I've been tagged!

My blog got tagged for the first time ever by the lovely Sherry of Homebirth Diaries. I have been reading her blog regularly for about a year and have had it linked from my blog for a while, so it was fun to have her discover my blog now too! She is a skillful writer and I've really enjoyed following her chronicles and insights :)

Okay, so the rules:

RULES - Post rules before giving the facts - Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves - People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules - At the end of the your blog you need to tag six people and list their names - Leave them a comment on their blog, telling them they have been tagged and not to forget to read your blog.


My facts:

1. I collect American Girl dolls. I have ten of the 18 inch dolls, two Bitty Babies, 8 of the Girls of Many Lands, and all of the mini dolls. I have spent a lot of money on these. I am very dedicated to voluntary simplicity and simple living and these dolls are my not-at-all simple hobby. However, I have a personal issue with having fun (fun is not "productive" enough for my Type A nature) and these dolls are the only thing in my life that is purely for fun for me. Everything else I do, even if it is also fun, is for a bigger reason.

2. I have never kissed a man other than my husband (of nine years). We were each other's first date, first kiss (after 8 dates...), everything. I like that :)

3. When I graduated from UMR with my BA in 1998, I was the youngest graduate in their history (13 days past my 19th birthday).

4. Sometimes I miss my previous workplace (Ronald McDonald House) so much that it feels actually painful.

5. I am 28, but I identify most with mid-life (or even later) as a developmental life stage--when I read books about the psychological crises people experience at mid-life, I'm so there (like doing a life review and trying to figure out the meaning of life, etc.).

6. I have a preoccupation with death--I think all of the time, "will this really matter after I'm dead?" or, "what really matters, since we're all going to die anyway" or, "would I regret this on my deathbed?" This is not a particularly uplifting way to think, but it can put things in perspective sometimes. It is very important to me that I not die without knowing why I lived (ala Thoreau's fronting of the essential facts of life...).

7. Even though I just trained as a doula, I don't think I actually ever want to really be one. I don't think I have the stomach to handle hospital births (even though that is where doulas are most needed). As a result of following a twisting blog trail after having been tagged, I read the post A Nurse's Guide to Managing Failure on Breast & Belly's blog and it reaffirmed for me that I cannot handle the hospital setting--too many human rights violations performed on normal, healthy birthing women.

8. I worry too much about what others think of me. I give the opinions of others too much weight--I try to remember Wayne Dyer's, "a self-actualized person is one who is independent of the good opinions of others."

Okay, I don't know if this is the right way to do it, but I'm tagging my friends Shauna, Summer, Nikki, Kolbi, Sarah K., and Chris.