101 Things About Me

It's a little cyber-narcissistic, but it also seems pretty standard to have a Things About Me list on one's blog.

So here's mine:

101 Things About Me (as of July 15, 2008)

1. I wake up every morning to a caramel soy latte on the bedside table, made by my husband. God I'm lucky.
2. I really do think my daughter is the smartest, most amazing child to have ever lived. God I'm lucky.
3. I am not planning on having another child.
4. I think about having another child, and reserve the right to change my mind about #3.
5. I stopped eating meat and dairy after I read The China Study.
6. Going sorta-vegan was purely a health decision. I do not have an inherent ethical problem with the eating of animals.
7. I have a lot of ethical problems with factory farming and how animals in the U.S. are raised for food. A lot.
8. I still eat a lot of seafood and, very, very occasionally, lamb or duck. I really am the world's worst vegan.
9. For nutritional purposes, I overlook dairy if it's in desserts.
10. For nutritional purposes, I overlook dairy if it's in Indian food.
11. Cutting out cheese and milk wasn't as hard as I thought it would be, but I really miss yogurt.
12. Even though I'm a good mom, I feel really guilty for the amount of time I spend on "me" things: my business, fitness, garden, training, etc...
13. My husband helps out a lot around the house but is not allowed to do laundry except for towels and his underwear.
14. I weigh myself every day. I weigh 155 pounds, and have for over a year.
15. At my heaviest, I was over 260 pounds. But I was pregnant. Not counting my pregnancy, at my heaviest I was around 205 pounds.
16. It took me seven months to lose the first 40 pounds. It took weight training to lose the last ten.
17. When I started eating a plant-based diet, I lost 5 pounds from the increased fiber, if you get what I'm saying.
18. I'm a Chef. I went to culinary school and everything.
19. I currently work as a Personal Chef for several families in the Puget Sound area. This means that, within the limits of my clients preferences, I get to cook whatever strikes my fancy and be my own boss.
20. I love my job and my clients. They are all just awesome.
21. I do not specialize in vegetarian or vegan cooking. None of my clients are vegetarian. All love filet mignon with red wine reduction.
22. I have a six page questionnaire my clients fill out before I cook them anything. According to my survey, 70% of people will list mashed potatoes as their ultimate comfort food. The rest pick pizza.
23. I love pizza.
24. I believe half of all statistics are 100% meaningless.
25. I asked my daughter to describe me and she said, "Hugs and snuggles."
26. I love to garden and grow vegetables. One summer I would like to grow enough food to be self-sufficient. At least for a month. And not including wine.
27. I drink way too much coffee. 4 or 6 cups a day. I'm thinking of cutting back.
28. I recently completed my first triathlon. I freakin' loved it. Now I'm obsessed.
29. I do tend to get obsessed and throw myself into things.
30. I never forward on emails that promise good luck for forwarding or threaten bad luck for not forwarding. So far, it hasn't hurt.
31. I absolutely, positively believe I'm lucky.
32. Sometimes I will forward on really funny videos.
33. I think my abs and shoulders are my best physical attribute.
34. I never do crunches. I do a lot a shoulder presses.
34. I subscribe to Martha Stewart Living, Real Simple, Oxygen Magazine and the Crossfit Journal.
35. I never ever thought I would do a marathon, but now I'm thinking about training for one just so I can say I've done one.
36. I like to pretend I've won Powerball and design dream houses in places like Paris and Hawaii and Lake Como.
37. My husband and I have discussed starting an island commune with all our friends.
38. I am very concerned about the food children eat.
39. I believe that if a kid gets to harvest a vegetable, she will almost always eat it.
40. I make my S'more's with two squares of graham cracker, two uniformly toasted golden brown marshmallows and 1/4 of a Hershey Bar.
41. My husband uses 1/2 a Hershey Bar, which I think is excessive. My daughter has been known to use a full Hershey Bar, split into two, in lieu of graham crackers. I think this is genius.
42. I love camping, and not just for the S'mores.
43. At the beginning of 2008, I could not swim. I'm not exaggerating: 50 yards in a pool almost killed me.
44. I taught myself to swim from a book. For three months I didn't take a full stroke, I only did drills.
45. I now regularly swim a a half-mile to a mile for my swim workouts. And I really like it.
46. I would never have learned how to swim if my best friend hadn't goaded me into signing up for the Danskin Triathlon. She was right.
47. I graduated from college a month after I turned 19.
48. When I was 16, I lived in Japan for almost 4 months.
49. I traveled by myself to Tokyo, got homesick, saw the movie Pocahontas in the theater because it was the only film in English, and was the only person to laugh at the jokes.
50. Diabetes and obesity runs in my family.
51. I don't believe genetics is an excuse not to take care of myself.
52. I envy people who have a legitimately healthy relationship with food. Like the Italians.
53. I like to deep-clean my stove, organize things, and use the crevice tool on my vacuum.
54. I hate doing dishes, making the bed, and folding laundry.
55. When I was a kid I was in the local paper advertising a belly-flop contest at the local pool.
56. Almost every piece of art hanging in my house is something I painted.
57. I consider myself artistic.
58. I do not consider myself musical.
59. I don't have very many close friends.
60. I seem to know a lot of people.
61. I am really picky about my chocolate, but I love banana laffy taffy's.
62. We used to own three cats. On my daughter's fourth birthday, one of them passed away. We found him curled up by the front door. After a proper burial in the backyard, I asked my daughter if she was okay, and she said, "It's okay, mom, we have two more cats."
63. I wasn't sure what to make of that.
64. I am a Taurus, but do not drive one.
65. In the summer, I could live on Taco Del Mar Vegan Burritos, Spicy Tuna Rolls and cold beer.
66. In the winter, I could live on stew and roasted root vegetables and cioppino and tea.
67. I have traveled to Iceland, Russia, Norway, Sweden, UK, France, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Belgium, and Japan.
68. In 2003, My husband and I organized (and payed for!) a four month long adventure tour in South America. We were to fly into Quito (Equador), spend a week or so in the Galapagos Islands, then bus/hike/bike/fly/taxi along the Western-ish side of S. America until we got to Tiera del Fuego. From there we were heading north through the Patagonia region of Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay to Sao Paulo, Brazil. Three days before we were to get our travel immunizations we found out I was pregnant, and had to cancel the trip.
69. I drag my husband into adventures and he's usually happy I do.
70. Cases in point: traveling through Europe; parenthood.
70. My best friend drags me into adventures and I'm usually happy she does.
71. Cases in point: I tried out for The Amazing Race because it was her dream to do so; doing a triathlon.
72: My child drags me into adventures and I'm very nearly always happy she does.
73: Case in point: running through sprinklers instead of weeding; going to the park instead of the grocery store.
74. I have every Billy Joel album ever released. Until he went classical. I don't have those.
75. Reading "Love and Logic" made me a better parent.
76. I'm pretty sure I'm the only person who will ever read this list.
77. I'm competitive. Mostly with myself, but not completely.
78. I live in the same town where I grew up.
79. I love reading.
80. I don't read nearly enough.
81. I consider myself a good friend.
82. I consider myself lucky to have the friends that I do.
83. Every ten years, whether we need it or not, I fight with my best friend.
84. I consider myself a good wife.
85. I consider myself blessed to have the husband that I do.
86. I fight with my husband, but it's not too often, and we usually fight fair.
87. I buy organic veggies but regular laundry detergent. That eco stuff doesn't work as well as Tide.
88. I consider myself somewhat of a sell-out for recently hiring a yard maintenance service to mow and edge and weed. But I think it might be the smartest thing I've ever spent money on.
89. I didn't have health insurance when I got pregnant.
90. Things that seemed very reasonable five years ago now seem really irresponsible.
91. I hate it when wives bitch about their husbands just to have something to bitch about.
92. Sometimes I bitch about my husband.
93. I think I could be a decent writer, but I don't have the discipline for it.
94. Sometimes when I am working out really hard, I smile because I'm so pleasantly surprised to have a body that can do whatever it is I'm doing.
95. I used to really really love barbecued brisket.
96. Part of me always will.
97. One day we took our daughter to a restaurant and she ordered mac & cheese. The server told her that the mac & cheese came with grapes, chips and an oreo. My daughter looked at the server and asked, "what's an oreo?" This was one of the proudest moments I've had as a parent.
98. There are 13 happy houseplants in my living room. People have said I have a green thumb, but I just think it's just easy to grow houseplants when you have a lot of south-facing windows.
99. My 30th birthday is about 10 months away. I'm sort-of looking forward to it.
100. I'm becoming more and more like my mother. But it's cool.
101. It's taken me an entire day to put this list together.