1. Being a mom is my greatest joy! My kids are so smart and cute and HYSTERICAL (they get all that from me, by the way…ha!). Don’t get me wrong—they stress me out on the DAILY, but that comes with the territory, I suppose.
2. I am an eternal optimist even when I shouldn’t be. To me, the glass is always half full and the sun is always shining. I think this is one of my best traits, but also one of my worst. It sets me up for lots of disappointment, but I rationalize that by saying that life is too short to be finding the negative—plus, finding the negative is easy—it’s finding the small joys that proves to be the difficult task.
3. I am honest to a fault, especially with myself. I am not a “sugar-coater” and I hate when people do that to me! I’d rather just put it all out there on the table so we can fix whatever needs fixing or move forward with what’s next on the agenda. And I never lie to myself. I have never understood that—I know the truth, so why try to cover it up? Yes, reality can be a nasty thing, but living in denial makes things a trillion times worse down the line.
4. I am a logophile and a bibliophile—a lover of words and a lover of books. If I were stranded on a remote island, I would only need a library and an endless supply of paper and pens…that’s possible, right?
5. I love technology. I would shrivel up into a desiccated wad of nothingness without my cell phone, camera, computer and internet (and the proxima and document camera in my classroom!)
6. I have the best job in the whole world. I wake up every single day happy to go to work. Sure, occasionally some 16-year old wisenheimer will try to ruin my good vibe, but one look from “Ms. C” usually cures that real quickly! My students are so smart and so funny—I swear they CRACK ME UP all dang day long! On most days it doesn’t even feel like work!
7. I once killed a goose with a plastic shovel. It’s true. I swear. Ask me someday over a beer and I’ll tell you that story and several other ones that go along with being raised on a farm in the Midwest.
8. I have the coolest family in the whole world---my sisters, my dad, my cousins—they all rock…seriously. We have so much fun together! I’m so lucky.
9. I have the BEST friends ever. No lie. My girls are so down for me. They have had my back through some of the craziest stuff over the past two years that I’ve been in the process of divorcing and learning to be single! We have so much fun and know how to CRACK ME THE HELL UP all the time! And I have friends from eons ago that I still love so much and am so lucky to have in my life!!
10. I am horribly cynical when it comes to the subjects of love and marriage. What a farce. No need to expound on my theories here, but again, ask me over a beer and we’ll swap ideas after I tell you the goose story (ha!).
11. I wear my heart on my sleeve. I’m pretty easy to read if you are paying attention. It’s relatively easy to tell if I love you or if I can’t deal with you (with the exception of my students…they all think I love them truly and deeply—I do for the most part, but wow! Some of them are super questionable…). So this plus the fact that I’m incurably honest means my feelings are very clear, which means that I can sometimes put my heart in rather perilous situations, but at the end of the day, even if things don’t end how I’d like, I always know I’ve said what I needed to say!
12. My name is an irony in and of itself: Charlene means “little womanly one” and I am, perhaps, the most un-domestic woman on the planet. I despise and loathe cooking, cleaning, baking, shopping and everything else stereotypically associated with “girl stuff”. I’m not lazy or anything, I just want to spend my time doing more important things like hanging w/ my kids or writing a poem or reading a book while laying out at the pool…or whatever other hedonistic pursuit comes my way! Ha!
13. I hate seafood. Gross. Enough said.
14. I really want to be fluent in Spanish. I do ok and can handle simple conversations and phone calls home to parents, but if I’m speaking to someone with a vocabulary larger than a first grader, I’m screwed! I just need more practice!
15. When I grow up, I want to be a writer. I write poetry and screenplays, and my dream is to some day be able to do that full time! (not sure when I’ll grow up though, so it may be a while yet)
16. My mom was diagnosed with Leukemia in 2005; her illness threw me for quite the loop--yes, of course because she is my mom, but on another level too. I quickly realized how evanescent time is, that time is really not mine to hold on to. I realized that at any moment I, too, could be dealt the same devastating blow. Life was “ok” for me at the time, but this epiphany helped me see that “ok” was not enough. I didn’t want to be 53 and go, “Oh, wow, that sucked. I shoulda…coulda…woulda…”. So, here I am, single after 10 years of marriage!! And honestly, I have rediscovered who I am and what I’m all about. Happiness is mine!
17. There are very few things in my life that I regret—maybe like 2? No point in regret—it is a wasted emotion. It is what it is. Deal with it.
18. Laughter is the key to my heart. I love a guy that can be smart and funny at the same time! You have no idea how hard this is to find…wow… And a guy that can make me laugh in a text message is super impressive. To make me crack up in less than 150 characters is freakin’ awesome.
19. I love to travel. I have been to 9 countries in Europe, the Bahamas and Canada—does Canada even count?? My Michigan friends will inevitably say NO to that one! Ha! Greece is next on my list of foreign places to go!
20. I am a sucker for a cute boy that smells good and can dance. HA!!
21. I believe that change is good. Lots of people find it scary, but not me. I am always down for life’s next adventure.
22. I want to get my PhD. I need to wait for my kids to be older though—maybe in 10 years?
23. I’m probably one of the most liberal Democrats you’ll ever meet…and so are most of my friends and family!
24. I played football in college. I swear! It’s true, too! Ok, ok, so it was intramural, but still! My team (the Redcoats) won the women’s championship at the University of South Florida and beat out like 10 other teams. USF paid for our uniforms, hotel and travel to go to New Orleans for a week to play in the National Championships at the Sugar Bowl (at which we got our asses handed to us by a team made up of the girl’s track team from Univ. of Florida!). While we were there one of my teammates got shot. Honest. Again…over the beer…
25. I am a chronic multi-tasker. I can never only do one thing at a time. I flip through TV channels incessantly while grading, texting on the cell and talking on the house phone while cooking dinner and lesson planning. Ok, so I’m over exaggerating a bit, but only by a bit!
26. Clearly, I have too much to say about myself tonight…perhaps it’s time for bed…oh wait, that’s 26—always the overachiever… Night!
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