HELLO MY NAME IS: AMANDA

In case you care to know, here are ten things about me:

❶My dad, my mom, my brother, and I all have birthdays that fall on the same day of the week every year.
This year, all of our birthdays are on Sunday.

❷ I never watch television. I definitely haven't seen it.
(I recently sat through 6 minutes and 25 seconds of this,
and I suddenly felt like one of the golden girls.
Now, the golden girls is a show worth watching!)

❸ I own at least twenty-five grey shirts.

❹ I'm a terrible, terrible artist, but I've always thought someone should make a font out of my hand writing.

❺I have an intense fear of public speaking, yet I love to teach.

❻ You have to look pretty far and wide in my family to find anyone else with a college education.
I'm your modern day bootstrap-puller with half of a Masters in Teaching.

❼I bake to relax. It has always calmed me, slowed me down.

❽I love watching Ramona grow and learn.
Every day she says or makes something that is so clever or sweet or complicated, and I am mesmerized by her.

❾I think being a mother is really hard.
It's endlessly rewarding, don't get me wrong.
I have a fiery, loud, strong-willed, energetic replica of myself. It's rad.
My girl is detail oriented, has a memory unlike anyone I've ever met, and currently refuses to bathe or sleep.
She makes me tired in the best way. But man, am I tired.

❿I rarely buy any of my clothes (or Ramona's!) new.
Years of working at Buffalo Exchange taught me how to thrift;
what a quality garment looks and feels like, and how much something costs new to gauge if the used price is actually a good deal.
I love it, too, because I have taught Ramona not to hold on to anything for too long, that you can let go of things and give them to others.
That is a really important lesson in life, I think, and I love when I hear her say things like,
"I don't need this mama, let's give it to another baby."

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