7 Things About Amy

So!

Remember waaayayyyyy last year when I said I was going to interview my friends for my blog and I started with Amy?

Ummmm.....yyyyeeeeah.

I still have all my information from that interview. I needed a picture of Amy and she sent it to me twice, but it came in a funky file format and I couldn't open it.

So a year goes by..... A YEAR!!!

I finally get the photo from Amy a few weeks ago, but now I can't find the one of me for the same year!!! We both decided that our first grade photos (the year we met) were ugly and we were going to show our 2nd grade photos. Only I can't find mine now. My whole family was looking through photos and none of us could find it!

So anyway.....7 things about Amy. I'm going to give you a little background: Amy and I grew up in the same town. Her Dad was the highschool Biology teacher. I hung out with her in the 7th and 8th grade - we had band together. We played basketball and tennis. Amy was much better in sports - especially tennis and waaaayyyy smarter than me. Amy went to Notre Dame for college and then never came back to Minnesota to live until a few years ago - now she lives in the 'burbs with her hubby and 3 kids.


"How I Met Your Blogger"

1. Martha and I were "First Grade Friends." No, we were not in the same first grade class...in fact we did not even attend the same elementary school. "First Grade Friends" was the name of our pen pal program with the grade school on the other side of town. My classmate's mother was Martha's teacher. So our class would write letters to our assigned pen pal, my classmate would bring them home to her mother, who then brought them to her class, and then the reverse. Very high tech. At the end of the year we had a big party at Martha's school to meet our pen pals. Martha with her little red dress and me with my long braids...I wish we had a picture of that day! (MZ: I don't remember the red dress, but I remember Amy's hair. It was SO long! And my teacher's daughter, Renee....we all hung out together in Junior High.)


2. My worst job was working at a box factory...my freshman year of college we had a very long Christmas break...5 weeks...so I thought I could earn a few bucks since all of my friend had returned to their schools already. I took this temp job working the second shift...3-11pm...in an industrial area of Minneapolis in the cold dark dead of January. I stood on an assembly line for 8 hours and packed 100 freshly printed boxes (like a Cheerios box) into a shipping box which would then get shipped off to General Mills or someplace. I worked directly across from a woman named Rosie. She wasn't all that Rosie, she really didn't talk to me and had a permascowl on her face. She had been working there for over 20 years. My hands were dry and raw from handling all of the cardboard and I had terrible paper cuts all over them. I lasted two days.


3. And, speaking of jobs...In a little over one week I wrap up being the "cookie mom" for my oldest daughter's 1st grade Brownie troop. Ladies...if you ever think this would be a fun volunteer position...think twice...especially if you work full time. (Oooo....they try and get you to be cookie mom, right away, don't they?? They asked me on Noodles first day as a brownie last year.)


4. In April, we will mark FIVE years in our home. Already this has blown away my longevity record for time spent in one residence as an adult. I've been kind of a wanderer in my adult life so 5 years in ONE place is a long time. And, we are making a commitment to this house. We just started the process of adding a room onto our house. This is very exciting, we are tweaking the design right now and I can't wait for them to break ground. We are adding an office and new laundry room. Under the addition will be unfinished basement space. The office will be our "adult" room. No toys in this space! And the unfinished basement space will be for storage. My husband wants to put a TV in there and our exercise equipment...I think he is going to slowly transform this unfinished room into his secret "Man Cave". (I gave Amy a piece of my mind about this. Her house is already a freakin' Mansion. And I'm jealous of that. But I can't wait to see the addition!!!)


5. I have been using the Red X system that Martha blogged about earlier. I LOVE it, it's really kept me on track. I have an X for each day in March except March 17. We had some houseguests (from Mexico) arrive that evening and I thought it would be rude to go workout after they just arrived. Since I've been on the treadmill every day, I have noticed that my husband is on the treadmill almost as much. Is he feeling a little competitive???


6. TV. Right now I watch one hour of regular TV programming a week. That's it, one hour, I can't even watch Entertainment Tonight anymore because I don't know the people. What is this show "The Hills???" Anyway, my hour is Survivor. I am totally a Survivor junkie, can't get enough of that show. And, as much as I love Survivor, I love The Amazing Race even more. However, The Amazing Race is not on right now so I cannot count watching 2 hours of TV. My sister and I actually sent in an application to be on The Amazing Race. We thought we had to do something really creative to catch the producer's eye so we decided to SING our video, making up alternate lyrics to Broadway show tunes. Keep in mind, we're not singers...remember Cameron Diaz in "My Best Friends Wedding"? You get the picture. I guess our idea backfired, they probably turned us off after the first few bars! (One hour?? AMY! You need to catch up! TV should be your TOP priority - not those 3 little ankle biters of yours :)


7. I like to decorate cakes. I am very practical so cake decorating is a perfect creative outlet...it actually serves a pupose (cooking also falls into this category!). I would have to buy a decorated cake for my kids' birthdays right? I only decorate cakes for my family because it is quite time consuming. Seriously, I know why wedding cakes cost so much! My friend and I actually baked and decorated my sister's wedding cake last year. That was truly a labor of love. It was absolutely delish too. You know sometimes wedding cakes look beautiful but don't taste beautiful! This one, fresh not frozen, was very yummy! (Dumb Blogger wouldn't let me load the 2 photos Amy sent me, but they were cute. Especially her boy's treasure chest cake.)