25 Things
This is my addition to the crazy
Facebook phenomenon that everyone is doing. All the cool kids are doing it, so I thought I'd pitch in as well :) Following are 25 random facts about me:
1. I'm currently working on a Master's degree in Creative Writing, so I'm sorry if these facts are too long :)
2. Justin and I have been together since I was 18 years old. I just turned 28, so this fall will be TEN YEARS of being with him! That's just nuts...but I'm SO lucky :)
3. I consider myself a pretty good cook, but making a good baked potato is impossible for me. I don't know why or how, but every time I attempt them, they suck.
4. I wear crazy socks almost every day that I wear pants. Why wear plain white socks when you can wear argyle socks with Golden Retrievers on them? My sock drawer is a menagerie of color, and I love it.
5. Sometimes I like to look at words to see if the letters can be rearranged to make new words. I blame this on my 5
th grade teacher who gave the "accelerated"
english kids a busy project consisting of coming up with 200 anagrams. It was intense, but it made me really good at Scrabble.
6. I am beyond obsessed with Earl Grey tea. If I don't have a cup every day, I'm not complete. While tea isn't as unhealthy as crack, the addiction is just as strong.
7. I taught 7
th grade English for 4 years, and my favorite part of the job was hanging out with 13 year
olds. They are completely hilarious and endearing. I wish I kept up with more of my former students, and hope they're all doing well!
8. One of my biggest pet-peeves is people who wear pajama pants or slippers in public. I'm all for dressing comfy and casual, but why do people think it's
ok to go out in flannel pajama pants? It's not.
9. I'm terrible with impersonations, but I can make the sound of a dolphin chirp. I have NO idea how I discovered this talent, but it sounds exactly like it. It always made my students crack up.
10. When I'm cleaning the house or doing tedious chores, I always have music playing on an
ipod dock. I have random breaks and have a dance party with my dog, Justin
Timberlake,
Kanye West, and Rhianna. They're awesome. If someone secretly recorded it, I'd be a
Youtube sensation, and not in a good way.
11. I have the MOST precious dog and cat in the world. They are darling, sweet, and funny. My life is better with animals in it.
12. I pass out every time I get a shot. Then I wake up and throw up. Awesome, I know. I'm really scared of how this is going to work when I'm pregnant...
13. I love to read, and I love the smell of books. When you open a book and smell the pages near the spine, it's one of the best smells in the world.
ahhhhh, I just did it :)
14. I'm the luckiest person in the world when it comes to family. I have the best immediate family, extended family (on both sides), and in-laws. I don't know how I got so lucky, but I love them lots, and am so grateful for all of them.
15. Sometimes when I cook, I pretend that I'm on a cooking show. It makes it more fun!16. I wish I had kept in touch with my high school friends better. I miss a lot of them!
17. I have a crazy
fascination with Russia. It all started when I read Anna Karenina, and now I'm taking a Russian Lit. course. I love everything about it...from what I know. I want to go to St.
Petersburg SO badly, and when I go, I'm not sure if I'll come back.
18. I think it's really funny to sing really bad and really loud. I'm pretty sure my mom is the only other person who thinks it's funny.
19. Speaking of my mom, she's my best friend in the world. We call each other
Boof. (don't ask)
20. I was the school mascot my senior year. My name was Willie the Wildcat. I did it on a whim, and I'm glad I did...it was SO fun!
21. Justin and I have been really
wishy-washy about having kids, but I think we're both ready.
22. I LOVE basketball and football. I love sports, and I love watching them, but I am totally not athletic. I've never hit a baseball or softball in my life.
23. My 3 favorite writers are F. Scott Fitzgerald, Leo Tolstoy, and Henry David Thoreau. I would sacrifice a limb to be half as prolific as any of those guys.
24. I wish I did more with my time. I don't think I'm as efficient as I should be sometimes.
25. I'm on my last one! Hooray! Both my parents and my in-laws are still married and still in love. This makes me really happy, and I know the same thing will be true for Justin and me.
It's not you, it's me.
Well, my poor Sooner heart is broken. 5 BCS games in a row. 3 National Championships in a row. Bowl season is a lesson in humility for any Sooner fan. As I began to think about all of the teams I root for, I notice a common theme.
College Football/Basketball: Oklahoma! They are almost always amazing in the regular season. They set National records. They win Heismans. They win BCS votes. They get to the BCS game, and they lose. All. The. Time. After Oklahoma, I root for Ohio State. They are consistently good. They have amazing athletes, and they also get BCS votes. They get to the BCS game, and they lose. All. The. Time. They can get to the basketball NCAA championship, but they lose those as well. *Sigh* Disappointment at the end of the year for college sports.
NFL: I'll admit, I'm a lot bigger fan of college football than I am of NFL, but I root for the Cowboys and the Texans.. Let's look at them:
Cowboys: I love Tony Romo and Jason Witten. Really, other than those two and the team's close proximity to OKC, that's the only real reason I root for the Cowboys. They are decent in the regular season, then drama, drama, drama. I'm not going to lie, I kind of like the drama of the Cowboys. I know it's ridiculous and annoying, but you have to admit, it adds to the intrigue. It's like a man soap opera! Good TV! Anyway, poor Tony Romo just cannot win the big game at the end of the season. They lose the big game All. The. Time. *Sigh*
Texans: In theory, they should be good, but they're not. That's about all on the Texans front.
*Sigh* Disappointment at the end of the year for NFL football.
NBA: Well, I'm a charter fan of the OKC Thunder, and a longtime fan of the Houston Rockets. Sadly, we'll start with the Thunder. They are just...bad. I hate to say it, I really want them to win, but they're just really terrible in the 4th quarter. They play the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd quarters really well, but they seem to forget that there's a 4th. *Sigh* Disappointment all year long for the Thunder. Then there's the Rockets. Much like the Texans, on paper they should be a great team. Injury, sick, injury, sick, and then they make a great run at the end of the season and make the playoffs! Yay Rockets! Then comes the 1st round....and they lose. All. The. Time. *Sigh* Disappointment at the end of the NBA season.
Baseball: Sports offseason for Erin! If I had to say who I root for, I would say the Astro's, but I couldn't name 5 players on the team. I hate baseball, and could care less who wins. As long as it's not the Yankees or the Redsox. They're both obnoxious.
My long, frustrating point here is that perhaps I'm a curse on my teams. Maybe I should root for the teams I really hate, and then they'll start losing and my teams will be rid of the unluckiest fan there is! From here on out, I declare myself a fan of the LSU Tigers, The USC Trojans, and the Florida Gators. I will root for the Boston Celtics and the New England Patriots. I'll cheer my heart out for the New York Giants, and for the Yankees and Bosox. Those are my new teams that I hope I can curse. Gag....I can't do it. I'll have to secretly root for my real boys, heartache after heartache. Disappointment after disappointment, because that's what a sports fan does. We have to be long suffering. If we won everything, that would be no fun! The heartaches make the victories better. I'll keep rooting for my teams, I just won't let the sports fates know :)
Let me drown in my sports misery tonight. Tomorrow will be better. I'm going to the Thunder/Rockets game, so either way, one of my teams has to win! Horray for a victory!
My Attempt at Sportsblogging
In the world of blogs, there are two types of blogger who must have extremely thick skin: the political blogger and the sports blogger. I am neither, and I really don't have thick skin, so I hope random people don't crucify me here. I'll preface my thoughts by admitting that they are extremely biased. I love Oklahoma, Bob Stoops, Sam Bradford, and everything else related to the Sooners. So there. I admit it :) So here are my 2 cents about tonight's BCS National Championship. (No relation to Kelly Ogle's My 2 Cents...how annoying is that?!?)
The following things I KNOW...
1. Oklahoma NEEDS this win tonight. Florida wants the win, OU needs it. "Big game Bob" has had 4 straight BCS losses, 2 for the championship, and another would be bad. Really bad. If OU loses tonight, I will not watch ESPN for a few days, because it will be a massacre. Perhaps it should be...
2. Florida is focusing a lot on the trash talk. I know it all started with the whole "Tebow would be the 4th best QB in the big 12," but still, they've retaliated and then some. Enough already!
3. Oklahoma has an insane offense. Florida has a good offense. Oklahoma has a decent defense. Florida has a good defense. Florida has good special teams. Oklahoma has terrible special teams. The only team that has an IN-credible aspect of their game is Oklahoma. This fact alone should put Florida on the defensive.
4. If we ever want Texas to shut up about Oklahoma going to the National Championship and not them, we have to win. Please, for that reason alone, let us win! ;)
The following things I BELIEVE...
1. Kirk Herbstreit and ESPN are bigtime Oklahoma naysayers. Say what you will, maybe I'm crazy, but I believe it. I can't say that I entirely blame them, because they're smart fellas and they remember all of our losses in recent years, but still, for being "unbiased" media, they have some issues. I would L-O-V-E for Oklahoma to win after all of the Florida hype.
2. I think whoever wins, even if it's Oklahoma, that they should share the championship with Utah. Maybe that's not being die hard enough for some people, but it is not right that a team goes 13-0 and beats a team that spent 5 weeks at #1 and doesn't get a piece of the pie. What are they even playing for? Where is the reward for them? It's really not right.
3. Whoever wins, life will go on tomorrow. Sure, there's a lot of nervous anticipation, a lot of supersitition, and a lot of excitement here today, but ultimately it's a game. An important one, but a game nonetheless. Now, our party will be a huge bust and that we'll be depressed for the night if we lose, but we'll wake up tomorrow and look forward to next season. And in the meantime, we always have the Oklahoma Thunder to root for! hahahaha :)
BOOOOOOOOMER SOOOOOOOOONER!!!!!!
Rip Van Winkle
I've been asleep for a while now. Not 100 years, thankfully, but for about 1. I say asleep because I obviously haven't been dead (thank God), but I haven't really been living either. I've been living, but not LIVING. You know the difference. I've been asleep because I've made myself insignificant. I've made myself small. I've made myself believe all of the self doubt that comes with not making myself a priority. It's sad, really, but there's good news in this nasty beginning of a blog post. This morning, I woke up. Honestly, it was as simple and profound as that. I was literally and figuratively asleep, and today I just opened my eyes. I was back. I don't know where I went, but I realized this morning at 5:00 am (which, most of you know, I only see one 5:00 in any given day, so that's a work of God in itself) that I have been asleep. There's been a fog around me. A dullness about my senses, and it's been lifted. This is certainly not something that I did for myself, it's one of those realizations that can only come from God.
Who am I serving by making myself insignificant? Who is my God when I believe the deceitful, deconstructive phrases, "I can't do that" "I'm not good enough" or "I don't really care." I'm serving negativity. My God is the nasty side of myself. Really? REALLY?????? How utterly lame of me. The truth is that I can do it. I am good enough. I do care. God does care. I've been created in His image, and I've spent a year squandering it away. Well, I'm done.
It's a funny thing when a piece of information travels from your head to your heart. All of these things I have "known" for a long time. Today, however, I don't just know it, I believe it. I wish I could tell you how that occured, but I can't. So there it is. Public. On the World Wide Web. That's kinda scary, but now that it's out there, I have to do something about it!
