Nickname Nineteen

Before I was born my grandpa was hoping that I would be a boy and that my parents would name me Gus. Well, I'm not a boy and besides my parents weren't too keen on me being named. But that didn't stop my grandpa from calling me Gus. The nickname lasted for a few years. I'm not sure why it didn't stick longer.

Bucket list- I want to ride a mechanical bull.

Major 20

I have two bachelor degrees. One in Athletic Training and one in Kinesiology. I almost didn't have any. During my first semester in college the freedom I had got the better of me. Living in a house with 60 other girls gave me the excuse that there was always something better to do than study or go to class. Not an excuse I would advise anyone to follow as it found me kicked out of school for a year.

I made the decision that in order to motivate me to get back in college I would stay in Manhattan and work for that year. The following spring I once again started classes and ended up double majoring. I often joke it was because I had to make up for failing the first time. I also became the Vice President and then President of the Kinesiology Student Association.

I use to be very ashamed about all of this, but have found through working at Jennings that this is a good teaching example.

Bucket list- this is silly one, but I want to be able to afford a full tank of gas in my car.

21 drinks?

I'm actually not really much of a drinker. It bothers me to feel out of control. I guess that means I'm a control freak. I do like to have a drink now and then though. A vodka mixed drink is my drink of choice in the states. In Sweden it was the apple or pear cider. I will also put a little Baileys in my hot chocolate in the winter.

Bucket list- I want to see Riders in the Sky in concert.

Imaginary 22

I mainly wanted to show random pictures on this one, so here's a quick fact. When I was very little, my imaginary friend's name was Halo.

Bucket list- I want to fly in a helicopter.


First ever Cast Party





Petting Rosie. My uncles boa.



One of my favorite pictures of me



Fishing on a camping trip and I caught one!

Late night 23

As you can probably see from the time stamps of these posts. I'm a night owl. I hate getting up before 9a and usually am awake until at least 2am. There are only a few occasions in which I voluntarily get up 'early' in the morning. And when I do get up in the morning, I'm not the most pleasant of people. My friends and family can share many a story on that fact, I'm sure.

I remember once during my freshman year of college, I was living in Clovia. We had rooms with our clothes and desks and such in them (usually 4 roommates to one of those rooms) and then a "sleeping porch" that had all the beds for that floor on it. I was headed out of my room to the sleeping porch when one of my roommates was headed into the room. "Oh, you got up early today too I see." she said. It was about 5am. "Nope I'm just headed off to bed. Night." Was my response. That wasn't the last time I had that conversation with someone.

Up until now I've been mostly lucky enough to have jobs where waking up before 9a isn't an every day occurrence. Maybe just once a week type of thing. ;) Lucky me! Though I'm guessing in these next 30 years I won't be as lucky.

Bucket list- I want to live on a farm in the country. One so I can stay up late and sit on my porch, look at the stars and no one would really know. But I really want to own more animals. Especially dogs and horses.

Broken 24

The only bone in my body that's been broken was on accident, but not by me. It was done by a dentist in college. He pulled a tooth and I guess the roots were still hanging on tight, because next thing I knew he was saying a piece of bone broke and he needed to try to put it back. Whoops. At least I never felt it.

Bucket list- I want to visit a tropical island someday.

A sleepy 25

I am a heavy sleeper. I can sleep anywhere and through almost anything. I once was taking a nap in the Clovia basement rec room during winter break. After I woke up I found out that a man had lost control on the ice going down the hill next to our house and came to a stop after sliding into the rec room wall. He had slowed down enough that it didn't do any real damage to the wall and not much damage to his car, but apparently the house shook. And I slept through it all.

I've also been known to carry on conversations in my sleep and sleep with my eyes open. Weird, I know.

Bucket list- I want to go to a show on Broadway. Preferably a musical.

26 and still talking

I wanted to use the following picture because it is one of the first ever taken of me. I didn't have a good fact to go with it though. So I will tell a fact that doesn't go with any of my pictures.

I didn't really talk until I was 2. I hadn't needed to since I had 2 older sisters who spoiled me (when they weren't hitting me with rolled up newspapers). ;) Anyway apparently we were on a camping trip and I pointed to my pillow case that had some Disney characters on it and I said Donald Duck.

Bucket list- I want to read more. I need to get back into the habit of reading before I go to bed.

A short 27

I didn't feel 100% today, so this one of course got done late and will be short.

Factoid: I've been dying my hair since I was in college. Back then I was doing it for fun and to have different colors. However right before my 25th birthday I changed my reasoning. I had found grey hairs popping up. I decided then that at least while I was single I would dye my hair. I have lessed my dying ways, but I still give it a touch up every now and then. I now mostly use coloring that matches my natural color.

Buket list: I want to be able to pay off all of my debts.

Tjugo Åtta Dagar

I had a hard time coming up with something to share today. I find blogs a little more interesting when they have pictures to go along with them. And I have yet to get those of young Natalie from my parents house.

But there is one picture of young me that I have hanging on my fridge. I'm not much of a stuffed animal person anymore, but this particular stuffed animal is one of the first things I'd save if I had a fire or such in my house.

I received Hippity Hop as a birthday present from my great grandma. I look to be about 5 in the photo. Ever since then Hippity Hop has been with me where ever I have lived. He went to college with me and made the move to St. Louis. And of course he made the move back to Lindsborg. Hippity is one of the last items to be packed away and one of the first to be unpacked.

He's a little ragged now. When I was younger I actually did use it as a pillow at times. The nose tends to get a little hard in the middle of the night. And putting him in the washing machine didn't help the cardboard in the ears. I remember at least twice that mom had to sew on Hippity's poor tail.

No matter what, Hippity will still be a most treasured piece of my childhood.


Bucket List Item- I would really like to become at least moderately fluent in Swedish. Jag talar lite Svenska, but I would love to be able to say more. Anyone want to tutor me? :)

29 Ends With A Bang!

*Disclaimer- the photos I will have in the next 29 blogs will have some other people in them. If you see yourself in a picture and you REALLY don't want it to be up, let me know and I will take it off as quickly as possible.

Now on with the show. Being that it is the 4th of July, today's factoid about me is that I'm all about the Holidays! Really. I get dressed up, have socks and t-shirts that go with them. I even will paint my nails to fit the theme. I don't do all the holidays to this extreme, but a majority I do.

I'll start by wearing green on St. Patty's Day.

Then it's always fun to wear a spring dress for Easter (I know I have pics of when I was younger in Easter dresses, I just haven't gotten to my parents house to find them)

 My next two big holidays are Memorial Day and the 4th of July. Memorial Day weekend is one of the few times I will voluntarily get up early in the morning to go hang flags or watch the Memorial Day Ceremony in the cemetery. I also look forward to visiting all the cemeteries and putting flowers on all of the relatives head stones. This can be a 2 or 3 day process.

 On most holidays even my nails (at least my toe nails) get in on the fun. I've painted them like Easter eggs, fireworks, candy canes, ornaments, etc. These are my toes this year.

This might be my favorite 4th of July get up so far. I even had star earrings, a star anklet and my flip flops are stars and stripes.

Then we rest for a while and prepare for Halloween. (Though sometimes a football game before that seems like a Holiday.) The pictures I have below are from college to present time of Halloween.



Lara Croft- Tomb Raider



 These two costumes (the flapper girl and Pippi Longstocking) were actually worn in the same year. I some how even got conned into wearing the Pippi Longstocking costume to church, as Halloween was on a Sunday that year.



The Princess and the Frog (A.K.A Kermit)



 Trinity from the Matrix. I really liked this costume.

And a Top Gun Pilot

One of the girls from Coyote Ugly

 The cow costume (which was actually a kids costume) won me $10. The biker mouse won me none. :(

For Thanksgiving I usually am too busy trying to figure out my schedule of Christmas shirts to think of anything creative to do. Schedule of Christmas shirts? I've got to be kidding right? Nope. I now have MORE Christmas shirts than there are days from Thanksgiving to Christmas. I now have extended it from the day after Thanksgiving to New Years. Here's a sample of the shirts.

                   
 

 

Some are classy and meaningful. I save those for Sundays. Others are just silly, those tend to be my favorites. Holiday's are just a part of me.

And now for my 'bucket list' item. I would like learn to play the banjo and guitar. I played the piano, violin, and flute growing up. Not well, but I did play them. But I would really like to learn the guitar and banjo. I've started a little with the guitar, but my problem is I don't set time aside to practice. I need to work on that.

*Side note. This is going to come up again in a later blog, but I thought I would start the suggestion now. As I look back on these last 30 years, I would love to see any photos or hear any memories you might have. Especially the funny ones. That will make it seem better somehow to be turning 30. I mean Twenty Ten. Thanks.

30 days to 30 years

So in 30 days (almost just 29, but I'm getting this in under the wire) I will be turning 30 years old. Or as I like to call it Twenty Ten! I haven't really been looking forward to it, but there are the days that I'm at least not hating it all the way. I have decided though to help me cope, I am going to share some memories or facts about me you might not know. And then to help me look towards the future, I'm going to share a 'bucket list' item.

So for this first fact- it's an obvious one to me right now, as I only have ten minutes to get this done on the 30th day. It's that I'm a procrastinator. A HORRIBLE procrastinator! Even on seemingly fun things like this, I will push to the last minute. I will find something, anything else that 'NEEDS' to get done first. I've been meaning to work on this flaw...maybe next week. ;)

(random pic of me because I didn't have time to find one that fit)

And let's see a 'bucket list' item...We will start simple. While my current job is considered full time during the school year, I would really like a job that is full time year round (even if I still work at a school and get summers off) and that I really enjoy. That is one my main priorities right now, so lets pray this one gets done within the next year.

Whew, just made it!

I Give Up!

It's that time of year again. You know the one. Lent. Time to think hard about what you can give up for 40 days (or more if you count Sundays). I would like to make a disclaimer that I'm not Catholic, but I do like this tradition. Even if what I tend to give up is strange, it always makes me think of God more often and usually in a better light.

The first year I decided to try out this tradition was my senior year in high school. I don't really remember what prompted me to try and I really have no clue as to why I picked what I did. I chose to give up potatoes. I guess I thought that would be a fairly simple item to give up my first go round. I was wrong. Back then we had the McDonald's in our home town and seniors had a free lunch. My go to meal was a chicken sandwich with fries and a drink. There went the fries. Even back then I had a love of mashed potatoes. Mom and dad would usually serve those on Sundays. I had to let them pass right on by. And then there was the Pringles incident. My prom was a week or two before Easter. It was After Prom that got me though. Among the two liters of pop and other prizes I won, I had won about 5 containers of Pringles. Pringles are still some of my favorite chips. And here I had to wait before I could open and eat them. I actually remember that I messed up and ate a couple, before realizing in mid bite what I was doing. Whoops.

There have been several other items I've given up since then. I've given up pop a couple of times. One of those times I was working at Rock-A-Belly and the bartenders, knowing what I had given up, would make me a mixed fruit drink instead of my usual Dr. Pepper. One time one of the bartenders put club soda in it (which I still don't think of as pop), but after my first sip he ripped it out of my had insisting he make me a new. The second time I gave up pop was when I was working at Kriegers in St. Louis and drinking pop was what got me through some of my double shifts, but some how I managed to give it up. Even when I had to call it soda.

One year in college I gave up looking at and buying shoes. If you know me, this was a very hard thing to do. I can remember shopping with my friends and speed walking past the shoes so that I didn't have a chance to look. One of my grad AT's tortured me one day, by having all the other AT's help her pick out which pair of Shocks she should get. I mean, how rude. ;)

Two years ago I gave up Facebook. I had learned that I have a bored problem with Facebook. Whenever I get bored, I look on Facebook. I still do that to an extent today. I remember thinking that I should write down all the status updates I thought of during Lent, and 'post' them on my apartment wall. Then when Easter rolled around I could take a pic and ask why people weren't commenting on my wall. :p  I never got around to do that though.

Last year I gave up candy. Which wasn't my hardest, but since I was getting some of my meals from concession stands, it made the selection of supper choices quite a bit smaller. And probably healthier.

So that brings us to this year. It would be interesting to see what you are thinking that I've decided to give up this year. I'm guessing that most of you would be very wrong. I say most, because I have told some already. Drum roll please. This year I'm giving up my.... love seat recliner.  Love seat recliner? Yep that's right. Most of the time my choices just pop into my head, I'm guessing that would be God's little hint as to what he wants me to give up. The first thing that popped into my head was TV, but sadly I just can't do that yet. Maybe next year. Though giving up my most relaxing seat might limit my TV watching.

I have found these winter months, if you can call them that with this warmish temp, I have been sucked into a days of laziness because I don't want to leave my recliner.  So until Easter I am forcing myself not to sit in it. I do have a rocking chair and arm chair in the living room, plus there's even a floor. Imagine that! Freedom's not so sure about this arrangement however. While when I do sit on the floor I play with her more and have given her a much needed and unwanted trim. When I sit on my rocker or arm chair, there is not room for her on my lap comfortably. Though she still tries.

From those that I have told, I get a lot of strange looks. They have questioned me as to how this could bring me closer to God. My explanation to that is simple. Every time I want to sit there I think of why I can't and thus makes me think of God. And I believe/hope that giving up the recliner will make me more productive around the house. So far it has worked. I have almost all of my dishes done (that is a major accomplishment for me). I've had 'time' to catch up on some reading. I've put together a new lamp and started my first wood carving project. I believe that this is God's way of getting some of the sloth out of me. I am excited to see what the rest of the 40 days will bring.