Hey there. I’m Amanda. I’m a thirty-something midwesterner (at heart). I’m ridiculously happily married to the perfect man (with the perfect smell, who does not regularly watch sports and rarely farts) and we live in the suburbs in North Carolina.
On March 31, 2006, I temporarily retired from my career as a Geologist. I then took a seventeen day vacation which consisted of walking around my neighborhood, eating massive amounts of food, peeing, and not sleeping. On the seventeenth day of my vacation, I gave birth to my insanely adorable son Jackson (aka Jack). A few years later I got knocked up again, endured the longest pregnancy in the history of the universe and finally gave birth to my sickeningly beautiful son (with the most kissable cheeks ever), Theodore (aka Teddy), on October 30, 2008 (thank god it wasn’t a day later).
I currently work as a SAHM. And quite frankly, it’s the best damn fricking most ridiculously challenging job I’ve ever had. In my free time I enjoy spending time at Target (with kids in tow) wasting money on random things like stickers, sippy cups and chocolate (for my secret stash), while wearing t-shirts, jeans and flip-flops. My perfect day would include breakfast on the patio (with a gossip magazine), the beach without a sunburn, shopping for and buying the perfect pair of jeans and lip gloss to match, eating pizza and cake with my hubs and the boys, followed by a long neighborhood stroll without a temper tantrum.
100 Things:
1. I was born in Michigan.
2. My husband refers to it as Canada, the Great White North, and/or the frozen tundra known as Michigan.
3. Which really irritates me.
4. Because I really like it there.
5. I have two brothers.
6. One older and one younger.
7. The year the younger was born the Tigers won the World Series. Hey, wait… this is supposed to be about me.
8. Oh, right. Let’s see. I love to eat. Pizza. And cake. German chocolate cake.
9. One day Jack will too, because I ate it a lot when I was prego with him. I mean A LOT. And you know, “they” say that supposedly the baby will like whatever you craved. I think I made that up.
10. And if that is true, then he will also love Twizzlers (makes mouths happy), Squirt (sorry – not available in the dirty south), and tuna salad sandwiches from Rusty’s with Texas Pete’s.
11. And Tabasco. On everything.
12. I am a bit difficult.
13. And opinionated about everything- even things I know nothing about.
14. I make a mean meatloaf… that is an inside joke for Auntie Andrea and Daddy… he he he.
15. I worked for a bed & breakfast during the summers after high school and during college.
16. I learned to bake a few things. Banana bread. Poppyseed bread. Morning glory muffins. Blueberry muffins. Coffee cake. Apple bread. I like to bake.
17. And I learned to iron pillow cases. I like to iron.
18. And I learned to do a whole slew of other things that have really come in handy throughout life. Like painting everything from chairs, to decks, to little flowers on just about anything, removing wallpaper, caring for roses and dozens of other kinds of flowers, arranging flowers, making beds (like Martha)… I could keep going. At the time Carol, the b&b owner, would call these tasks therapeutic. I thought she was nuts. Now I agree.
19. I was a bit of a wild woman in high school and college.
20. But my parents didn’t know it.
21. Or at least I didn’t think they knew it.
22. I still got good grades.
23. And made the deans list a few times (which never came in handy in life).
24. And got a good job after college.
25. But had to work for J Crew for a while first.
26. Which certainly helped build a professional wardrobe.
27. Which did not come in handy in the real world working as a Geologist.
28. I have a bachelor’s degree in Geology.
29. In college I studied things like optical mineralogy, plate tectonics, geomorphology, geophysics, and geochemistry.
30. Which did not come in handy in the real world.
31. Except the Geophysics.
32. Oh, and yes. I did use my degree. I became a geologist for an environmental consulting firm.
33. I learned a lot.
34. Like, for instance, that ultimately, most companies are greedy and do not care about the environment.
35. Even the ones who are out there to help take care of the environmental problems… I didn’t feel very good about that.
36. I almost became a teacher.
37. In my fourth year of college I changed my major.
38. Yes, my fourth year. I wasted a lot of my own money doing so.
39. I started student teaching first graders.
40. First graders are crazy.
41. But I always wanted to be a mother.
42. It is the most rewarding and important job that I could have ever taken.
43. And I feel very lucky that I can be a “stay at home mom”. Because a lot of women can’t.
44. Christmas is my favorite holiday.
45. I used to hate Thanksgiving. I didn’t get into the whole turkey dinner thing.
46. Now it is probably my second favorite holiday.
47. Nope, actually it’s the Fourth of July.
48. Back to college… after college I moved to hot-lanta.
49. To be with my hubs. But he wasn’t my hubs at the time.
50. I never in my life wanted to live in Georgia before then.
51. We didn’t live there very long. The traffic sucked. And it was really hot. But, we made some really good friends there.
52. My best friend lives up north. We’ve been friends since jr. high. We can talk without speaking… sort of like reading faces. Weird, but true.
53. We had a little falling out. It lasted about five years. But we’re friends again. Our Spanish teacher called us Pete and Repeat. I’m not sure who was who.
54. She has a son that is six months older than Jack. We didn’t plan it that way either. Our kids were conceived and born when we weren’t speaking. Isn’t that funny?
55. Wait… this is supposed to be about me. Right, where was I… I was a cheerleader in high school, I got good grades, and I liked to party… blah blah blah.
56. I have a few obsessions. Cleanliness, jeans, Christmas stuff (wrapping paper, ribbon, decorations, books, ornaments, etc. etc.), and my hair.
57. I don’t really have a favorite color. But I tell my niece it’s fuchsia, because you can’t tell a four year old that you don’t have a favorite color.
58. I love white socks. And underwear. I think it has something to do with the cleanliness obsession.
59. My favorite kind of ice cream is strawberry cheesecake. But Eddy’s Thin Mint special edition ice cream is pretty darn good too. Also, Ben & Jerry’s Chocolate Brownie Fudge.
60. I’m very cynical. And can be pretty negative. I say it like it is. Don’t like it, tough shit.
61. My favorite line from a movie is, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, come sit by me.”
62. My motto used to be, “I’m not sure I really care.” I said that a lot. Especially back in the day when I worked retail (making $8/hr with a 10 cent raise over a two year period) to pay the bills while I was in college. At Hudson’s, which became Marshall Field’s, who sold out to Macy’s (I digress). Selling Ralph Lauren sweaters to tight-wad rich old ladies. It was a lot of fun. And I learned a thing or two… like for instance, how to fold a sweater.
63. The last few months I worked there, I was also a TA for my optical mineralogy professor, I went to school full time, was dating EZ (in Atlanta) and would fly back and forth to Atlanta every other weekend. I was very busy.
64. I met my husband on a blind date. My best friend set us up.
65. We spent the first six months of our relationship long distance (MI to IN, 5 hrs apart – driving).
66. We spent the second six months of our relationship long distance as well (MI to GA, 2hrs apart – flying).
67. I love garbage celebrity gossip.
68. I’m relatively short. 5′ 3 1/2″. Not all that short.
69. And I love to wear flats. Especially flip-flops. Teva flip-flops.
70. I love lists. And plans. I’m not sure when I started all that. I never used to be that way. I was a very fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants kind of girl. Not so much anymore.
71. My favorite underwear are low rise hipsters from GapBody. They aren’t the sexiest in the world, but damn, are they comfy. And having comfortable underwear is key. A bad pair of underwear can ruin your day.
72. I’m a closet scrapbooker, that never scrapbooks. If that makes sense.
73. I am addicted to magazines.
74. I have five subscriptions (Vogue, Parenting, Blueprint, InStyle, US Weekly).
75. I still purchase probably two to three more magazines a month (People Style Watch, Oprah Home, Domino, Marie Claire, Cookie… usually one of those).
76. My favorite fast food is a McDonald’s Big Mac extra value meal with an orange drink.
77. But honestly we never eat fast food. Only on car trips. And we don’t travel long distances, by car, very often.
78. I have two tattoos. One on my foot and one on my lower back
79. I don’t mind the one on my foot, but I hate the one on my back.
80. Now I pretty much think tattoos are dumb.
81. I was raised Catholic.
82. Now, I feel that Catholic guilt quite often, but no longer am a “practicing” Catholic.
83. Personally, I’m not really into organized religion. But I definitely believe in God. And Karma. Definitely Karma.
84. But I don’t have any issues with anyone else belonging to a church. To each his own.
85. I can’t stand Ann Curry and wish NBC would get rid of her already. She annoys the crap out of me.
86. I wear a size 7 1/2 shoe. My feet shrunk after having Jack. They used to be 7 1/2 or an 8, but leaning toward the 8.
87. I gained 28 pounds when I was pregnant with Jack. It was 30 for a few days. But I started to lose weight in the very end.
88. My husband and I picked out our baby names several years before we had Jack.
89. But when I got pregnant, I wasn’t sure. So we made a list of 24 boys names. And ended up using the name we had planned on in the first place.
90. I used to hate my middle name. But now I like it. And I think I might give it to my daughter, if I ever have one.
91. I’ve already inherited my mother’s family mantle clock. And if I don’t get that potato bowl, I’m going to be pissed.
92. My favorite cereal of all time is Cap’n Crunch with Crunchberries.
93. Every night (well, just about) I watch the NBC Nightly News (Brian Williams is studly) and I follow it up with E News. Because if you don’t know what the gossip is, then you don’t have all of the days news.
94. My first dog (that I remember) was named Bo. After Bo Duke, from the Dukes of Hazzard. I had a crush on him. The dog was a girl. My cat’s name was Daisy.
95. My two favorite words to say are Elmo and Koyl (pronounced coil). Sometimes I say them over and over and over again just because I like the sound of them. It drives my husband completely insane.
96. I love to read.
97. And take pictures.
98. I used to love to swim. But I almost drowned, along with my younger brother, in college. So now I’m not all that into swimming.
99. I was a Girl Scout. And still support them by buying lots of cookies every year.
100. I’ve loved the name Jackson ever since I first saw Steel Magnolias. Dylan McDermott is still on my top five.
