100 things

Look at me hopping on the long-gone bandwagon. This might provide a little insight about me!

1. My birthday is June 27, 1979.
2. I was born, raised and lived in St. Louis until I was 22.
3. I moved to Iowa in 2002, to be with my boyfriend.
4. I can't tell you how many times people have told me that I set the women's movement back 50 years by moving for a man, but I don't care!
5. My guy and I have been together since 1999.
6. I like living in Iowa better than I liked living in St. Louis.
7. I can tolerate St. Louis for three days when I go back and visit (which is often.) Then I have to come back to Iowa.
8. I like to gossip.
9. I love celebrity gossip, and I check gossip sites often.
10. I am ususally the first person in my office to know about the latest celeb break-ups, babies, etc.
11. I know a lot of deep dark secrets about my friends that I would never repeat, but I would never tell a lot of those same friends my deep dark secrets because I'm a very private person.
12. I don't often say something behind a person's back that I wouldn't say to their face.
13. I am very sarcastic...sometimes I take it too far.
14. I want people to be brutally honest with me - many people have told me that I'm the only person they could be completely honest with because I don't get mad when people are telling me the truth.
15. I can't stand liars, and I can't stand it when people don't tell you the truth because they "didn't want to hurt you."
16. I find it very hard to pretend to like someone that I don't really like.
17. I don't like it when people pretend to not be mad at me when they are mad at me.
18. I also find it hard to not share my opinion.
19. I believe in God, but I am not into organized religion.
20. I went to Lutheran School (LCMS) for 12 years - how that ruined it for me is a long, long story.
21. I dislike politics - I think most politicians are liars.
22. I love celebrities - and I think all of them are liars.
23. I am a tall girl - 5'9" and I often wear heels, so I'm usually over 6 feet tall.
24. I used to be a human barbie - super skinny, huge (real) boobs, blue eyes and blonde hair.
25. Then I graduated college, got a desk job and stopped taking care of myself.
26. I consider myself to be about 60 pounds overweight.
27. I want to lose that 60 pounds in 2007.
28. I have lost 14 of those pounds so far.
29. I feel good when I exercise, but I feel like I never have the time to set aside.
30. I work in public relations.
31. I love my co-workers, am still tolerating my job, and I hate sitting at a desk all day.
32. Sometimes I seriously consider a career change.
33. I wanted to be many things growing up - an occupational therapist, a veterinarian, a photographer.
34. The vet thing didn't work out because I was a secretary at an animal hospital and cried everytime someone brought a pet in to be euthanized.
35. The occupational therapy things didn't work out because I was never good at math and decided that since I wasn't required to take math in college, I needed to find a major that didn't require math to graduate.
36. I have a Bachelor's degree, but the highest level math class I have ever taken is high school geometry (10th grade at my school.)
37. Sometimes I'm embarassed by that, but most of the time I don't care.
38. The job I most wish I could go into now is photography, but I don't think I could make a lot of money at it because I'm not terribly good at it.
39. I was never really in the "in"crowd - I've always been able to be friends with people in every crowd.
40. Sometimes that was a good thing, but a lot of times it made me feel like I didn't belong anywhere.
41. My family thinks I'm crazy, but I fit right in with them!
42. My parents are still married after 29 years.
43. I have a 19 year-old sister and a 25 year-old brother.
44. My brother married my best friend after I moved to Iowa.
45. I was grossed out at first - but I think they're great, and I couldn't have a more awesome sister-in-law.
46. I now also have a three-year-old niece.
47. She calls me Aunt Toni.
48. She is the only one allowed to call me Toni - besides my boyfriend.
49. I make everyone else call me by my full name, Antoinette.
50. When I was born, my name was Michelle.
51. My dad changed the naming papers while my mom was still in the hospital.
52. I used to hate having a "different" name.
53. Now, I love it, and couldn't image being named Michelle.
54. My middle name is Marie, and yes, I know who Marie Antoinette was.
55. I live on a pretend farm outside of Des Moines.
56. I say pretend because really it's a house with a barn, and a fair amount of land, but nobody really farms it because it's mostly woods.
57. We have about 5 acres that a neighbor farms for us. We use the corn to heat our house.
58. Our house used to be a catfish farm, so we have lots of ponds.
59. Until I moved to Iowa, I hated eating fish.
60. Now I love eating fish.
61. But I won't eat fish out of our ponds at home.
62. We mow our lawn with a tractor.
63. We have a huge garden.
64. Every summer we can tomatoes and green beans.
    I really like canning stuff.
65. But I usually complain while I'm doing it - it seems like once the time is right, we end up canning for several weeks!
66. Last year, we planted more than 20 tomato plants.
67. We used to raise turkeys.
68. I hated the turkeys - they would perch on my car!
69. But they were kind of fun because we would put them in a pen every night and then during the day they were "free range."
70. We haven't had turkeys for two years.
71. I love to cook.
72. I'm a much better cook now than I was 5 years ago.
73. I try to plan a menu every week and try one new recipe each week.
74. I get recipe ideas from the Food Network.
75. I want to be a more creative knitter, but I feel like I never have time to knit.
76. I do other crafts as well - scrapbooking, jewelry making, and sometimes I sew.
77. I'm o.k. at most of those things, but I usually need to follow a pattern.
78. I want to be good enough at all of those things so I can create my own designs.
79. I collect crafting supplies.
80. I envy people who buy just enough for a certain project.
81. I always buy anything that I like because I'm sure I'll use it one day.
82. My crafting supplies have their own room, and it's running out of space.
83. I learned to crochet when I was about 6, but never did anything more than chain stitches.
84. I've tried to re-learn crochet since learning to knit, and my hands really do not work that way anymore!
85. I learned to knit a few years ago - and I love it.
86. I've since discovered that my grandma (who died when my dad was 10) was a knitter. My dad has given me some of her afgans.
87. I wish I knew my grandma. I think she and I are a lot alike.
88. I've only been to one foreign country - Italy!
89. My grandpa was born in Italy.
90. When we went there, we tried to go to the island he was born on, but missed the train to the port.
91. I want to go back to Italy, but I would also like to go to England, Scotland, Mexico, South Africa and Turkey.
92. I can't wait to have babies.
93. My biggest fear is that I will never be a mother.
94. I don't know why I'm so afraid of that. I think it's because I know a lot of couples whose only wish was to have kids, and for some reason, it just didn't work out.
95. I have aways been around kids - there are tons in my family, and my friends are popping out babies like crazy these days.
96. I love taking care of kids - even when they are really, really bad, I can't help but smile.
97. My favorite all time movie is Reality Bites, and 10 things I hate about you.
98. I love playing team sports if they are for fun, and not always for the win. Volleyball is my all-time favorite!
99. I love hosting parties at my house, but I hate cleaning up to prepare for the party, and cleaning up the mess after the party.
100. I also love having company over to stay with us for a weekend.