Hi, I’m Leah, Mommy Blogger, learn 100 things about me you didn’t know
I have learned so much in the last two years. This month marks the second anniversary of jumping into this whole Mommy Blogger thing with Fort Birthday. So, I figured, it would probably be a good idea to introduce, or re-introduce myself to y’all. So here are 100 things about me you didn’t know.
Learning By Doing
1. I’m a little sister and a big sister to two great women.
2. My baby brother was born on my birthday. We were both born on my uncle’s birthday, and up until some better genealogical research we thought it was my great grandfather’s birthday, too. But we learned otherwise. Which is kinda a bummer about learning.
3. I lived in the same house until I moved out when I was 19 – my parents lived in that house for 40+ years (!).
4. 5 years ago when my parents decided to sell their house we made the crazy and wonderful decision to buy a house with them. We started looking at a house on Mother’s Day, closed in July, moved in August, and I was pregnant with surprise twins in September.
5. I married my high school sweet heart and we celebrated 21 years of marriage (HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE??!!?).
6. I dislocated my knee at the wedding reception – long story.
7. I love dogs. I’m a dog person. I love a pack of dogs. For a while we had four and it was the best.
8. Our first dog was a chihuahua corgi mix. His name was Yoda, and he was a great dog. We adopted him as an adult and had him 8 great years.
9. Our second dog was named Milhouse, a doxie mix. He was part of the largest case of animal hoarding on the West Coast. Part of a pack of 400 dogs running wild on a ranch in the high desert of Oregon.
10. He was not smart. He did not speak people. I spent 6 months feeding him only by hand. He was my little special needs guy. We learned a lot from each other.
11. In 2007 we adopted two other dogs in Newfoundland, Crackie and Burin. Burin passed last year, Crackie is still kicking around.
12. We’ve had two other dogs who passed away. And one other dog who went to live in another house – I did a blog post about rehoming Hank.
13. I’ve been to every US state except Alaska. And I’ve been to every Canadian Province except Nunavut, and NW Territories – mostly camping.
14. The coolest camp site I’ve ever stayed at was Meat Cove Campground in Nova Scotia. It’s hard to describe. It’s on a crazy cliff and called the Honeymoon Suite. The owner of the campground told us, if we were going to drink on the site, we should tie our leg to the picnic table. He wasn’t kidding.
15. I camped at a Army Corps of Engineers campsite at Libby dam in northwest Montana. We learned later that my Grandfather was one of the engineers that worked on that dam.
16. My favorite place to camp is Yellowstone National Park – It’s also my favorite place on earth.
17. I haven’t been to South America or Australia, yet.
18. I learned to fish with my husband and love fly fishing.
19. I’ve driven more than one million miles and taught drivers ed.
20. I once drove 875 miles in one day by myself.
21. I also did Autocross slow speed racing in the late 90’s. Great fun. I raced in everything from a Turbo RX-7 to a Volvo 240.
22. I like working on cars. I did all the work on our 240. And kinda wished I was a mechanic.
23. Instead, I went to law school, passed the bar, and practiced law for a little while. I hated it.
24. Law school taught me how to learn how to do things. Nothing about being a lawyer. It’s not lawyer school.
25. I didn’t own a cell phone until 1999. It was a Nokia brick. I didn’t have text messaging until 2007 (!).
26. The bar exam was one of the harder things I’ve done.
27. On vacation my husband and I have a tradition of picking up hitchhikers, settle down, we are always smart about it. We’ve given rides to some amazing people from Hawaii to South Africa.
28. We also have a tradition of making goodies for people who are working on the holidays and giving them out. We love it and have been doing it for 20 years.
29. I grew up outside of Washington DC.
30. I can’t hide my Titan Pride.
31. I was in a pretty bad car crash my senior year of high school. I missed about 2 months of school.
32. I went to college in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
33. I’ve got a biology bachelors degree. And love science.
34. I love reading fiction and read every night before I go to sleep for at least 10 minutes.
35. I mostly read sci-fi.
36. I love re-reading books. My favorites to re-read are Harry Potter, Dune, Anathema.
37. I LOVE movies. Galaxy Quest and Soapdish are two of my favorites.
38. I LOVE scripted television. And watch TV pretty much every night.
39. My favorite shows lately are Jane the Virgin, My Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, and the Good Place.
40. I crochet, needlepoint, sew, but I can’t knit to save my life.
41. I’ve learned to make, made and given away a dozen quilts.
42. I’m scared of cats. For real. They freak me out. I don’t hate them. They like me. It’s horrible, I feel bad for them.
43. I always have an epi-pen with me because I’m terribly allergic to oranges, weird right?
44. I’m an unreasonably picky adult eater. Probably because I’m a super taster. And Cilantro doesn’t taste like soap; it tastes like toxin.
45. We bought a 200 year old farm house in 2007 and I spent 10 years that I learned about restoring and renovating it.
46. I adore old buildings and history.
47. Working with my hands and having a thing at the end of the day I could point to that I made or fixed is good for my soul.
48. After a lot of learning I’m a pretty good electrician now.
49. I’m a good plasterer, but I’m slow.
50. I love painting houses – it is meditative for me.
51. I really like home decor and design. And want to learn more.
52. I’m a huge IKEA fan. It’s one of my happy places. I don’t get people getting tense there. It’s like a cathedral of happiness.
53. Putting together IKEA furniture is blissful.
54. I’m a regular at my Lowes. I think I went 7 times in one day once.
55. I’ve got a favorite screw driver. For real, this channellock one is a dream.
56. I built a chicken coop and kept chickens for 5 years, until we moved.
57. I loved my hens, I don’t like eggs.
58. I also kept bees. It scared the bejezus out of me. I am going to do it again to face my fears.
59. If I won the lottery I would become a first class wood worker. I love finish carpentry and building furniture and would love to learn more.
60. I’ve got naturally curly hair and learned the curly girl method in the last year.
61. It’s curlier since I had the babies (like when I was a teen) and it is going gray.
62. The year I was pregnant was the only year I wasn’t cold all winter.
63. When I was in my 30s a friend read my horoscope and predicted I would have twins.
64. We learned twinsDO run in the family. But since none of my siblings or cousins had twins, so I hadn’t thought about it.
65. I was terribly sick for the first 18 weeks of pregnancy. I had two glorious weeks after that.
66. At 20 weeks I developed Intrahepatic Cholestasis of Pregnancy. My hands and feet itched without stopping for the next 12 weeks. I couldn’t sleep.
67. Shortly after, we learned one of my twins wasn’t growing well and we had the worst 3 months of our life.
68. For the last few weeks we traveled 90 min each way to go to the University of Maryland hospital to monitor the pregnancy. They took great care of us.
69. I went into labor at 32 weeks had 18 hours of labor before a c-section.
70. 7 weeks in the nicu was the worst/best time of my life.
71. I only went home 2 nights when they were at the nicu.
72. They had to pass a car seat test because we live 90 minutes from the hospital.
73. They came home on Mother’s Day. *heart eyes*
74. I pumped for 18 months. Pretty much around the clock. 60 ounces a day for the first year.
75. Twins are harder than you an imagine. If you don’t have them, you really don’t know.
76. We went to the beach when the twins were 6 weeks home.
77. Sleep training was a godsend for us. Sleeping Through the Night, Jodi Mindel, probably saved my life.
78. My twins slept through the night for 10 months before I got to.
79. For my guys’ First Birthday, I went on a 7 day cruise. Without them. Or my husband.
80. The twins were developmentally delayed and did physical therapy for more than a year.
81. I built Fort Birthday for their First Birthday during nap time.
82. I learned all families feeding journeys are different – my twins didn’t really eat solid foods until after they were a year old.
83. One of our sons started wearing glasses at 14 months old.
84. We didn’t have some great youTube moment when he started wearing them. We had months of crying. I’m jealous of those moments.
85. He had strabismus – pretty badly crossed. After we learned about it He had surgery at 20 months to correct it. He still needs his glasses.
86. Toddlers are hard on glasses, lenses to be specific. In a year and a half we have been through a dozen pairs. I can’t say enough nice things about Dilli Dalli frames. We are huge fans.
87. I started Mommy Blogging because a friend said she would do it with me.
88. I found an amazing network of other moms online. I got to meet some of them last spring. They are amazing and inspiring.
89. Mommy Bloggers have more hustle and goals than I imagined before I was a mommy.
90. I started taking photography more seriously last winter and am really proud of how far I’ve come in 10 months.
91. I wish I kept up my bullet journal – it helps my productivity so much.
92. I have pretty significant inattentive ADD. And Depression. And anxiety. And a great psychiatrist who helps me with medication that makes my life work.
93. I also have a blood clotting disorder, Factor V Leiden Deficiency. I’ve have phlebitis from it.
94. I always have bobby pins in my purse. Also, Burts Bees Rhubarb lip gloss. And unless I’m flying, a pocket knife.
95. I need reading glasses since I turned 40 and had babies. Like, can’t read a menu without them.
96. I’m all about mis en place. Seriously, learn about it this month on my blog. My life wouldn’t work without it.
97. I’m tone deaf – I think people who can make music are wizards.
98. My motto is learning by doing. I’m happiest when I have something to learn.
99. I have a sarong I sleep with, I fold it up and use it to cover my ear when I’m sleeping. I also sleep with ear plugs every night.
100. I’m writing a blog post every day in November as part of a challenge, stay tuned to see what’s up next. (don’t worry, I may not publish them all).
Leave a Reply