25 Random Things
I tag you all! Repeatedly! Do it! Now can everyone stop tagging me on Facebook?
1. I quit drinking when I was 19 because I believed I was an alcoholic.
2. I started drinking again when I was 26 because I believed I was an adult who could refrain from drinking to excess.
3. When Lena and Liberty were little, they taught themselves to read mostly by playing video games. Neopets.com, specifically.
4. I homeschool purely because I think today’s schools can kill a child’s love of reading and I think reading is the key to life. (My reasons for homeschooling have changed since the beginning, but this is the one I always come back to). I have no such concern for the love of math.
5. I read to Lena and Liberty constantly from the time they were born and I still read to them because they still like it. My 5 year old just started to enjoy being read to within the last year, but she can still read as well as Lena and Liberty could when they were her age. Examples like this show me that there is no magic bullet to these things and that takes a lot of pressure off of me.
6. I think homeschooling is awesome once you get over the part where you pressure yourself so much that you go insane, but I usually don’t recommend it to anyone. And I don’t think my reasons for homeschooling are good reasons to homeschool.
7. I used to be an evangelical Christian and I look back at that time of my life with shame.
8. I still believe in Jesus, but I might be a universalist and I’m not sure universalists can believe in Jesus. I’m for sure positive that Christians aren’t supposed to be universalists.
9. All of the “supposed to” and “not supposed to” with regard to religion and religious labels and homeschooling and homeschooling labels makes me sick.
10. I was an award-winning catcher on my high school softball team and I’m pretty sure I could still throw you out if you tried to steal 2nd base. It would hurt, but I could do it.
11. As of a couple of years ago, I still held the record for doubles on my high school softball team (maybe I still do, I don’t know).
12. My name is spelled wrong on the big MVP board that lists all of the past softball MVPs ever in the history of my high school’s softball program. It should say “Abby Clement,” but they put an “s” on the end. I’m glad it doesn’t say “Abigail Clements,” though.
13. My favorite song is “Glory Days” by Bruce Springsteen. JUST KIDDING! My lifetime favorite is “Porch” by Pearl Jam. My right-now favorite is anything by Kings of Leon.
14. My husband and I have known each other since 2nd grade and we’ve grown more in the last 2 years than we have ever in our lives. And we love each other more now than we have ever in our lives.
15. Arts and crafts make me anxious, but I’ll play dollhouse people or Polly Pockets with the kids without batting an eye.
16. I set the timer for 7 minutes when I begin playing dollhouse or Polly Pockets with Maya. Because more than that is just too much.
17. I listen to audio books on my iPod when I’m cleaning.
18. I think parents who are overly-invested in their child’s achievements in sports or academics are a special kind of crazy and they should know that it doesn’t feel good to be that child whose parents are those parents. There’s no difference between a stage mom and a sports mom who acts the same way.
19. I believe in therapy.
20. I believe it’s just as damaging to call a child skinny as it is to call her fat.
21. Giving a child a nickname that has to do with being skinny is also just as damaging as a nickname that has to do with being fat.
23. I frequently ponder religion and inclusion vs. exclusion and I struggle to be inclusive to those who are exclusive.
24. Both of my parents have been divorced twice.
25. I’m uncomfortable with praise.
January 29th, 2009 at 2:30 pm
As someone who was called “Boney” by the other kids in early elementary school, I have to agree wholeheartedly with #20 and #21. Huh, maybe I should look into #19.
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January 29th, 2009 at 2:45 pm
I’m not impressed that you could throw me out because 1) I run slow; and 2) I’m scared of being hit by a ball so would stand there and let someone tag me. There — no praise. Does that feel better? (Just kidding — you are awesome. hope that doesn’t hurt!!)
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January 29th, 2009 at 4:11 pm
Nicknames should not be based on physical appearance. That’s mean.
Actually, I think nicknames are fun when they are random. For instance, we call Clara “Clarabean.” Her daycare teacher calls her that too. It’s just funny and loving.
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January 29th, 2009 at 4:22 pm
Regarding #8 (of course), I think universalists universally believe in everything, which seems like a philosophical fallacy to me, but I haven’t looked into it much. And I think Jesus universally loves everybody and so should we. (But yeah, you know I believe in the hot place too. I don’t want to speak for Jesus, but I hope nobody goes there.)
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January 29th, 2009 at 4:38 pm
I tag you back! And then I run away real fast!
Bwa ha ha ha ha.
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January 29th, 2009 at 4:39 pm
P.S. I don’t even know what that means, what I just said. But it sounded amusing at the time.
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January 29th, 2009 at 8:25 pm
For #2 you forgot to add the part where you could refrain from drinking to excess unless your brother was in town in which case you would have to combine mass quantities of beer, wine, (and wasn’t there some cider involved?) and drink until all you could was lay your head on the kitchen table and puke in a mixing bowl.
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January 29th, 2009 at 8:29 pm
And just to be clear, you couldn’t throw me out if I was stealing second! It would hurt, maybe for days afterward, but I’d be SAFE baby.
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January 30th, 2009 at 1:40 am
When I was little I told my mother ” He was wearing a skirt, I think he was a Unitarian.”
I have always appreciated that you can be a Atheist and be a Unitarian Universalist. I consider myself to be a Secular Humanist, hard not to believe humans after all.
Have you ever tried the Belief-o-matic on Belief.net? It is really facinating to see where you fit.
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January 30th, 2009 at 10:52 am
#7 You were all cute with your ” I just don’t want you to go to hell” pleas. And ” Goosembumps books are against the Lord” oh, and my favorite ” you can’t let them watch Sabrina the teenage WITCH. She’s a WITCH, Tracey… It opens doors.”
It’s OK there could be worse things to be ashamed of in your past. Like, perhaps, puking in a mixing bowl. Or even pulling your pants down in front of your fellow townsfolk and peeing under the fluorescent lights in the middle of the very busy Total gas station . You needed to quick drinking. Dang.
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January 30th, 2009 at 8:21 pm
@Tracey Some of my old Christian friends would tell you that the reason I’m like this now is because I watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer and opened doors. The doors! Run from the doors! And, as for the Total incident, I really had to pee so bad. It couldn’t be helped.
@My Big Brother Bull. Shit. You would so be out. OUT! And the only reason I had that trouble when you were here was because Mother didn’t drink all of her rum and so I had to be the one to do it. I had no prior experience with rum.
@Dawn This one time? At softball? I had a bad throw? And I hit a girl? Right in the face? Because she was sliding into 2nd base facing me instead of facing the other way. She was pretty. And then she wasn’t. I would never do that to you. On purpose.
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February 9th, 2009 at 11:31 am
@20… I only have experience from 1 side of that one, but I agree. Also, if the one commenting on your fatness is an adult family member (i.e. an Uncle) then you remember that shit… FOREVER. (or, at least for the 28 years since it happened). You (Abby) are unrelated to this Uncle (as far as I know).
Oh, and I am working very hard at keeping the evil in me at bay. Specifically, a co-worker type who is very obsessed with her size. She is thin and concerned about being thinner. Things like, I wear black, it is slimming… I like him, he has a boyfriend, but I am prettier than she is so he should be with me. I SO want to comment something like.. Oh, I see you have been too busy to work out lately.
I KNOW… evil, not true, and, given her state of mind, could start a very bad course of events. I won’t do it… not for real anyway. I won’t because I know how it is from the other end of that spectrum.
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March 26th, 2009 at 12:37 am
Google Reader told me I’d like your blog. It was right.
As a theology student, I can, however, assure you that there are in fact Christian universalists and that there are even famous Christian theologians who are arguably universalists. Nothing wrong with that (well, it’s at least a defensible Christian perspective). Just thought you might appreciate knowing that …
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Abby Reply:
March 26th, 2009 at 11:12 am
Thanks for the info, parodie. Glad you found me!
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