I was cleaning out my Gmail inbox today because I realized I had well over 50 emails and, for me, that’s insane. I hate having a ton of messages in my inbox…. ESPECIALLY unread messages. My work email is the same, except I think I’m at a little over 80. Considering the crazy amounts of email we get on the regular, that’s actually pretty good!

So, anyway, I was cleaning out my inbox when I found an email I sent to myself of a dream I had waaayyy back in February of 2009. I emailed it so I wouldn’t forget it and, even though I didn’t write a lot of details about the dream, I still remember it vividly. I’m thinking I should keep a dream journal because most of my dreams are doosies.

Alright, listen to this dream, y’all:

I grew up in a small southern town so it’s probably not hard to imagine little, adolescent me dreamily scribbling the last name of some boy next to my first name inside the cover of a 3-ring binder. At one point I was convinced I was going to become Mrs. Nikki Samuel. Fast forward almost 10 years later when I had an actual ring on my finger (not by Mr. Samuel, of course) and I was struggling with that whole concept. I’ve come a long way since those adolescent days and had researched the origins of marriage and didn’t like what I’d found (business dealings where daughters were “property”, religious institutions with strict rules that included discrimination, etc.) and, quite frankly, I wasn’t having any of that. But I digress.

From the moment we got engaged, I knew I didn’t want to change my name completely. My final decision came down to hyphenating it or keeping it just the same.  In the end I chose not to change at all, for a number of reasons, although part of me still thinks hyphenating would have been a fine idea because, in that way, I would have been adding to my identity, not changing it entirely.

Is sideswept one word or two? Either way, check out these bangs. The hairdresser left them on the longer side so I could swoop them just like this. Also, look at that red lipstick! I’m trying something new.

These are my bangs, and this is a mocha coffee. I needed a little something to get my morning started right. Happy Monday, y’all.

To get to know me a little better, here are 20 random facts about myself – things you won’t necessarily find from my About Me page:

1. Purple is my favorite color. If you know me, even in the slightest, you probably already know this. And while I enjoy just about any shade of purple, I prefer the bluer tones, the eggplant and plumy purples. It’s such a regal color!

2. My first car was a 1990 Dodge Omni. They don’t make them anymore and they didn’t even make them when my parents bought mine. But I was 16 and had my own car (and more importantly, freedom!) so I didn’t care. Initially, I named it Omniscient but later renamed it to Little Rocky after my softball friends decided to see how many girls they could pile in it and it would rock back and forth as each girl climbed in. I can’t remember how many actually fit, but it was more than I thought. Fun times.

3. If I had to choose my favorite body part on a guy, it would be his legs. Nick knows this and he knows that I love his calves.

4. When I’m in my car, I will rock out and dance in my seat to good songs, like I’m performing on stage. It’s one of my favorite things to do. I get a lot of crazy looks and, sometimes, people laugh at me. I just hope I’ve brightened up their day and inspired them to let loose a little.

5. My guilty pleasure is sappy lovey-dovey movies (think Kathryn Heigl in 27 Dresses and The Ugly Truth). I know they’re totally ridiculous and not at all like real love stories but I’m a sucker. What can I say? I also like fantasy books and movies (think folklore in the form of monsters and magic, but no harry potter).

6. I’ve always wanted to be a writer. I remember back in elementary school, we had career day and I was upset because I didn’t know how to dress up as an author so I dressed up as a doctor instead. I used to write all kind of stories back then and I won a story-telling contest in 5th grade for a story I wrote called Rumpelstiltskin Continued in which the queen has a daughter that gets kidnapped by Rumpel and she has to run through his maze in order to save her daughter. I also wrote an adaptation of Little Red Riding Hood that was told from the wolf’s perspective. I have no idea where all this creativity has gone but I desperately hope to find it again someday.

7. I’ve never travelled outside of the country. Very sad, I know. The farthest I’ve been is Puerto Rico for my amazing honeymoon. I don’t even have a passport. SAD FACE.

8. I love snow and prefer colder weather to the heat. Snowflakes are one of my favorite things. And snowmen. They’re my favorite wintertime decoration. That’s why half of the title of this post is snowflakes.

9. I have a dream that someday I’ll open a no-kill animal shelter where I can take in all of the dogs and other animals that don’t have homes and take care of them and give them food, shelter, and love. If I could start any business in the world, it would be this.

10. I hate whipped cream. I’m not sure if it’s the taste or the consistency or something else I can’t quite put my finger on, but it grosses me out. I try to avoid it at all costs. EXCEPT when my aunt makes her jello cake and then I can’t get enough. I’m weird.

11. I’d rather load the dishwasher than unload it and I’d rather load the washer/dryer than fold laundry. I also hate sweeping and vaccuming but I find dusting to be very satisfying.

12. I prefer salty and crunchy over sweet and soft. This may be one reason why I hate hate whipped cream (see #10). I also HATE soggy bread which is why I like the taste of Tiramisu but I can’t stand eating it.

13. I love pencil skirts and getting dressed up. But I rarely have anywhere to go to wear really nice, fancy things so I have several dresses that I’ve only worn once. Someone please help me remedy this!

14. Halloween is my favorite holiday and it always has been. I’m a long-time lover of ghost stories, scary movies, and anything spooky/creepy so I guess it just goes hand-in-hand. In elementary school, I dressed up as a vampire and had a really long black wig and my dad painted my face white and I had scary fangs. It was the most awesome costume ever.  My second favorite holiday is Thanksgiving.

15. I’m planning to go to grad school to get a Master’s of Public Health and become a health educator. But some of my other dream jobs include becoming an actress, an abnormal psychologist, a speech pathologist, a Spanish teacher, an event planner, a professional organizer, and a professional food taster.

16. I love my dogs more than I like most humans. They make me happy, even when they misbehave, and I wouldn’t trade them for anything in the world. If anything ever happened to them, I seriously don’t think I would be able to function!

17. I broke my thumb in high school playing softball and once it healed, I became convinced that I have two different styles of handwriting. Therefore, I go through phases with writing pens because different pens accentuate my “different” writing styles. It sounds silly, but it’s one of my little quirks. I don’t particularly like ballpoint pens and, right now, I’m addicted to the Pilot V-Ball grip extra fine pens. Also, I can’t write with a pen if the top is missing. I feel off-balanced. True story.

18. I want to be a morning person. My goal almost every morning is to get up when the sun rises and drink coffee on the porch while the dew dries. But waking up is so hard. When I think about it, I’m a middle-of-the-day person. I don’t like staying up super late at night and I don’t like waking up early in the morning. I’m at my best in the middle of the day.

19. My favorite flower changes. It used to be the gerbera daisy and margarita means “daisy” in Spanish, did you know that? That’s why it’s the second half of my title. But recently, I’ve changed my mind (also, my favorite flower used to be the orchid) so now I really like Dahlias. This is probably because I used them in my wedding bouquet and got attached. I even named my new car Dahlia. The Black Dahlia (grim, I know, but it has a nice ring to it).

20. I’ve a very visual person and learn best by writing things down. In fact, if I can write down instructions for doing something WHILE I’m doing it, I’m likely to never forget it. When I was in school, the best way for me to study was to organize and re-write my  notes. This is probably why I can read and write in Spanish much better than I can speak it.

So, there you go. Twenty oddball things about me. I always find this task a little difficult because I have so many quirks that I could probably bore you with any particular subject  so I try to keep it interesting. For example, I could probably tell you 20 facts about my eating preferences and habits alone. Maybe I’ll save that for another blog!