10 Things You Might Not Know About Me

Infertility bloggers share a lot of private things about ourselves.  I’ve told you about my menstrual cycles, my marriage, my faith, and our three IVF cycles.  With all those serious topics, things can get a little somber around here sometimes.  So each year for the past two years, I’ve published a post sharing some random facts about myself.  It’s fun for me to write and I hope it’s fun for you to read.  (Be sure to read the 2016 and 2015 posts if you weren’t reading my blog back then!)

1.  I don’t drink coffee.  I love the smell of coffee brewing, but I cannot stand the taste.  I get my caffeine fix from tea.  I usually have a cup of hot tea in the morning, in the afternoon, and a cup of decaf or herbal tea at night.  One of my all-time favorites is Tazo Apricot Vanilla Creme (my grocery store doesn’t alway carry them, so I buy ALL.THE.BOXES when they’re on sale), but lately I’ve been enjoying Heath and Heather Green Tea with Coconut (I discovered it at Marshall’s).

2.  My favorite color is purple.  I keep my clothing color choices pretty neutral and basic, but I will ALWAYS buy purple if that’s an option.  My wedding color was purple, and I bought a purple bedspread when Tom and I first got married (much to his dismay)!

3.  My latest guilty pleasure is Velvet.  No, not the cloth.  In my last “10 Things” update, I wrote about how I was watching Gran Hotel, a Spanish drama, on Netflix.  Well, I finished the series literally HOURS before they pulled it off Netflix, but now I’m obsessed with another Spanish series: Velvet! If you like beautiful costuming, cheesy-yet-addicting storylines, and beautiful Spaniards, this is the show for you!

 4.  I don’t like scary movies.  There are two reasons why I just can’t watch.  First of all, I’ll think about them for weeks afterwards and lose sleep over it.  Second, I can’t stand “jump scenes.”  You know, where something jumps out suddenly and makes you leap out of your seat.  If I even suspect that’s going to happen, I cover my ears so I can’t hear it.  In college, my roommates and I went to see the re-release of The Exorcist.  (We thought that since it was from the 70s it would be more funny than scary.  We were wrong.  We walked out of the theatre before it was over and spent the entire car ride home singing Jesus Loves Me).  Since then, I haven’t been able to see any scary movies because I end up thinking about them for days afterwards and scaring myself at night.

5.  I rarely read fiction.  I used to be a librarian, so this is like my dirty little secret.  I read a ton of fiction when I was a kid, but as I got older, I started to prefer biographies, history, and memoirs instead.  I read maybe one or two fiction books a year, and it’s usually a young adult fiction book.  And no, I haven’t read Harry Potter.  I think the last fiction book I read was Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell.

 6.  I broke my brother’s arm.  When I was 6 years old, my 2 year- old brother and I were sitting and playing in a large laundry basket.  Our dad wasn’t home and our mom was in the shower.  I tried to get out of the basket and somehow ended up flipping it over with my brother still in it.  I still remember his screams as I ran to tell my mom.  The poor guy spent a few weeks in a cast.  He’s 31 years old now and loves to tease me about it!

7.  My least favorite chore is cleaning the shower.  Ugh.  We have one of those showers with a plastic, textured floor.  No matter how hard or how often I scrub, it never gets clean.  Also, our bathroom doesn’t have a window and the exhaust fan doesn’t work well, so mildew grows very fast.  We’re blessed to have a lady who comes to clean the bathrooms every other week, and things get pretty bad when she goes on vacation or gets sick!

8.  I’m a HSP (highly sensitive person).  Yes, this is a thing.  People with this personality trait process are more sensitive to stimuli and process things a little differently.  There’s a great book and website about it.

 9.  My favorite non-fertility blog is Modern Mrs. Darcy.  I love the mix of fun and informative articles on Anne Bogel’s blog.  She’s a voracious reader and I’m really impressed by her reviews and reading lists.

10.  I can’t drive a stick shift (or parallel park to save my life).  A friend tried to teach me how to drive a stick in high school and it was a disaster.  I haven’t tried since.  My parallel parking skills improved out of necessity while I lived in Los Angeles during college, but now that I’ve been back in suburbia I will park farther away to avoid having to parallel park.  My husband, on the other hand, can practically parallel park with his eyes closed!