Tag--I'm IT, apparently...

Visited my friend Katie's blog and discovered I'd been "tagged"--so here are my 20 random facts--although, truly, I can't think of 20 things that would be even partially interesting:

1. I can write backwards, in cursive, and very legibly, too.
2. I used to babysit Chicago Bear Mike Singltary's kids at church.
3. I almost died at birth from some undiagnosed mysery illness, and had to stay in the NICU for almost a week.
4. I met my husband on eHarmony.com.
5. I've been in a number of eHarmony.com commercials due to #4.
6. I lived in Scotland for a year.
7. I can touch my nose with my tongue.
8. I became part of the nightly entertainment on a Royal Caribbean Alaskan cruise--one of the bars had a "piano man" who would play requests but then also let you sing along if you wanted (kinda like live karaoke). I developed a following and sang for two straight hours one night thanks to all the requests I got.
9. I have a postcard collection.
10. I have broken my left wrist three times. (Consequently, I am left-handed. Made homework really hard.)
11. My first word as a toddler was "agua" thanks to bilingual "Sesame Street."
12. Before I knew how to talk, I would hum while eating. Those who know me well know this is a habit I've yet to break.
13. I had a boyfriend at age 6. (Travis Johnson, where are you?)
14. My family moved to Missouri on my sixth birthday, and moved back to Illinois on my eighth birthday. (My parents tried to prevent years of therapy by postponing their move to California by a day so they wouldn't be moving yet again on my birthday.)
15. I wrote a novel in junior high.
16. I only lost 8 of my teeth naturally as a kid; the rest had to be pulled becuase the roots were wrapped around my jaw bone.
17. I once used someone else's ID to get into a bar when I was underage (just to go dancing, I swear!) and the bouncer busted me because he knew the girl whose ID I used. (He still let me in, though--it was a 18-and-up bar and you got handstamped if you could drink, so he didn't stamp me and made me promise not to try to drink. Like he had to worry; I just about ran home in tears when I realized I'd be found out.)
18. I was one of 5 white girls in a 200-voice black gospel choir in college.
19. I was addicted (in the real sense of addiction) to an online role-playing game in college.
20. Two of my toes are fused together halfway up.

Sheesh! It took me like, an hour and a half to think of all those. (Well, while also watching the Colorado-Texas hockey game.) I'm so boring. Anyway, the following people are now tagged (although who knows if they'll know it--I'm not even sure who all reads this blog!). I don't know enough people with blogs, so rather tha listing 5 I'll list 3:

Meg (Pants Central--link on the right)
Cheryl (Cheryl's journal--link on the right)
Rebecca (babyknapp.blogspot.com)

Go for it, ladies!

I'm a FLYGirl!

No, no, I'm not referencing "In Living Color;" I'm referring to the best website I've ever come across: FLYLady.com. I've always been one of those pack-rat, clutter-ruled people whose room (or house) was never clean, even after I'd "cleaned" it. As FlyLady puts it, I was ruled by CHAOS (Can't Have Anyone Over Syndrome) because my place was always a disaster. Lots of procrastinating, lots of mess, lots of "hot spots" (those places in your home where clutter seems to accumulate the fastest because it's a handy place to put stuff until you've decided what to do with it, which you never actually do). But last weekend I was at a women's retreat with our church, and at dinner one night someone mentioned this website and how wonderful it was. When I got home I popped on over there, and I was an instant fan. It's full of quick and easy fifteen minute tasks like the 27 Fling Boogie (grab a bag, go around the house and throw out 27 things, then immediately put the bag in the trash), Zone cleaning (every week they target a different zone of the house, and you only work on it about 15 minutes a day--this week is the front entrance and front living space), and also has morning, afternoon, and evening routines already mapped out for you to help you keep track of things like meal prep and laundry. Throughout the day you get email reminders about the next task for the day, so if you're like me and you live on your email, you never have an excuse for forgetting what needed to be done for the day.

One of the best features of the site, especially at this time of year, is her Holiday Cruise Program. Her approach: pretend you're going on a cruise Dec. 1 and you have to have all your holiday stuff done by then. Every day she sends out another task like "get all your gift-wrapping tools together and put them in one place" or "write down the dishes you'll need to make for holiday get togethers" (again, nice bite-sized tasks that take short amounts of time, not your entire afternoon) and if you follow along with them, you're ready to go as of the beginning of December! Seeing as our December is going to be rather crazy and unpredictable, this is totally helping me to make sure that month is relaxed from the get-go.

I'm off to take my shower and start my morning routine (before attending baby shower #8 of the year). For once I'm actually looking forward to cleaning!