Random things about me

Formatted specifically for my love of lists (and possibly to make my thoughts more legible)

1. I decide to record far too many TV programmes to keep up with but my favourites are Grey’s Anatomy and Supernatural.  I also watch a lot of Grimm, The Vampire Diaries, True Blood, Chicago Fire, NCIS etc – well this list could go on and on!

2. I find it difficult to go shopping and not buy books which makes for shopping in Tesco, the largest supermarket too tempting.  As a result of deciding to study accounting at the age of 32 I have accumulated at least 75 books that still need reading because as I read one I buy another.

3. I own an iPhone, iPad and a Kindle and am reading at least 2 different books on those as well as a physical book at any one time.

The biggest reason I watch The Vampire Diaries!

4. I “love” Damon from the Vampire Diaries (note the character as well as Ian’s looks), Dean from Supernatural – again, he makes me laugh and that is half of the appeal, Hugh Jackman.  My tastes have improved since my younger days when Jean Claude Van Damme was on there – but that was just the body.  Tom Cruise I can leave as he has the weirdest chest shape EVER on a bloke.  I am not bisexual; that I know for a fact, but I would consider Angelina Jolie (of 10 years ago).

5. I love a wide range of music ranging from country (thanks mum!), to recent country, pop, bands such as Queensryche, Def Leppard, American 80/90s soft rock (especially), Emile Sande (effortless) to P!nk.

6. P!nk is AMAZING live in concert.  In fact, after the major events in my life such as the birth of my daughter, marriage to Hubby etc seeing P!nk in concert is pretty much up there! Listening to her at full volume on the way to work after dropping Hubby off at his work place sets me up for the day.

7.  I am obsessed with lists; following an extended period of stress and anxiety 7 years ago I have never fully regained my memory and frequently forget things.  My way of coping at the time was to write lists and I do it to this day.  Hubby takes obvious delight asking whether I have put obvious things on the list such as polish, sweep and mop floor – which I do.  He doesn’t understand the need for order and control in my life.

Not much order here...

8.  I have great best friends of which at least 2 of them get the need for order and control because they do to.  Both are, in my opinion, much cleaner than I am and one even colour co-ordinates her wardrobe hangers in the need for order. 

9. I am not comfortable in my own skin and so am shy when meeting new people.  I prefer not to go to parties because I am not good at mingling.  The need to mingle at work makes things difficult and whilst I should be networking at meetings in work I tend to sit quietly in a corner reading notes.  I tend to waffle when nervous so I think I either bore people to death or they think I am mad or both.

10.  I’m sure I appear to have a split personality at times; shy, cold and aloof at first but when I get to know you manic.  I dump my brains in 2 ways; nervously at work or as I am thinking which sometimes hopes from one thought to the next making sense to me but not immediately to every one else and at home, manically, happy, nutty, and at ease saying what I think because people know what I am like and love me for it.

11. I eat far too much chocolate and sweets.  There isn’t a chocolate that I can say I LOVE but I do eat a lot of it and I like eating chewy sweets more.  My teeth don’t like them unfortunately, nor does my weight.  If I am addicted to anything it is full fat Coca Cola and/or Pepsi and I am sure if I dropped that alone I would lose at least a lb a week seen as pop and cordial are the only things I drink.

12. Beautiful B is amazing as is Hubby but sometimes feeling like I am piggy in the middle when one or both of them are not happy with the other drives me insane and fuels my need for Propranalol to manage my anxiety. 

13. I am not superstitious but I did think about changing this number on the list to 12a but the point not being a subset of 12 meant I couldn’t – I KNOW, okay?.

14. I never had very many friends as a child being much more comfortable on my own.  Luckily I have had one very best friend since I was 12 years old (which very nearly wasn’t due to my clumsiness when I jumped over the wall and kicked her broken leg) and that was enough for me.  I am so very lucky to have discovered another 3 best friends – Rachel, K and A.  I’m still more comfortable with a small number of very close friends that an extended friend list. 

15. I watch far too much TV.  We have 2 Sky boxes at home, one in HD which has more memory (UK’s version of TIVO) and I currently have 20% free on both of them and over 4 days worth of TV to catch up on – oops.

My book obsession demonstrated on my 40th cake!

16. My books take up too much space so I now buy the latest books on the iPad and Kindle I bought.  I have a whole library of books on another Kindle thanks to A’s wonderful mum.  I actually have 2 new Kindles at the moment – I bought the first one, then searched the house up and down and decided I had thrown it out in error so I bought another – then I found the original hidden behind…..you guessed it, a pile of books.

17. I have 4 tattoos – the first of which I got when I filed for divorce from my first husband – I had spent 22 years doing what others told me to do and so I was doing something for myself.  The fact that I hid it from my mum and dad for another 8 months after that is by the by…..and I can't really say anything at Beautiful B's decision to get one.

18. I was bitten by a dog through the top of my nose when I was 2.  The dog was only 6 months old but being an Old English Sheepdog it was huge to me.  Every dog scared me after that so my aversion therapy was a Jack Russell puppy called Bobby when I was 8 – now as you know I own 4 dogs (they don’t argue back).

19.  My dad was in the army until I was 6 years old by which time I had lived in 14 houses, some of which were in Germany; which was incidentally where I was born – Rinteln, West Germany in a British Military Hospital which makes me British.  I could say 3 German words when we moved back to England and one of them was a swear word.

20. I have one sister but we do not talk to each other unfortunately.  Her ex-husband is my brother in everything but blood – which sounds weird.

21. I have been a baptised Jehovah’s Witness for part of my second marriage.  The marriage was a huge mistake and I am convinced he married me because he liked that I wasn’t a Jehovah’s Witness, swore like a trooper and said what I thought (evidenced by a black T shirt I wore the first time I ever spoke to him that simply said in white letters on the front “100% non-silicone”.  When I got baptised I changed completely - that was a mistake too because essentially they are a cult and if the rest of your family are not in ‘the truth’ then you are destined to be removed from them by way of your lifestyle.  I’m back to swearing like a trooper unfortunately but Hubby is quite proud of getting me dis-fellowshipped.  Said friends in ‘the truth’ now completely blank me if they see me in the supermarket because I am one step up from the devil – shame that…..

22. Without getting too deep I don’t generally believe in mistakes; my life no matter how good or bad it has been has shaped me into the person that I am and there is always good that comes out of everything.  I can clearly see that with my first marriage (and I also have Beautiful B so what else does anyone need) but I struggle to find it with my second marriage which is a huge shame.

23. I live for my life, not for work.  The desire to excel at work has dwindled as my home life has settled down.  Although I work hard (and sometimes fetch work home frustrating Hubby) and frequently work an additional 30 hours a month I do it because I enjoy the work and not to gain a promotion – though it would be nice as the next grade would see quite a hike in the pay scale for me.

24.Comfort eating and eating through habit are the banes of my life and the reason my wardrobe has a range of different clothes sizes in it.  My love of shoes has resulted in about 50 pairs of shoes some of which have special homes to live in.

25. My mum says that I have more qualifications than you can shake a cat at but no common sense – she is correct.

26.  I was once asked if I had aliens in my head (a tendency to go a bit mental about 1½ days into 3 days courses) and so it has stuck with me.  More so since I sent a long email to my future Hubby which was forwarded to my brother that explained that the reason I am scatty is purely down to the way the aliens bounce around my head.  I may just have to try and recreate that email in a post one day.