Still playing catch-up from the holidays! On December 21st, I celebrated (reluctantly and without much fuss) my 30th birthday. And now, I officially feel old.
In (late) celebration of that momentous occasion (there seems to be a theme here), I decided to do a list of random tidbits about myself. Originally, I was going to do 30 of them, but I ran out of stuff to put on there, so I stopped at 20. (Twenty is the new 30 anyway! At least I'm going to tell myself that!)
So, without further ado, here are 20 random things about me:
1. I almost always wear my hair in a ponytail on weekends…except to go to church. Mostly. And, about every other day during the week. Fine…I'll admit it. I'm addicted to wearing my hair in a ponytail. I consider myself successful at fighting this bad habit when I wear it down at least three days in a work week. (It doesn't take much to make me feel successful!
2. I will forever be 15 minutes late to work. It's been this way since the dawn of my professional employment days in an office and until I work for a boss that cares, I imagine it will stay that way. (Ironically, I give myself a figurative pat on the back if I get to work less than 15 minutes late. I don’t know what I do when I get to work on time, as that has never happened before.)
3. I don't take lunch breaks and just eat lunch from home at my desk. It's not that I'm so busy…it's just that I'm lazy and I don’t want to walk home for lunch. Plus, because of my lack of timeliness, I have to make sure I get in my 40 hours. I'm the moral police when it comes to the time clock. I kid not!
4. I mostly eat yogurt and a granola bar (sometimes with a piece of fruit) for lunch. Riveting information about me, huh? My favorite flavors: Banana Cream Pie, Strawberry Shortcake and Red Velvet (all Yoplait Lights).
5. Since Fiber One came out with poptarts, I've been eating a Strawberry poptart for breakfast every morning. Seriously. Every. Single. Morning.
6. Speaking of food (and then I promise, I'll move on because I sure hope there is more to me than just food!), I could eat Mexican pretty much every day.
7. When I was unemployed back in 2009, I interviewed for a job as a law partner's personal assistant in a big firm here in town. Some of the job duties were to wind his clock every morning in his office and to change out the batteries in his beeper every day. I'm pretty sure I didn't get the job because I questioned what kind of batteries he was using that wouldn't last more than a day! True story!
8. I also interviewed for a research job at the university, assisting the person who tracks down alumni and asks for donations or asks for them to write the university into their wills. The woman who interviewed me gave some scenarios and asked how I would go about finding people. I'm pretty sure I didn't get that job because my answer was "Google" for all of them and I had a look of "are you kidding me?" on my face when she asked me, for instance, how I would find the owner of a Chinese restaurant chain. My thought process was, "Is this a trick question? Because Google is still my answer." Maybe I'm just really good at using Google and have thought all this time that everyone else knew how to use it to find people. Am I the only one that cyber stalks people? (Don't answer that!)
9. I have a major problem with "pulling the trigger" and booking hotel rooms. I know…that is such a random thing, but when I was planning our little trip late last summer to Houston, I spent WAY too much time obsessing over how many stars and good reviews a hotel got that I started stressing myself out about where we were going to stay. Thankfully, I didn't land us in roach motel crawling with bed bugs in a bad part of town, which is totally my fear!
10. I have the inability to go on a vacation with my husband without all hell breaking loose about directions—and subsequently, getting lost. Thankfully, I like to think that this is only partially my fault and now that my husband has a smart phone with GPS, we can look forward to our 4 year old NOT refereeing from the backseat on the next trip! (Yes, we sometimes fight or yell at each other in front of her…I'm just keeping it real, people. Let's not pretend we're perfect!)
11. I'm super indecisive. I will probably never, ever build a home, because of the magnitude of decisions that will have to be made. Don't ask me to choose the restaurant either!
12. I dislike trying a new restaurant unless I'm with someone who has been there before or unless I have read all the reviews about it. I know, I'm weird. (Maybe I should have titled this "Quirky things about Melissa.")
13. I'm currently doing Weight Watchers (in my 6th week!). I've never kept something up for this long nor has the question "Do you want to go out to eat?" ever made me sprint to the computer to look up points for restaurants and then semi-hyperventilate when I can't find them!
14. I dislike playing pretend with Juliette. (Let's not act like we all like to play pretend with our kids!) I still play it with her if she asks, although I do try to persuade her to choose something else to play. I find, though, that I'm seriously lacking in the pretend-play area of my brain. Am I the only one that finds it difficult to create dialogue for a bunch of Barbies?
15. I'm not romantic AT ALL. In fact, I think most romantic gestures are cheesy and have hidden agendas. Matt knows that more often than not if he does something romantic or says something romantic, I'm going to ask, "What do you want?" Now, I should probably save my husband from a hanging about now and say that he doesn't usually have hidden agendas…it's just where my mind goes. My love language is service! Show me you love me by washing the dishes and doing the laundry. And, if you clean the bathroom, I will be on cloud nine and won't care if you have a hidden agenda and want something in return!!
16. Along the same lines as above, I also dislike receiving flowers from Matt. My main reason? They die…and they can be costly. Since the money comes from our checkbook, I prefer it not be spent on something that is going to die within the week. I will make exceptions for tulips, though, since they are my favorite and you can't find them all the time.
17. I prefer to make lists about what needs to be done, then to actually do what needs to be done. Nevermind the fact that in the time it took for me to make the list (and color code it with markers!), I could have already done a few things on it!
18. I rarely go to the grocery store without my dinner menu planned for the next week and a list of what I need. And, like clockwork, I go grocery shopping every Friday afternoon (unless we are going out of town for the weekend and then I go when we get back on Sunday).
19. I started out majoring in pre-pharmacy and Chemistry 101 kicked by butt (I barely got out of there with a C), so I hightailed it to the liberal arts before that first semester in college was even over. The truth is, I never really wanted to be a pharmacist, I just initially chose that field because of the fact that I would be a doctor (PharmD) when I graduated and would be making awesome money. I clearly was not thinking about my strengths and weaknesses (science being my weakness).
20. My dream job is to be a stay-at-home mom! I don't know if that will ever happen, but I pray about it often.
And now feel free to psychoanalysis me in the comments! :)