautiful children. Liz is participating in the Army's grad school program, like me, only she's at the infamous University of Southern California (whose football team my husband LOVES!) and is enjoying her time close to her family and friends there.

Okay, so this list was difficult to compile. Unlike Liz and Misty (who was also tagged by Liz to do this) I lack all creativity in writing and coming up with cool stuff to say, so bear with me:

1) When I was young, my family and I did TONS of traveling, mostly across the United States. We were a military family, so we moved a lot and when we did we drove from post to post. Until we got an SUV (when we were in our teens) we all crammed into our Oldsmobile sedan and literally traveled from one side of the nation to the other that way. We've been or driven through mostly every state in the continental United States with the exception of some northernmost states like North and South Dakota, Alaska, and Rhode Island. We've driven from California to New York TWICE and back and forth between New York and Florida a few times. We've also done New York to California by way of Texas. Don't ask. We've just been to a lot of places and have tons of pictures to prove it! We also amassed a substantial collection of state pennants, which are totally lost in the sauce somewhere at my folks house; if they're even there at all!

2) When I was about 10 or 11 and living in Hawaii, I almost died from an allergic reaction to the wheat germ that was present in a stack of wheat pancakes that my Uncle Ronald whipped up one evening. Tripler Hospital was a long ways from my grandparents' house, where we lived at the time and I could barely breathe by the time we got there. My nasal passages had swollen up. As a matter of fact, I had severe allergies growing up. I had a massive allergy attack at a high school track meet in Upstate New York, apparently from the high concentration of pollen in the area. I had to be rushed a long ways to the hospital on post. My friend Melissa can ask her mom about the whole incident because she was the one that drove me to the hospital. Anyone who has ever seen me during or after an allergy attack knows how horrible I look. My entire face (mostly the eyes) swell shut and I can barely breathe. Among my pollen and wheat germ allergies, a test revealed that I was allergic to seafood (but not anymore, thank God), dust, cats, cockroaches (huh?), down feathers, and NSAIDs (aspirin, ibuprofen--I still am allergic).

3) When I was 2, I fell off the front porch stairs in Germany, riding on one of those kiddie rollers. I was following my mom out the door when I did this. I busted my front two teeth and it wasn't until late in my sophomore year of high school that my mom decided to let me get my teeth bonded. Thank goodness. Before that, my front teeth were a mess. I couldn't even whistle (still can't). So yeah, they're fake. But don't they make me look like I had braces?

4) The first and only thing I've ever stolen was a pack of gum out of the AAFES store at the Hale Koa Hotel in Waikiki when I was about 5 years old. Talk about embarassing! My mom ended up buying the pack of gum for me anyway. Talk about spoiled!

5) In middle school (Carthage Middle School), I won the Spelling Bee for the school for the two years I was there and ended up going to the regional spelling bee one year. I was eliminated for the word "pedagogist". Yeah, looks easy, but it didn't sound easy! To this day, I'm still anal about spelling and constantly correct people who can't spell!

6) I am six years older than my husband, although I have to admit that he acts six years older than I do. Sad, but true. He's younger than my younger brother. Shoot, his older sister is still younger than my younger brother. When I graduated from high school, he was just leaving elementary school! Need I say more? But the last time he came home (when he surprised me by flying in early for the weekend), he flew into Denver which is about two hours away from where we live. I had class that evening, so I couldn't pick him up. So I said, "why don't you just rent a car and drive home?" and he says, "hello...I'm not 25 yet, duh!" My friend and I got a good laugh out of that. Turns out that he could rent a car after all (and did), but had to pay an additional fee for being under 25. Funny.

Okay, that's it! Hopefully you all made it through this long post. I now tag Melissa and Sara to post some random facts!!! Have fun!