i've seen this 7 or 8 random things meme on so many pages lately that i thought i would give it a try. i've tried other things and liked them, like cashews & automatic carwashes, so maybe we'll all like this as well.

1. i can only pluck & shape one of my eyebrows really well. the other one i'm blind to, until i find a forest after a few weeks... at which point i hit the salon. my grandpa always said that i have "wishing eyebrows." i never knew what that meant until i started plucking, then i realized that i would wish regularly that they were a little smaller. they grow from my eyelid to half way up my forehead. and despite the fact that i was blonde all my life, my eyebrows are DARK brown. there just isn't any way of getting around them.

2. my greatest weakness would be my laziness. and pregnancy really doesn't help... i tend to get overwhelmed with my house and then choose to do NOTHING about it, instead of just digging in. i am a pro at finding other things that *absolutely HAVE* to be done, instead of doing what i should do. like this meme.

3. my greatest strength would be my love for people. i just plain ole like people. i love to hear a person's story and discover the strengths, talents, and downfalls. every person is human and is in search of their own happiness, we're just on different paths to finding our own seperate joys. although i'm sure that i have close relatives that would disagree with this as my strength. i am much harder on the ones closest to me. and the hubs can't understand how i become close friends with the office staff at the dentists, doctors, chiropractors, herbal store, etc. frankly, i can't not become friends with the people that i see all the time. now he just introduces himself by name, and when they don't know who he is, he replies, I'm jenica's *wife.* and then they know exactly who he is.

4. my ONLY personal hospital experience was when i was 9. i had such a severe case of chicken pox that i was actually hospitalized for it. dr's and nurses thought that i was a cancer patient because of how close together the pox were to one another. even a month after my pox were scabbed over i was so terribly scarred that the kids at school called me acne-face. mean ole stinkers. the scars are all gone, i have maybe 10 actual scars on my whole body now. amazingly i had over 100 pox on my face; not to mention everywhere else, even in my mouth and down my throat. so now i get to look forward to shingles later in life. woo hoo.

5. when i was 5 years old i ran away from home because my mom wouldn't let me water the garden. of course, i wouldn't actually water the garden-- i would sneak up on her while i was supposed to be watering the garden, and spray her instead. so that night, i laid in bed and waited until i heard my parent's breathing become slow and even. i stuffed a towel under my door and quietly turned on the light, waiting with every step to make sure that my parents were still sleeping. i packed my carebear overnight bag, and still in my pajamas i snuck out the back door. i even locked it so that burglars wouldn't get in. i made my way down the dark street, hiding behind trees, on my way to my sunday school teacher's house, sister joyce taylor. i loved her. and i just KNEW that she would love having me as her new daughter, despite her being about 60 years old. we could dye my hair and i could speak with a french accent. my parents would NEVER suspect a thing. i even imagined running into my parents at the store and them being completely fooled by my accent, and talking about how sad they were that they didn't have a daughter any more. i made it four houses down the street and suddenly a car came down the road. i still remember the headlights gleaming down on me. it was a man from my neighborhood that had 12 kids, so he was well aware of the fact that 5 year olds don't belong outside, in the dark, in their pj's. he stopped and asked if i was the simons's girl. not wanting to blow my cover i replied in my french accent, "no, no, i am sister taylor's daughter." he said that maybe we should just check with the simons residence to make sure they weren't missing anyone from their house. i obliged, but what else was i going to do? run from the guy with the corvette? so long story longer, he knocked on our front door with me in his arms, and after about 5 minutes of knocking and ringing the doorbell... i was grounded for the first time in my life. (i would DIE if my daughter did this to me. streets aren't safe like they were back then. i would DIE)

6. i was the perfect teenager. i never smoked, drank, did drugs; i was never arrested; i never talked back. and apart from underage driving and dating a 24 year old when i was 15, i really never gave my parents any grief. i was a much worse child than teenager... in my opinion.

7. i will take any non-food related dare. i've made plenty of money asking strangers for unneccessary help, food off their plate at restaurants, flirting with random boys at carnivals or in crowded movie theaters, and even begging for bus money with an elaborate story... which i also didn't need. all for the sake of being dared. in a crowd, i have no shame.

8. i take that back. one of my greatest insecurities is walking into a room of teenagers, ages 12-15. i look back at my junior high years and how awful and secluded they were for me and understand why this is still difficult. my eyes instantly well up with tears, even just walking into a room with teenagers that age. any other age group i have NO fear of. i can speak or sing in front of any group without fear...

well, that was actually fun. i'm supposed to tag a few people, so i'll tag some that i don't really know that well yet:

darlene
mama al
jennifer lynn
mermaid
whee!
stephieface

as well as some that i do know:
reba
georgia
denise