Getting To Know You Questions

I am at a complete loss for words as to what to write about today, so I just used a website to grab some random "get to know you" questions. I tried to pick things that I either haven't written about before or that I wrote about long ago and don't remember doing it. Here goes...

What is the dumbest way you injured yourself?

This was probably when I was at Nathan's house in 2020--just before the pandemic--and I was removing his popcorn ceiling. To do that, I had to spray water on the ceiling, let it soak in for a minute, then scrape it off with a drywall knife. He had new carpet, so I didn't want to get any on the carpet and I covered the entire floor with plastic.

I wasn't wearing shoes or socks because they would just get caked with wet drywall mud. Well, water on plastic is slippery! I climbed a ladder next to his fireplace and held onto the mantle to balance myself while I scraped the ceiling.

Apparently, his mantle wasn't attached to the fireplace very well, because when I put my weight against it, the entire thing flipped up into the air and the next thing I knew, my feet slipped out from under me and the ladder crashed down. My elbow hit the bricks so hard as I fell that I actually broke a brick in half! I'm lucky I only wound up with a lot of bruises and not any broken bones.

This isn't from the fall at Nathan's, but it's the worst bruise I've gotten in a stupid way. I was standing on a chair while working on remodeling the house, and I slipped. My shin slid right along the front of the seat of the chair all the way down and this was the resulting bruise!

What is one thing that instantly makes your day better?

Memes. Always, memes. I have hundreds of them saved on Pinterest (most are private, however, because some people may find them dark or tasteless--I love dark humor). I have a couple of friends who like memes as well, so when we find good ones, we share them with each other. I especially like mental illness memes when my day is going badly. I have a post with a lot of those here. 

What do you enjoy spending money on?

I actually really love spending money on gifts for other people. Just random things that make me think of them. It's so hard to resist! Before I was diagnosed with bipolar and started medication, that's a major reason we'd gotten into credit card debt. When I was hypomanic, I would start shopping around on Amazon and buy things for people. I just get very excited to give someone a gift that I think will make them smile.

As for spending money on myself... my very favorite thing to spend money on is thrift shopping. I love going to thrift stores and browsing around for a couple of hours, finding good deals on clothes I like or just random home goods or crafting supplies. Sometimes I'll take pictures of things that inspire me to repurpose stuff that I have at home.

Finding this Surf Style jacket was a good day--so nostalgic!

What is the strangest coincidence that ever happened to you?

This one still blows my mind when I think about it. In 2014, I ran a Ragnar Relay with 11 people that I'd met through my blog (not to be confused with the Ragnar that was in the From Fat to Finish Line documentary). They were from all over the country and we met at John's house in San Diego to run the coast. We all became very close friends and several of us would make trips to visit each other after the race.

Anyway, I was visiting one of my teammates, Thomas, in Portland (Oregon) and one evening we were just browsing YouTube on the TV. You know that rabbit hole, where you search one thing and then two hours later you don't even remember what you were looking for?

We ended up finding a video of things to do in Portland and started watching that. There is an ice cream place called Salt & Straw and it's very popular. The person recording the video was walking along the line of people (which was out the door and down the sidewalk) and interviewing them about where they were from, what ice cream they were going to try, etc.

All of a sudden, as we're watching this random video, Thomas said, "That's Paige!" And sure enough, our teammate Paige was standing in line on this video taken years prior. Paige lives in Idaho! And she happened to be visiting Portland at the time, waiting to try Salt & Straw, and wound up on this video... which we completely coincidentally came across on YouTube. It was unbelievable.

This was Jerry's and my first time trying it. I used to LOVE ice cream (vegan ice cream is my favorite treat).

How do you waste time most often?

My favorite way to waste time is to play games on my phone while watching a show. There is truly nothing productive about it, but it's my "down time" when I need to relax and I actually don't feel guilty doing it. My favorite games are Best Fiends--it's a mindless game that takes my mind off of things, especially when I have anxiety. I also do the Wordle every day. And I do a Peak "workout"--some brain games. I especially like the logic puzzles. I'm absolutely terrible at the memory ones, though!

Jerry knows how much I like Best Fiends and I had no idea he did this, but he tried to order a mug for me from their Instagram site and it wasn't working. He contacted them to ask how he could order one and they ended up sending him ALL OF THIS STUFF for free! He was super excited to give it to me. Those socks are still my favorite and I use the mugs almost daily. I liked the shirts, too, but when I lost weight (again) they became too big. I still think it was so cool of them to send all of that!

Well, after what feels like the most exhausting day ever, I'm going to go waste some time watching Ozark with Jerry. I've already seen the series, but he had only watched two seasons, so I'm watching it again with him. I made some good progress on the cat shelves today, and I hope to get them finished tomorrow!