Friday, April 5, 2024

Happy Birthday to Me… 42 Things for Age 42

It’s my birthdaaaay, y’all!!  And while you’re reading this, I’m celebrating in Magic Kingdom!  EEK!!  Be sure to follow along with our adventures on Instagram.  ;o)

Every year on my birthday I share random facts about myself, and this will be the tenth year I’ve done it!  I’ve shared a total of 333 facts prior to today’s post, so each year it gets harder and harder to come up with new stuff.  I try my best not to duplicate, but I can’t promise anything at this point.  Haha.   

Here we go!


 

1/ People have always confided in me.  Always.  My whole life.  Friends.  Family members.  Coworkers.  People I barely know.  And many of them tell me things that I really shouldn’t know and/or don’t want to know.  Why?  I have no idea, but I am a magnet for people’s deepest, darkest secrets.  I am a really loyal person, so people must recognize that, I guess?  I am a six (The Loyalist) on the enneagram, after all.  But I cannot even tell y’all how many secrets from so many people that I have stored in the locked vault that is my brain.

2/ One time at one of my previous jobs I knew our big boss was going to be fired before said boss ever got fired because someone in HR had to get it off their chest before they did it and they chose to tell me.  I was basically plugging my ears the whole time like, “Lalalala, I don’t want or need to hear this,” but said HR person couldn’t hold it in and they continued to tell me all of the details.  Said boss did, indeed, get fired within a few hours of me finding out, and I had to feign shock when I was told officially.  So yeah, sometimes it can be a burden to be the person who everyone confides in.  Haha.  I do love to connect with others, and I am, by nature, an empathetic person, so most of the time I don’t mind when people come to me.  I’m usually honored to be that person for someone.  But sometimes it puts me in difficult situations.  As for the job and the person in the story above?  I’ll never tell.

3/ I’ve always said I would never get a tattoo, but I’ve always known what I would get and where I would get it.  For the last couple of years, though, I cannot stop thinking about getting the tattoo… I’m so close to making the decision to do it.  I’ve definitely mentioned this here on the blog, but I thought I’d give an update for any of you who care.  Haha.

4/ Speaking of tattoos, both of my brothers have them… my littlest brother has several, including one that covers his entire leg, and my other brother has a series of them on one of his arms that he eventually plans to turn into a sleeve.  Both of them want me to get one since I’m the only sibling who doesn’t have one, and they have both told me that if I ever decide to get one, they will get the exact same tattoo in the exact same spot. 

5/ The tattoo that I want?  A heart.  Just the outline of one.  A small one.  On the inside of my left wrist.  I used to want the heart on my hip, but in recent years decided that if I was going to get one, I might as well get it where everyone can see it.  So, guess what, Zach and Alex?!  You can possibly look forward to donning a heart on the inside of your left wrists one day.  Hahahaha.  Maybe?  IDK. 

6/ I can’t stand hearing people chew, and the older I get, the more it bothers me.

7/ I had to chew with my mouth open for weeks after I got my braces and I totally grossed myself out to the point where I didn’t even want to eat.  I lost my appetite for weeks.

8/ I either drink alcohol and want to dance or I drink alcohol and I want to sleep.  There is no in between.

9/ I’ve been to Vegas eight times.  Brian and I used to go every single year before we had kids.  I’ve probably mentioned this before, but I don’t know.

10/ The first time I went, I was freshly 21 years old. 

11/ And speaking of being 21, my 21st birthday fell on a Saturday (such luck!), but it also fell on the same day as Daylight Saving Time, so when my friends took me out to the bars to celebrate that night, we lost an hour because the clocks sprung forward.  #Robbed

12/ That same night, my friend who took me out has an older sister whose best friend was getting married, so we turned it into a 21st birthday/Bachelorette party double celebration, and we had the best night.

13/ The band at the bar sang Happy Birthday to me that night so lots of people bought shots for me (I only took them directly from the bartender, of course… safety first!).  I shared them with all of our friends, and I did not end up getting drunk or sick.  #AlwaysResponsible

14/ Brian and I used to play in local poker tournaments for fun and one time I came really close to winning the whole thing out of, like, 60-80 people.  I think I came in second place??  Brian, do you remember?

15/ I drive with my left hand at 11 o’clock and my right hand at 4 o’clock.  No 10 and 2 over here.  It feels unnatural to me.

16/ I have never once read a book on a Kindle/e-reader or listened to an audio book.  Tangible, physical, actual books all day, every day.

17/ I can’t stand it when a lightbulb goes out, and I will change it immediately. 

18/ I am also very particular about lighting as I’ve discussed on the blog before… remember when I ripped all of the LED lights off of our brand-new artificial Christmas tree back in December and covered them with incandescent lights?! 

19/ I was born and raised in the south, but I don’t have a southern accent.  Brian says that my southern accent does come out when I say the word “time,” but that’s about it. 

20/ I do use the word “y’all” all the time, though.  I mean, how is that not just a real word by now?!  I don’t understand why that’s just a southern thing.  It’s such a great word!  You can use it so many ways!

21/ And speaking of accents, for some reason I have been told multiple times in my adult life that I sound like I’m from Pennsylvania.  Specifically, Pennsylvania every single time.  I have no clue what people from Pennsylvania sound like, but apparently… it me.

22/ I like listening to sad heartbreak music when I run sometimes.  I have no idea why, but I feel like it helps me run faster.

23/ It takes me 45 minutes to get ready from start to finish.  That includes a shower with leg-shaving, hair-washing, makeup, hair-drying, hair-curling, and getting dressed. 

24/ I have always been good at guessing baby genders.  So good, that I started keeping a tally in my teens.  In my lifetime, I have guessed 19 correctly, and I have only been wrong about seven.  The odd thing?  Almost all seven I missed happened after I had Jacob.  Apparently, I lost my Spidey senses after I gave birth to my own baby.  Haha.

25/ And speaking of guessing baby genders, I am also a pregnancy detector.  Almost every single time that I have a dream that I am pregnant, within a couple of weeks, someone we know announces that they are pregnant.

26/ I never eat in bed, and I’ve always thought it was such a weird thing that some people do.  I cannot remember the last time I ate something in the bed… not even a snack.  It’s just… weird…

27/ I never work from bed either.  My laptop literally never leaves the desk in my office.  If I’m working, then I’m sitting at my desk in my office.  I don’t work at coffee shops.  I don’t work in the car.  I don’t work in bed.  I don’t work at the kitchen table.  I probably haven’t unplugged my laptop from the wall by my desk in years.  It might as well be an old dinosaur desktop computer.

28/ I never take my laptop on vacation with us.  Ever.

29/ I once walked all around Las Vegas barefoot.  I was 21, it was my first time there, I was wearing sky-high heels all night, and we were walking back to our hotel room at, like, 5 o’clock in the morning.  By then, I was so tired, and my feet hurt so bad, I didn’t even care.  Haha.  The boys I was with (Brian and his friend) took turns carrying me on their backs for a while, but eventually, they couldn’t carry me anymore, so I was on my own.  The bottoms of my feet were black by the time we got back to our room, and yes, yes, I did wash them before I got in the bed.

30/ My suitcase must be unpacked immediately when we get home from a trip.  You people who let it sit for days before they unpack it?!  NO.  How do you do it?!  I would go insane.  When we get home from a trip, I literally hit the ground running – unpacking, doing laundry, putting everything back where it belongs, etc. and I do not rest until every.single.thing. is back in place.

31/ When I worked in sales and marketing at my old corporate job, it involved knowing a lot about our product line (obviously), so I still have about 100 part numbers in my head that I will likely never forget.  If you ask me the part number for any specific product, I can still rattle it off like it’s nothing even though I left that job six years ago. 

32/ BK fries > McDonalds fries

33/ If I had to describe myself in three words, I’d probably go with organized/detail-oriented, self-motivated, and empathetic.

34/ I don’t like ice in my drinks.  In fountain drinks at restaurants, yes, but in any drinks at home?  Absolutely not.  Only in a cocktail.

35/ These braces rubber bands are going to be the death of me.  The amount of face/head/neck/shoulder/scalp tension I’ve had since starting the rubber bands again has been the worst thing ever.  Pretty sure that’s part of what caused my vertigo last year.  Pretty sure that’s why the dizziness hasn’t gone away.

36/ My favorite subject in school was always English/Spelling/Vocabulary.  I’ve always been a stickler for proper grammar, and I’ve always loved to write.

37/ When people first started texting, it killed me that grammar went out the window.  For years, I texted with complete, proper grammar, but I finally gave it up (mostly) a couple of years ago.  Sometimes it still kills me, though.

38/ I have always hated math.  Any and all kinds of math.  It’s the worst subject.

39/ I am a BOSS on an adding machine (or the number pad on the right side of your keyboard) from years of working at the movie theater and counting money/doing inventory at the end of the night and years of working at the bank.  You can give me a massive list of numbers to add/subtract/multiply/divide, and I will fly through and have your answer in seconds… and I don’t have to look at the keyboard.

40/ A few pet peeves of mine – when people are late, when people are on their phones all the time, improper grammar, when people forget to text back, when people ride out in the fast lane and don’t ever pass the people in the slow lane so they hold up the whole highway, cat videos on social media, and, of course, hearing people chew (see #6 above).

41/ A few places to visit that are near the top of my bucket list – New York City in the fall, London, Greece, and Italy.

42/ I’ve never been out of the country… not even to Mexico or Canada.  Only The Bahamas, but that doesn’t really count.  I guess I have some work to do!

And that’s it, y’all… I made it to 42! 

As I said before, we’ll be spending my birthday in Magic Kingdom today, so be sure to pop over to Instagram and follow along!  Happy birthday to me! 

6 comments:

  1. Happy birthday! I think you should try audio books. You can listen while you organize things!

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    1. I really should! I keep saying I'm going to and then I never do. Haha.

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  2. I can't believe you have been so consistent with these birthday posts! Hope you have a magical day at Disney!!

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    1. Thanks so much, Tanya! Yes, it's hard to come up with new facts year after year, and I'm sure I accidentally repeat some of them, but it's fun to do!

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  3. I do remember you doing well in that poker tournament, but I can’t remember exactly where you placed either!

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