11 Questions

Last week my friend Sherri at life of a wife tagged me for The Liebster Award, this thing that is currently going around in the blogging world.  I was so excited, I love random facts and stories!  I knew I wouldn't have time to do it right away, but I thought about it all week, usually in the mornings when I was straightening my hair...But anyways, here are the rules:

1. Create a blog post including 11 random facts about yourself.

2. Answer the 11 random questions from the blogger who nominated you.

3. Pass the award on to at least 5 blogs and link to them in the post.

4. The blogs you nominate are supposed to have less than 200 followers.

5. Let the people know you nominated them.

So here are my 11 random facts.

1) I have lived in 10 different houses/apartments in 4 different states.  Two in Raleigh, North Carolina, where I was born.  Then we lived in upstate New York for a couple of years, and lived in three different houses there.  I spent the rest of my "growing up" years in Lynchburg, Virginia where we lived in one apartment and two different houses.  And now I lived in Johnson City, Tennessee where I am living in my second apartment post graduation.

2) Growing up I never believed in Santa.  We still wrote him letters and visited him at the mall, but I always knew it was made up.  However, my favorite Christmas story is The Night Before Christmas, which just happens to be all about Santa coming, so I don't know exactly how that worked out.

3) When I was 10 my family went to Brazil for about 10 days to visit some missionary friends of ours.  All of the little girls at the church taught me how to count to 10 in Portuguese, and I remember thinking that it was so cool that it was warm enough to wear shorts and t-shirts, even though it was their winter season.  This trip is also what lead to one of the worst passport photos of all time; check Exhibit A below.

4)  I was on the yearbook staff my junior year of high school, and was the editor-in-chief my senior year.  I was kind of (but not totally!) a yearbook nerd too.  I had yearbook for two of my classes, often ate lunch in the yearbook office, and loved getting new red pens to edit proofs with.

5)  I still drive the same car I got when I started driving at 16.  A 97' Geo Prizm; it's black with lots of scuffs, scratches, and few smalls dents.

6)  I'm a pretty organized person.   My books and DVD's are arranged in alphabetical order, and my closet is organized by type (tank top, t-shirt, cardigan etc.) and then by the colors of the rainbow - pink, red, orange, yellow, green, teal, blue, purple, white, gray, black, brown.

7)  I have this weird thing about what color pen I write with.  I hate to fill in forms/worksheets with a black pen, it's too much black on black, so I always try to use blue or purple.  And I don't like writing on notebook paper with blue pens, because it's blue ink on blue lines.  I try to use black or purple for that.  And to make all this easier, I have a lot of purple pens.

8)  I love children's books!  My bookshelf has four shelves that are totally full of books, and one and a half of those shelves are of children's books.  And think about it, children's books are pretty thin, so that's a lot of books!  I collected most of these when I was still in school.  Every time I got paid I'd go to Mr. K's, this great used book store in town, and buy lots of books because they were super cheap, like 50 cents to $2.00 on average.  And because I was a Child Development major I got to order books through the book order too!

9)  I'm part Irish.  My mom's side of the family is Irish, and her maiden name was Murphy, which I'm planning on using as a middle name for a son one day.  I also have tons of natural red highlights.  Because of how I part my hair, you don't always see them, but when I'm in the sun they're pretty noticeable, see Exhibit B below.

10)  I am named after people.  Aimee comes from my great-grandmother on my dad's side, except she spelled it Amy, and my middle name, Dianne, was my mom's middle name before she took her maiden name as her middle name.

11)  I am terrified of birds.  Ugh, I don't like them!  When I was in high school I had to park my car near a tree in our front yard, and when I would walk toward the house it would fly behind me and try to peck at my head, and it scarred me for life.  I have made a fool of myself so many times by ducking, shreiking, running away, or coming to a complete stop when I see birds near me.  And when we were in New York in December we were on the lower lever of the ferry coming back from Ellis Island and a pigeon flew right in front of me while trying to fly out of the window.  I just saw it coming at me and screamed loudly, ducked, and wedged myself between my mom and the back of the bench we were sitting on.  I looked like I was 5, not 25!

Now, to answer Sherri's questions:

1. Why did you start blogging? To find a fun way to keep my friends and family up-to-date on the crazy happenings of my life, and to have an excuse to keep taking pictures of my feet.

2. What's your favorite way to exercise? Running, it's really the only exercise I do.  But don't get the wrong idea, I'm not good at it, I say I run when really it's more of jog. But I am running the Color Me Rad 5k in just about month and can't wait!

3. What is your morning routine? Get up, stumble around for a few minutes, straighten my hair, eat breakfast and usually read my Bible, do my make-up, get dressed, try to do something with my hair, gather all my mess together and head out the door. Oh, and lots of checking facebook, twitter, and blogs in between all that.
4. When you were little, what did you want to be when you grew up? In elementary school I wanted to be a nurse, and then there was a stage in middle school when I really wanted to be a medical examiner.
5. Are you saving up for anything special/specific right now?  Not really, but if I come across some money I want a new pair of glasses or new running shoes, and if I come into a whole lot of money, a new car.
6. Would you rather have an entire closet full of shoes or purses? Shoes!  I used to change purses all the time, but not so much anymore, so definitely shoes.
7. What is your most memorable vacation?  Our trip to Brazil was obviously memorable for great reasons, but I think my most memorable vacation was also my worst!  I don't remember exactly how old I was, but I was in middle school, and we went to Assateague and Chincoteague to watch the pony swim.  I was absolutely miserable, and unfortunately didn't make the trip any better for my family.
8. If you could choose, where would you want to live next? A big city in the States, or England.
9. What is your favorite holiday? Thanksgiving!  It's in my favorite season, fall.  I always get to spend it with our closest friends in Lynchburg, or my extended family out of town.  And you totally get to eat all day long and it's ok!
10. What is your biggest pet peeve? Being interrupted, or talking to someone who is on their phone the whole time.
11. Where is your favorite place to shop?  Well you can always find cute things you don't really need at Target, and I do get a lot of clothes from Plato's Closet.  Oh, and Goodwill of course!

The friends I am going to nominate are:

Hannah at life on the Wilds side

Jamie at Spare Time and Seersucker

Leslie at One Step at a Time

Allison at ReCreate

Kathryn at Add to the Beauty

And my questions are:

1) If you could live in any other time period/decade what would it be and why?

2) What was your favorite book or series of books growing up?

3) What was something silly you were scared of as a child?

4) If there was going to be a movie made about your life, which actress would you want to play you?

5) How would you spend a perfect Saturday?

6) Coffee, hot tea, or hot chocolate?

7) If you could have any talent, what would it be and why?

8) Describe the dress you wore to your senior prom.

9) What is one of the best gifts or surprises you've ever gotten?

10) Would you rather be hot or cold?

11) What is something you always keep stocked in your kitchen?

Exhibit A

 

Exhibit B

You can see all the red in my hair really well in this picture, and excuse the fact that I look a little rough, it was the end of a week-long mission trip.