7 more things

I'm doing it.
So the original meme was supposed to be 7 random things about me. I did a Dear Santa version of that yesterday, but heck, I'll go ahead and catch up on this whole "tag" thing and play along this way too. Even though I know it was so yesterday. Or last month. Or whatever.
Only better than simply 7 random things, I like the ones that are 7 things you probably don't know about me. No big earth shattering secrets revealed here, but still... mostly not general blog knowledge.

#1.
I hate storms. Good thing I moved to the midwest, huh?! I don't think anything scares me more than thunder and lightning and strong winds. I hate how unpredictable they can be and how much damage they can cause. The sound of thunder makes a pit in my stomach.
We had a good thunderstorm the other night... at about 3:30 in the morning. It woke me right away and actually woke Savannah which is rare. She came into our room frightened by the booming and I welcomed her in to curl up in my arms. I wish she weren't so scared of thunder like I was. When I was little, that fear literally paralyzed me. When we would visit my grandma's house in the midwest (we don't get much lightning in NW Oregon) and I would hear thunder, I would spend hours curled up in bed with the blankets pulled over my head, sometimes actually crying for it to stop. If it were really stormy and if there was any mention of a tornado watch, especially at night, I would make my mom pack up and head down to the basement to wait it out. Even at home, where we didn't get many storms, I remember being awake for hours at night listening to the howling wind and just laying there frozen with my eyes open as big as moons, sure that our house was going to blow down or a tree would crash right into my bedroom. I'd lie there and worry myself sick. Alone.
At least Savannah runs to me for comfort. That comforts me as well. Taking care of her and trying to ease her anxiousness distracts me from my fear.
I'm much better as an adult, at at least hiding my fear. I pretend to ignore the sounds of storms, but inside my stomach is still churning and I want to run away. Or to the basement where I don't have to hear it so.

#2.
I'm left-handed. Kind of ambidextrous. Some people say most left-handed people are ambidextrous to an extent, as a result of living in a right-handed world. But I am ambidextrous regardless. I write and use a fork/spoon with my left hand. Pretty much everything else I do with my right. Most sports; throwing, playing pool, bowling... I use my right hand. I use scissors in my right hand. I remember in kindergarten and first grade my teachers trying to make me use those left-handed scissors, remember those? Because I wrote with my left hand, they tried to make me cut with my left. But I always wanted to use my right, which they thought was wrong.

#3.
I'm a kindergarten drop-out. This was back in 1980 when in Oregon, Kindergarten was just about to become mandatory, but not yet offered in all the public schools. I went to a private christian school for kindergarten along with some of our neighbors. And I went for about two months just fine. Then one day when my mom dropped me off, I cried. I didn't want to be there and I wanted my mommy and I cried until the school had to call her to come get me. And I did that every day. After weeks of this, my mom finally asked my pediatrician about it. He asked if there were any changes at home, any new adjustments or anything traumatic I might be upset about. That's when my mom realized this had all started about the same time that our good friends and neighbors had been in a car accident. No one was really hurt, but I had seen the car after the accident and apparently it scared me. Now I was terrified to leave my mother, for fear that while I was at school, she might get into an accident like that and never come back to get me. Even after realizing what I was really upset about, and trying to talk through it, I still wouldn't let her leave me at school. Finally my doctor said, just give it up. If she doesn't want to go, don't make her. It was just making everyone miserable. Thus, I was a kindergarten drop-out. (when I started first grade, by the way, they wanted to move me up to second grade, so obviously I wasn't suffering by missing out on my kindergarten education)

#4.
I can't see my hand in front of my face. Seriously. Without my glasses on or my contacts in, I can see nothing. In bed at night, I can lay facing my husband and look at his face and not be able to tell you if his eyes are open or closed. My alarm clock is not six inches from the side of my bed and the bright red numbers are two inches tall. I cannot for the life of me make out what time it is in the middle of the night without either squinting my eyes out and getting right up to where my nose touches the clock, or else fumbling around and putting my glasses on. It's ridiculous.

#5.
I've been coloring my hair since I was 16. Naturally, I had plain brown hair with very blond streaks in the front. This was before brown hair with blond streaks was "in". Before highlights were "in". I got sick of people asking me why I put blond streaks in my hair. So when I was 16 my best friend and I colored our hair at her house one night. We were so nervous! I remember it was the L'Oreal Champaign Blond. I loved it. It darkened the blond and lightened the brown and evened it all out nicely. It even brought out more of the red tints I liked in my summertime hair. So I've colored it ever since. I've run the whole gamut of everything from dark brown to strawberry blond. Now I usually stick pretty close to my natural color. I've also found enough gray hairs, that I will not stop coloring my hair anytime soon...

#6.
I'm adamantly opposed to high-fiving. I don't know what it is, but I hate high-fives. I hate giving them, hate getting them, I just really don't like them. I try to decline most high-fives, although it's usually hard to do that without being insulting to the person standing there with their hand up. I do refuse my husband though. He thinks it's funny that I don't give high-fives, and he'll high-five at the drop of a hat --usually aimed at me, just to test me I think.
I will high-five Sawyer, just because at 2 years old, it's still cute. But that's it. And that is on a limited time basis...

#7.
Okay, this is a weird one, but I'm getting desperate here. I cannot sit on a running toilet.
If it has been flushed before me, I have to wait until it stops running to sit down. I hate the automatic flushing toilets because if I bend over or move wrong and it flushes before I'm ready to get up, it creeps me out!! I cannot stand to feel the air and the water moving beneath me.... sends shivers down my spine just thinking about it. Told you. Weird.

So now. If you haven't done your own 7 random things... or even if you have... I want to know those deep dark secrets... or at least things that us bloggers don't know about you...