Shelly (This Eclectic Life – bookmark her if you haven’t already) tagged me with this Chinese Freeze Tag. I’m supposed to tell 10 interesting facts about myself. This can be something shocking or anything that may become a surprise to people!

Shelly seems to think that I am interesting. Haha! Boy have I got her fooled!

Seriously, I’ll try not to disappoint. I’ve got my gallon of coffee beside me, and I’ll give it a go.

1. I religiously get up at 6:00 am. You might think I do this because I’m so organized, blah blah blah yadda yadda – but I do it for me. I do it because I get one hour of peace. Me time. Silence in the house, just me, my latte, and my active imagination. I’m rarely productive in this first 60 minutes, the most I get accomplished is my shower and morning latte. I try to go through my favorite reads on bloglines, get my to-do list going in my head – but mostly, I just use that time to relax and get some positive energy going for the day. Yes, I do it on the weekends, too.
2. I am a compulsive online shopping cartoholic. The other night, I shopped around for a couple of hours and filled my shopping cart with all kinds of wonderful beautiful and insanely expensive camera equipment. Canon 30D. Lenses. Memory Cards. Spare Batteries. Now if only 40 of you would please order a nice big blog design package, I could actually create an account and continue checkout. ::holding my breath::
3. This one time, at band camp…. oh, wait. I never went to band camp. I went to a girl scout camp once when I was a kid. We made smores, and I felt special because I had little tin campy cookware. Awww. Then I didn’t feel so special because my BFFL totally ignored me and hung out with the troop leaders daughter. Then I hated girl scouts forever and ever and I quit, and I pouted. A lot.
4. I’m a worst case scenario kind of mother. (Can you imagine?!) If my children are doing something, I will have a visual flash-forward of something crazy and terrible that involves either blood, death or dismemberment, and I will hover over my children to ensure my crazy visions don’t become reality. Here’s an example. My girls are playing in the backyard. Pulling grass and building little grass huts for their LPS (Littlest Pet Shops) and I’ll look at them and smile about how well they’re getting along, and feel at peace. Suddenly, flash forward to my vision of them going for another handful of grass to build another hut, and hidden at the base of the grass is a nail, or a shard of glass, and suddenly my kid pulls her hand up from the ground covered in blood with her finger just dangling there.Sometimes, being a mom in my head is the most terrifying thing on the planet.
5. I’m a big cry baby. I get choked up at what most people would think are the least emotional things in life. So-and-so got voted off American Idol. My friend talks about how proud she is of her little one for doing something cute. I gaze over my yard and the flowers in bloom. I see a pile of feathers in the backyard that indicate a bird of prey has had lunch. I drive past someplace where there was once a forest, and there’s now a car dealership. I see the balance of the checking account (heh). Someone tells me how much one of my paintings moves them or means to them. Someone asks me what inspires me, or how I paint. Seriously. At least once a day, I will get overly emotional about one thing or another.
6. Surprise! I drink coffee until about 1pm every day. (just act surprised.)
7. I used manual focus on my camera for the very first time this weekend and I got a really wicked cool shot that I’m very proud of. I usually don’t push myself with my camera, but lately I’ve been wanting to really get the top of the line equipment and to justify it, I have to learn more. I even tried to take a better shot of the moon last week when it was full. I did ok, I have a lot more to learn, though.
8. I’m not afraid to learn something new, but I am terrified that I won’t remember it for long once I learn it.
9. When I was little, I stuck my tongue out when I was concentrating really hard. Coloring, writing, thinking. I still do it. And when I’m painting? I rub my tongue on the inside of my bottom lip, and sometimes when I finish painting for the day my lip is raw. I don’t know that I’m doing it when I’m doing it – I only know that I’ve done it after the damage is done.
10. This will definitely come as a surprise to most of you. Because it just happened and I haven’t had a chance to really tell anyone yet. I’m pregnant. HAH! Just kidding. No. It’s close though, I totally scorched my hair yesterday when I was trying to fire up the grill. I still have my eyebrows, thank God. I’m terrified of three things in combination: gas, ticking, and flames. Those three things spell death, fire and/or explosion. Just like pregnancy, right? I turned on the propane tank. I turned the dial to “hi”. I pressed the ignition. Tick tick tick – no flame. I tried the two other burners. No flame. I stopped. I went back to the first burner. I turned the dial and pressed the ignition. Tick tick – BOOM (singe). The smell of burning hair is really gross. Just so you know.

The end. I hope you enjoyed yourself, or at least ordered a wake up call so that you don’t miss anything important today after you wound up face down on your keyboard.

If you want to do this then TAG! You’re it! Trackback to me so I can come read yours.