Five Random Facts About Me

Not much going on in my life except work, the usual errands, running/working out and patiently waiting for our summer vacation to arrive.  So, figured I would post five random facts about myself for your edification (though it's really not that edifying at all).

1. I grew up with a horse and cow in my backyard.  That's correct.  I actually grew up in what used to be a small town called Murphy, Texas outside of Dallas and we lived on over an acre of land.  My older sister was really into animals (she still is, actually) and we had a back pasture with a small barn that my family built with their own hands.  We had a palomino horse named Taffy and my sister raised a steer for an AG project named Jinx.  Jinx was corn fed and he was delicious.  I know that sounds terrible but I'm not a vegetarian and never will be and I grew up knowing exactly where the meat under the plastic wrap in the grocery store comes from and how it got there.

Not Jinx but this is what he looked like

2.  I had kidney stones as a teenager.  It only happened one time and I pray it never happens again.  I was about 17 or 18 and was hanging out a friend's house when I suddenly doubled over in excruciating pain.  Let me just say that if you never have kidney stones, thank your lucky stars.  They hurt....a lot.  Like a 9 out of 10 on the pain scale.  My friend's parents rushed me to the hospital where I spent the night on some great painkillers until the stones passed.  The attending physician told me that most women say having kidney stones is more painful than childbirth.  Good to know.  At any rate, the stones I had (which you retrieve by literally peeing into a strainer that catches them - nice, I know) were from sugar.  They are usually from calcium so mine were unusual.  Apparently I drank way too many sugary sodas at the time.  Since that time, I have never had a full 12 oz regular soda - ever.  I gave them up cold turkey and have never had kidney stones again.

3.  I used to have a pet snake.  What can I say? I went through a weird phase in my sophomore year of college.  I worked at a pet store when I was attending college and that's how I learned about snakes.  I thought they were kind of cool so I bought a small boa constrictor as a pet.  He lived in an aquarium in my apartment.  He was okay for awhile but they grow pretty fast and they start getting more aggressive.  Plus, even though I am very "circle of life" about animals because of my upbringing, I could never really get over dropping live mice into his abode.  It creeped me out.  So, I sold him back to the pet store and got a cat instead.

Gross

Much Better

4.  Mary Kay was ever-present in our home.  My dad worked for Mark Kay Cosmetics for over 20 years.  No, he didn't sell makeup.  He was in the accounting department.  You've probably heard that they have an over the top culture at MK and you would be right.  They used to have tons of corporate events and we got to go to a lot of them, including the national sales meetings and other stuff.  It's a bit like a cult (or at least it used to be) - they had singing, chants, cheers, etc....  Women would faint on stage when they found out they had won the pink cadillac.  We always had MK products as my dad used to get boxes and boxes of free stuff every few months so it was like Christmas all the time.  I used to think all, or at least most, companies were like that until I left home.

So true.

5.  I used to hate flying.  I used to think flying was really cool.  In fact, when I was really young, I wanted to be a pilot or astronaut but my horrible eyesight took care of that career path.  Then, when I was in my early twenties I was on a Southwest flight that hit some bad weather.  The plane literally dropped God knows how far and people were screaming.  It freaked me out so bad that I didn't fly again for a really long time - several years.  After I graduated law school I decided that I wanted to visit Europe for the first time so I sucked it up and flew.  I was terrified to get on that plane.  I think I went to the ladies room and peed about 12x before we boarded and I was nauseous and sweating profusely.  I couldn't sleep at all.   However, I loved Europe so I realized that I could either let my irrational fear control my life and my ability to travel and explore or I could just get over it.  It took a few years but I finally got past it.  Flying does't bother me much anymore but I still hate turbulence and freak out at the smallest bumps.  A glass of wine does seem to help, though.