about me… (I tried making it to 100, I really did, but I’m a slacker and this took several months to complete as it was)
1. I’m not as old in my head as I am actually. I used to be older. When I was little I was actually quite older. Now that I’m older, I’m younger. I’ve probably stayed the same, mostly. If that makes any sense at all.
2. I haven’t given up the dream of writing & publishing novels. I’m still writing, in dribs and drabs, but for now it’s mostly on hold. Because my kids, they will only be this little & cute once.
3. I really do hate cleaning. Cleaning is evil. Organizing, on the other hand, is bliss.
4. Health issues: migraines (two kinds), rheumatoid arthritis, anxiety disorder, clinical depression. Can you see why I don’t have the energy to both write & play with kids all in the same day?
5. I will do just about anything on earth to avoid having to make a phone call. Hate making phone calls. If you hear from me more than once a year, feel all warm and fuzzy inside. (And if you hate phoning too, email me and tell me, that way I won’t have to call you and you won’t have to call me and it’s all nice. I love writing letters & email.)
6. There is no #6. (Cepheid joke)
7.Having people over for dinner does not bring me a whole lot of joy. I would much rather meet you out someplace or go to your house. Really. If you knew how much anxiety it causes me to have someone over, you’d just be amazed. It’s agonizing.
8. However, I subscribe to my friend Emily’s belief: If you’re coming to see me, come on over. If you’re coming to see my house…please give me 6-8 weeks to prepare (Ok, she doesn’t say 6-8 weeks, but the preparation time, it is key)
9. I used to keep a listing of all the sci-fi/fantasy related references my pastor made in sermons in order to remind me why I kept going to that particular church, especially when the childcare related stuff there drove me mad. Now I go to a church where there’re no sci-fi references, but the overall atmosphere is friendlier, so it evens out.
10. I’m adopted. And I know who/where I came from. I’ll even tell you about it if you ask me, but I’m unlikely to blog about it that often, cause they’re out there, reading this and I’m trepidatious about the whole thing. *waves*
11. These days, I take instructions fairly literally. If you tell me to put all the veggies in the fridge, I’ll do it, even knowing that we don’t normally house garlic in the fridge.
12. I’ve almost shut down this blog several times due to friends telling me that I don’t hear from them more often because they read my blog and feel like we’ve already talked. What they don’t understand is that that makes it all terribly one-sided and I don’t feel like we’ve talked at all (unless, of course, they have a blog that they update regularly, and then I do).
13. I’m actually really sensitive about the fact that I don’t cook. And by “don’t cook” I mean don’t make things from scratch. Except for the baking. I like the baking. Cakes, pastries, pies, etc. Yum. But dinners? Nope. I actually do feed people a lot around here, as I’m responsible for breakfast & lunch for me and the kids. So when I say “I don’t cook” I mean “If you’re not related to me, don’t expect homemade food from me.”
14. My favorite pudding is Jello brand Pistachio. I’m disturbed by the fact that you can’t see the nuts in the mix, but I still love it.
15. I don’t actually know how to play with small children. Yes, I have three, but no I don’t know how to play. I’ve never known how to play. I’m much better with the crafts & the reading than the playing. Playing makes me insane.
16. I hate wearing shoes. I have somehow passed this on to my children, although they won’t say they hate shoes, they just take their shoes off as soon as they get home (just like I do).
17. If I must wear shoes, usually they are sandals (which my husband says doesn’t count). I wear sneakers so rarely that I still have the same pair I got in college from my sister.
18. Musical instruments I play really well: clarinet & piano.
19. Musical instruments I play decently: flute & various kinds of recorders
20. Musical instruments I can play, but you wouldn’t want me to: trumpet & saxophone
21. I will tell you I like something even if I don’t. How you can tell: I won’t be enthusiastic about it. I’ll use phrases like: “It looks nice.” “It’s really something.”
22. If I like something, I’ll ask how it’s made. This is my form of a compliment.
23. I like to take things apart and see how it works. This applies to nearly everything: webpages, the couch, my old camera, the garage door, my computer, the toilet, etc.
24. I tend not to actually watch the TV when I say I’m “watching TV.” I sit in front of it with a project in hand or a book in my lap and I’ll work or read while listening to the show that’s on. Most shows it works on.
25. I refuse to exercise in such a way as to get noticeably hot or sweaty. If swimming pools in town were not such freaking expensive places to join, I would exercise that way. But they are, so I don’t.
26. I tend to walk around stores grabbing what I want, then thinking better of it and putting items back. All the time. Which is why one of my big pet peeves is seeing things reshelved wrong by people that didn’t go back to put things back in the right places.
27. My parents used to punish me by not letting me have my own books in my room. Or music. It was awful. Worst punishment ever.
28. I started off a computer science major in college. I changed majors before I even started, after spending all summer on computers and learning that going from pc to mac to pc to mac to pc to mac was enough to make anyone entirely insane.
29. Then I was a psyc major for 2.5 years. Long enough to realize that all the rest of my classes would be taught by either a) the man that told anecdotes about his children masturbating and being a “royal bitch” and all the women he thought were attractive (did I mention he was my sister’s baseball coach and husband to my fifth grade teacher?) or b) the father of my friend who tried to kill herself seven times in two years (and he finally just gave her the key to the psychiatric drug cabinet and said “do it”).
30. So I changed my major to English, since I had more hours of that than anything else. I ended up having to pick either psyc or women’s studies for a minor, so I chose psyc, thinking it was more useful (though I had enough hours for both minors, you couldn’t have a double minor).
31. I need a lot of me time or I’m not a very pleasant person. At all.
32. I used to love holidays. The more, the merrier. Now I’m just sick of it all: all the commercialization, all the expectations, all the time required to make “this one the most special ever.”
33. I am not a patient person. Not even a little bit.
34. I take tons of pictures at random intervals. Some weeks I take them every day; some weeks I take no pictures at all.
35. I have really long, epic length dreams. Mostly I remember them too. Even those weird little details like wall color and the sound of the bells jingling in the knees of the menfolk.
36. I am nearly always too hot. 74 degrees is about the perfect temperature for me, but only if I don’t have to touch anyone else. With kids around, make it 73 degrees.
37. Favorite breakfast: Puffy Oven Apple Pancakes. I can make them too. In fact, I prefer it that way.
38. Favorite lunch: my version of chicken spaghetti (whole wheat angel hair pasta with lite italian dressing, canned chicken, & parmesan cheese)
39. Favorite dinner: (that I make) Taco Soup, (that Nick makes) Chicken with brown butter apple sage sauce & roasted potatoes with white wine (which is normally not my favorite flavor)
40. Favorite restaurant to go out to: Macaroni Grill (but we don’t have one here, so here it’s Olive Garden)
41. Every time I start to whistle, my husband starts whistling something else. It makes me crazy.
42. I’m scared of fish. No, I don’t know why.
43. We have a pet fish. It’s name is Marlin, but I call it Zoe. It’s a blue betta and even though I said I’d never take care of it, I’ve been stuck doing just that.
44. My oldest son looks just like me. He has my skin and my childhood hair. My middle son looks just like my husband. He has his skin (slightly darker than mine) and his baby hair (which we verified by photograph) and his eyes. The baby is still a mystery. I think he’s an alien. People are offended by this. Bwahahah.
45. Hippo.
46. Yes, I do read all those books. I read much more than I ought to. That’s because I sleep much less than I ought to. I’m frequently an insomniac, whether it’s anxiety or headaches or joint pain that keep me up. I’ll just sit and read until I finish a book, then go to sleep.
47. I’m nearly blind without my contacts or glasses. I thought I had the worst eyesight in the world, but my m-i-l has worse.
48. My favorite fake fruit flavor is cherry. Followed closely by orange. My husband hates all fake fruit flavors. That is why he’s the organic food nut.
49. We recycle religiously, but I frequently don’t like to. Our town makes it hard because you either a) pay extra to have someone come out once a month to pick your recyclables up or b) have to take it out yourself during their very short business hours. Ben’s favorite phrase: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle! (when he was younger, it sounded like “a zoo, a zoo, a psycho!”)
50. I’m very good about putting photos in frames & displaying them. I never thought it was a noteworthy thing, but other people brag on it, so there it is.
51. My favorite non-adult beverage is a cherry limeade from Sonic, but I rarely get them because they don’t have caffeine in them. Someone really needs to make caffeinated lemon-lime soda.
52. My favorite adult beverage is something my friends like to call a “Limp Twisted Jim” because it was funny when we were drunk and young. It’s made with Lime Twisted Gin and Dr. Pepper and lots of ice.
53. Both my sister and my husbands brother are rather estranged from our families and that makes me sad. I try to keep up with them the best I can, but nothing we do makes them be any closer to us.
54. I never thought I’d live past high school. I also thought I’d die in a car accident. I don’t know why.
55. Now I obsess about my loved one’s dying in a car accident.
56. Suicidal though I may be at times, I just know that even if I tried something that I wouldn’t die from it. It’s enough to keep me from trying.
57. Comfort books: The Rowan by Anne McCaffrey, The Toynbee Convector by Ray Bradbury, Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, and something else I can’t think of right now.
58. Comfort music: Anna Nalick’s 2am, Sarach McLachlan’s Stumbling Towards Ecstasy, Sheryl Crow’s self-titled thing, and the soundtrack to Cruel Intentions (though I didn’t like the movie) and anything by Nightnoise.
59. Comfort movies: Sliding Doors, Living Out Loud, Truly Madly Deeply, Cold Comfort Farm, Amelie, and Love Actually.
60. I always watch all the credits at the end of a movie the first time I watch it. Nick stays with me and reads me funny names from the credits that I might have missed while frantically trying to keep up with the rest of them.
61. The best way to cheer me up lately is to let me drive alone in the middle of nowhere so I can sing loudly in the car. I don’t know if it’s the singing or the being alone, but it’s wonderful.
62. Nick and I don’t really ever fight. Seriously. Not since that time I threw a glass at his head. Still don’t remember doing it, although the glass shards in the wall were very convincing.
63. But that’s not why we don’t fight. We don’t fight because most things we disagree on aren’t worth bothering to argue about, so we just quietly state our discontent and move on. Compromise is a goodness.
64. Speaking of conversating, I don’t look people in the eyes when we’re speaking. Usually I’m doing something else, as I’m a fidgety sort of person. But even when I’m not fidgeting, I seem to watch a person’s mouth more. I can’t understand what a person is saying unless I’m watching their mouth. I don’t know why.
65. Favorite cookie: snickerdoodles.
66. My kids are making me cookies out of play-doh as I type.
67. I love the way real Play-Doh smells. The off brand stuff smells nasty. The stuff my mom made when I was little was very tasty and I always asked her to make green.
68. I love to swing. On the swingset, I mean. Although I love swing dancing too.
69. Nick and I frequently dance in the kitchen, regardless of whether or not music is playing.
70. I probably kiss my kids more than anyone else on the planet kisses their kids.
71. I obsess about their bellies, too. Their cute little belly buttons. Mmm. I also obsess about my husbands belly button. But not anyone elses.
72. My husband told me something about me the other day that made sense to me: “You are not a planner, but you hate it when someone changes a plan once it’s in motion.” Yup. Totally true. And the reason I’m not a planner? I hate changing plans! A sad cycle.
73. I used to think I had a lot of books. Compared to some people, my house is a library. On the other hand, I know a lot of people that have tons more books than we do. We need more books, but lack the space to have them.
74. My desk is finally cleaned off enough that I can work on things on it again. And the neighbor has cleared out the pile of trash outside of my bedroom window. It’s wonderful!
75. I love watching Ben do all the hand motions and dancing on his TV shows. David stopped doing that years ago.
78. Gregory’s breath smells like the paste we used in kindergarten when I was little. Ben’s smelled like green apples. I don’t remember about David’s. And yes, I obsess over that.
79. I got three hours of sleep last night. And the night before that. And the night before that. The night before that I got six whole hours and I actually remembered that I was a person during the day. Why so little sleep? It’s not just the baby. Ben’s not been sleeping either.
80. I have prophetic dreams about bizarre little things. Like in 8th grade I dreamt about sitting in class looking at a book cover that had the name of a car for the author’s name. The cover was mostly pink and had a nearly bald girl and a horse on it. The boy sitting behind me was named Scott. I wrote it all down in my diary. In 10th grade, the new boy sitting behind me in English class was named Scott and my best friend loaned me Arrows of the Queen by Mercedes Lackey just before class. WHY THIS? Or that day driving down the road just a few weeks ago where the red SUV cut in front of me while a Green Day song was on the radio and I was looking back at two of my three kids and thinking about stopping at McDonald’s even though it was too early for french fries? Yeah. I dreamt that seven years ago.
Lisa Holcomb 