I've Been Tagged!

My friend and fellow blogger, Christa, has tagged me! Because I've been tagged, I am supposed to reveal seven random things about myself that others may not know. Let's see...

1) I've been in the audience of Oprah twice. Once for one of her bookclub shows and once for a holiday decorating show. For the bookclub show, we (the entire audience) got to preview the movie "Where the Heart is" at a downtown Chicago theater complete with complimentary soda and popcorn even though it was early in the morning. Natalie Portman and Ashley Judd were interviewed live in Oprah's studio too, so we got to see them in person. We received a Toni Morrison book for free (the next one on Oprah's read list). The other show we saw featured Chris Madden and her ideas for Christmas decorating/gift wrapping/gingerbread house making.

2) I am very much a night owl. I have always been prone to staying up very late and sleeping in. For some reason I get most motivated and can focus best when it's in the wee hours of the morning. I rarely went to bed before 1 or 2am in college.

3) My entire family was in a very serious car accident when I was 3 years old. A young newlywed couple who were college students lost control of their vehicle and hit our's. Sadly neither of them survived the accident. None of my family were wearing seatbelts, and we all suffered major injuries. I had a broken leg and my mom's head had hit and shattered the windshield (this was before shatter-proof glass), and glass shards cut my face in several places. We overwhelmed the emergency room, so a urologist had to do the stitches on my face. No wonder I have some scars...

4) I am a thrifty coupon addict and love saving money at CVS using their Extra Care Bucks and manufacturer coupons. I just started "CVSing" in May and, according to my receipts, I have saved around $2000.00 so far. Woo hoo!

5) I've participated in two missions trips through my university, one to El Salvador and the other to Nicaragua. I was the team photographer both trips and assisted both the construction and medical crews in extremely impoverished areas. We were on site for about 2 1/2 weeks for each trip. Talk about amazing, eye-opening experiences... We flew in a tiny (8 or 10-seater) plane to the remote region of Nicaragua where we served, and our landing strip was literally the main dirt road of the community. As we approached, people, chickens, pigs, cows, etc. scattered to get out of the plane's way!

6) For some reason I have a mental block when it comes to our garage door. For the life of me, I can never remember if I've rolled the garage door down or not. Every time I leave the house I question whether I remembered to push the button on the garage door opener. It drives Dan crazy, and sometimes I end up driving back around our block just to see if I remembered to close it.

7) Dan and I didn't have a name definitively selected for Ethan when he was born. Dan preferred the name "Noah", and I loved the name "Ethan". Just after he was born, the LDR nurse asked what his name was, and Dan and I just looked at each other for a moment. After witnessing the details of childbirth, Dan kindly offered to go with the name that I had selected, so that is how we decided upon "Ethan".

8) I have been skydiving... indoors that is. There are very few places in the U.S. where you can do this, but our family vacationed in one of the cities that has an indoor skydiving facility. It was a very interesting (and somewhat painful) experience because when you fall out of the windflow from this gigantic fan at the bottom of a silo-looking room, you get thrown against the wall. Thankfully the walls are lined with mats (like gymnastics or wrestling mats) to cushion the blow. It was a once-in-a-lifetime very fun adventure.

Ok, so when I was brainstorming what these 7 random tidbits about myself might be, I came up with 8 possibilities, and (because I can be incredibly indecisive) I went with 8 instead of narrowing them down to 7 ;)

I am also supposed to tag others to participate, so I am tagging a few friends who maintain their own blogs too:
Lori
Kim R.
Staci
Melinda
Please let me know if you decide to participate! :)