One Day for Narcissism

Not to toot my own horn or anything, but I am 25 years old today!!! For many reasons, I have been looking forward to this birthday for quite some time.  It definitely feels more "adult" without feeling too old.  Seeing as how I've always been ahead of my age a little bit, I'm a little more than excited that maybe other people will start to see me as grown up.  I've pretty much always been the youngest person at every job I've ever had.  As a teen/college student it wasn't such a big deal.  In the professional world, though, it's not as easy.  Plus, 25 just sounds like a good age to be, so I'm happy!  In honor of me being a quarter of a century old(!!), I've decided that I will share 25 tidbits about me with all of you.  I hope you're excited, because this list has been a while in the making!

1.  I love having a summer birthday.  While I've always been the youngest, I've generally also had good weather for my day.  Summer is my favorite season, and being a Cancer is pretty cool.

2.  As a kid, I loved cats.  I skipped straight over all the caged animals to a cat as a pet.  Later, after training a Seeing Eye Dog in middle school, I definitely became much more of a dog person, as I remain today.  However, I did want to experience the caged pet phase I had never had as a young child.  At 16, I bought a gerbil and named him Gunther Geoffry (pronounced goo-ooff-ree).  He lived 2 years and was pretty cool.

3.  I am a super family oriented person.  My sisters are my best friends.  My mom and I can talk for hours.  My dad gives great advice.  My brothers are great for a laugh.  I'm very grateful that we can stay as close as we do with as far spread as we all are.  Even though it just the four of us right now, I think Devin and I are building a pretty cool little family of our own as well.

4.  My original inspiration for moving to Georgia was a poster I bought for my dorm room wall my freshman year of college.  It was beautiful.  I had lived roughly a dozen other places before and liked the idea of going to yet another new place.  Everything fell into line for grad school at UGA, so I headed south.

5.  I am named after my dad in a roundabout way.  He is Richard Leroy, and I'm Rebecca Leigh.  He used to scratch his initials into the lid of his soda cup before picking me up from kindergarten as a running joke.  I would then thank him for getting me a soda, and try to sneaks sips the whole way home.  For awhile, I used RLM2 for screen/user names online.

6.  I can remember the first time I told my Mom that I loved her.  That's pretty cool.  Sometimes I get teary just thinking about it.

7.  On that note, I am a very emotionally based person.  According to True Colors (I've taken this test a gazillion times from middle school through grad school), I am always a blue, or emotional, personality.  Usually, there's another color in close second, but Blue is typically #1.  I'm okay with that.  I just like to think I have a big heart.  Once I learned how to not cry over every sad storied person I help at work, it definitely played to my advantage.

8.  Someday I want to live on a hobby farm again.  This was a ton of fun growing up, and I'd love to have the opportunity to do it with Devin.  We'd have horses, chickens, a goat, a pig, and maybe a few other animals.  Of course, we could also end up just living on a cruise ship or in an RV in the future, too.  We probably can't do all of these, so we'll have to pick one.

9.  Until I went to college, I didn't understand football.  Shortly thereafter, though, I was explaining downs and flags and positions to all my younger siblings.  We started dressing up for the bowl games (since I was always home at Christmas) and making tailgate food.  Even now, I own waaaay too much WVU gear...and I love it!

10.  As a kid I always thought my freckles were pretty cool.  As a teen/college student, I thought they were one of my best features in the summer time.  I played them up as much as possible, especially after a sunscreen-free day on the lake or at the beach.  After a visit to a dermatologist back in February, I'm now terrified of the results of my actions.  I have serious sun damage according to the doc...yikes!  So, for the first summer ever I'm wearing SPF 45 on my face every day and hoping to stay as white as possible.

11.  Also as a kid, I was extremely cautious.  I hated being called a scaredy-cat, so that was the word I used instead.  As I got older, I fully outgrew this.  I've spent summers running roller coasters as well as a summer rock climbing and teaching a high adventure course.  I enjoy a good challenge that really gets my adrenaline flowing.

12.  I love lime.  I like to eat limes, drink limeade, devour lime fruit pops, squeeze limes all over my burritos (or add it to my water), and enjoy anything that smells like lime.  The day I realized that Orville Redenbacher made lime popcorn was a pretty awesome day.

13.  I saw the beach for the first time at 22 years old.  Granted, I was born in the Philippines--an island--so I obviously saw it sometime then, but my first real trip came just 3 summers ago with Devin's family.  Needless to say, I've seen it several times since.

14.  Jodi Picoult is my favorite author.  After reading her books for years I watched an interview with her and realized her name is pronounced Pico...very strange for me.  I love that her books explore social issues, which appeal to my social worker side.

15.  I love to use ellipsis (...) where ever possible.  They fill my texts, emails, status updates, blog posts...and just about anything else where it's appropriate.  It's just to easy and convenient.  I may actually be overdoing it...maybe...

16.  Running is fun.  It's a lot of fun actually.  But, I'm having a hard time running this summer because it is so exceedingly toasty outside.  I can't wait for it to cool down so that I can crank up the frequency again!

17.  Speaking of exceedingly, that is one of my favorite words to use.  I love it.  Devin usually makes fun of it though by starting his response to my use of it with "Yea, verily..."  I really don't think it's that biblical of a word!  Am I wrong?

18.  For years I wanted to be an orthodontist.  My senior year of high school, though, I changed my mind.  My parents and [most] of my teachers were wonderfully supportive of my decision to go into social work after discussing my reasons behind it.  It has definitely shaped who I am today more than even I probably realize.

19.  I have an obsession with naming inanimate objects.  Then, I create entire personalities for them while I'm at it.  Plants, my cars, and every single toy I ever owned has had a moniker.  Right now, I'm raising Parley P. Parsley in my kitchen window.  (Thanks Kass for helping come up with that name!)

20.  I don't have a favorite food.  There are just to many that I love to pick one.  I was once a finicky eater but will now try just about anything that is sans mushrooms.  I've even developed a taste for spicy foods!

21.  We treat our dogs like people.  I frequently talk to them in complete sentences when I am trying to get them to do something.  Blue especially is very smart and responds to this pretty well.  It makes me feel better then just commanding them to do stuff all the time.

22.  I'm a little OCD (or CDO for the alphabetical types out there).  Or, you might just call me a perfectionist.  Because of this, Devin hasn't actually folded laundry since we've been married.  He'll help with socks, but I'm too controlling to let him do anything else.  When (or should I say if?) he masters the tri-fold technique, though, we may need to reconsider this.

23.  The first website I ever visited was www.AmericanGirl.com.  This was in 6th grade and was the only web address I had ever seen before (on the back of my bimonthly subscription).  By the time it loaded, my computer time was over.  The home page looked pretty neat, though.

24.  Blue is my favorite color.  I had a sister tell me when I was little that I couldn't pick blue for my favorite because I'm a girl.  I told her that it would be my favorite color as long as my eyes were still blue.

25.  My life is wonderful, happy, and perfect.  It's not all of these things in the sense that nothing ever goes wrong because believe me...it does for sure.  But, I like to think I have a pretty good ability to roll with the punches and learn from things that happen.  If not for my experiences--good and bad--I would not be the person I am today with this life that I love.  And, I'm pretty happy with both of those.

There you have it!  I hope that after reading this list you don't find me completely bizarre.  If you do, though, I'm totally okay with that.  Have a wonderful day...I know I will!!  :]