10 Honest Things... A Little Late

So, oh about back at the end of February kayjay tagged me to do the 10 Honest Things post. And somehow, I missed it. I was looking back at my previous posts and then saw her comment on my blog tagging me and then I went to her blog and my name was clearly written on her blog tagging me. Wow! I'm not sure how I missed it since I am addicted to the internet and other people's blogs. I must have been in never, never land for a while there. Sheesh! So here it is: 10 Honest Things About Me!

1. My DH and I met at a bar through mutual friends after I completed college. While we were dating we figured out that I grew up a block away from his cousins (until my family moved when I was in 3rd grade). We have pictures of my sister and I at the bus stop when I was going into Kindergarten with DHs cousins. We also found out that my mom and DHs dad went to high school together and were in the same English class.

2. Both my DH and I are are Italian. Both of our families make our own Italian sausage (my family recipe is a secret and I was only given the recipe a couple of years ago). Both of us have ancestors who were in the Italian Mafia. My ancestor was my great great uncle, AKA B.ig J.im C.olosi.mo who was close with A.l Ca.pone.

3. DH and I are both self-employed and work together on both of our companies. DH is contractor and installs underground utilities. Our other business is a property management company. We own commercial real estate that we rent out. DH does all of the stuff in the field for both companies and I do all of the behind-the-scenes office stuff.

4. I have a BS degree in Business Management with an emphasis in Human Resources. My parents forced me to go to college and this is what I chose. I loved working in HR, but love the flexibility of working for myself more. When I quit working at a company outside of our own businesses, even though I had L, a lot of people wondered what I would be doing all day and if I would be bored. A lot of people assume I will go back to work outside of our companies when L goes to school. I most likely won't.

5. I have mostly lost 8 of my friends due to our IF. We all hung out as a big group and I have known them since elementary and high school. I don't really miss any of them individually. I think I just grew out of their friendships, it was time to move on and oh, we just happened to be going through IF and they couldn't handle it and couldn't be good friends. I do, however, miss the feeling of being part of a "group" of people my age who have similar interests. As a result of #5 or maybe just coincidence, we have become friends with other couples who are really top-notch. None of them know each other and it is kind of fun to have "separate" friends.

6. I love to cook and love trying new recipes. I am a cookbook whore. I have so many and I keep buying them. Every once in a while I go through them and pass them on to someone else, but mostly I keep them and refer to them often. If I ever decided to go back to school I would want to go back to be a chef. But I would never want to work in a restaurant or on nights or weekends so I most likely will never go to school for this. If I make something new that my DH doesn't like he tells me that "it's not bad". He loves that I cook dinner every night.

7. We go camping almost every weekend in the summer with a group of people. There is a wide range of ages and diversity in the group. We only see this "group" in the summertime and only when we go camping. My parents are part of this group too. We have a fifth wheel that has a stove, refridgerator, running water and a nice bed- no tent camping for me! This summer we are going on our first week-long trip camping trip with our camping friends to Italian Fest in Milwaukee, WI.

8. Sometimes when I am in a room with a bunch of people, that is when I feel the most alone. A lot of times I feel closer to my IF friends whom I have never met IRL and real life friends and family who "get it", rather than those whom I only see here and there (like at Christmastime when you see people you haven't seen all year). I wish we could all have one big meeting and have a fun girls weekend with those that I met online. I have a couple of friendships IRL that are invaluable, priceless. Surely I would have not survived thus far without these couple of key people- you know who you are!! :)

9. I live on 3 acres just north of Minneapolis/St. Paul. Some days I don't leave the house if I am not in a good place to be dealing with people. My neighbors are far enough away so I don't have to see them much and most of my communication is done through the computer. I haven't felt this way in a couple of months since we have not cycled since November, but I am sure once I start my meds for my next cycle I will be holeing up in my house on some days again. I mean, no one wants to deal with a crazy woman on more IVF meds than you can imagine so why go out into the world to torment these people, right? :)

10. Overall, I am happy. I try to live my life everyday in a place of joy and gratefulness. A lot of days I fail at this. I have tremendous guilt over so much that sometimes it consumes me more than it should. I try to work on things daily to be a better person. Hopefully my hard work will pay off someday.

Since I am responding so late to kayjays tag, I won't be tagging anyone individually. I think that this tag was passed around to most everyone a couple of weeks ago so I don't want to re-tag anyone. So, if you are reading this and have not done 10 Honest Things, consider yourself tagged!