Joanne in a nutshell (nutcase more like it)

I'm so behind, I guess I'm the last one to jump on board with this... so Shamae, here goes:

*Although I live in Texas right now, I am from Canada. Je suis née à Montréal, dans la belle province du Québec (I was born in Montreal in the beautiful province of Quebec). And that, I'm ashamed to say is what is left of my french. I moved to Vancouver when I was a year old and consider myself to be a left-coastie.

*I have had 8 surgeries... a c-section, 3 on my femurs, 1 knee, and 2 on my jaw. I had quite a hardware collection inside of me at one point (including 2 titanium plates and 8 screws in my legs, as well as 2 pins in my face and a screw in my chin). Now all that's left is one pin in my face and the screw in my chin. No, I don't set off airport alarms.

*Like many who posted this, I have issues with symmetry. I cannot wear a shirt with only one pocket. There are many more examples, but I am loathe to come off sounding crazy (or crazier).

*Yes my hair is naturally this colour red. I get asked this... a lot. I like to answer by saying, "why yes it is... I grew it myself and it's ALL organic!"

*I cannot sleep with socks on.

*Or the closet door open.

*I don't wear make-up. Not because I don't think I need to, but because it's just not important to me. I prefer the natural look and thankfully, so does Fred.

*I so do not care about fashion trends... I think most of them look stupid (hello, skinny jeans and ugg boots). I'd rather spend my money on clothes I'm comfortable in, can wear with anything, and can still be worn years down the road.

*I once got my hand caught in a cigarette machine at a restaurant when I was 8 years old. They had to call the fire department to get me unstuck. All I wanted were some matches, I swear.

*I looooove to save money. One time at a grocery store I got over $120 worth of groceries and paid under $2 for it. Last year I saved over $1500 at CVS. I have about 50 toothbrushes under my sink to prove it.

*I can speed read. It takes me about two hours to read a 400 page book.

*I am afraid of heights, but jumped off a 30 foot waterfall in Hawaii. Three times. It just seemed like the thing to do.

*I really, really want to be on a game show. Something like "Millionaire", you know... where there's a wee bit of skill involved. Shows like "Deal or No Deal", where people basically get money for showing up are stupid.

*I know a lot of people like to have the cash in their wallet have all the bills facing the same way; smallest to largest, and while I agree with them on 50% of this, my bills have to be stacked largest to smallest. I don't even understand why you would do it the other way. It's just plain weird.

*I don't drink anything with caffeine in it... I gave up pop when Elise was born, and I don't drink coffee.

*Out of the 3 cars I've ever owned, 2 have been manuals. If given the choice between manual and automatic, I would chose manual every time.

*I love to people watch. People can be so fascinating when they are not aware that they are being observed. Fred often has to tell me to stop staring.

*I would probably be considered a loner, with few close friends. I don't open myself up to many people because I hate how hurtful people can be to one another. I am very okay with being by myself and can sit lost in my own thoughts for a long time.

*I used to work in radio... mostly doing production. But I did some voice work on a morning show, my character was the "Leather Weather Girl". All I'm going to say about it was I did the weather reports. Anything more than that and my blog will start showing up in some pretty weird searches on Google.

Aaaaaaand done. Don't you wish you had that 5 minutes of your day back?