To celebrate my 52nd birthday several (cough, cough) years ago, I wrote a blog post on my now defunct blog The Whippoorwill Chronicles about ’52 Things About Sissy B (my psuedonymn in those days). As many of you know, I am in the process of transferring many of those posts to my current blog Acres of Diamonds and will add this particular post in the next few days. However, for the purposes of this tag, I will sift through the 52 random things and enlighten my Facebook friends with the top 25….after all it is all of you who expressed a ‘need to know’ (grin) by tagging me….so this is for you Betsy, Tony, and Vicki. Carrie…I’ll have to save the married one for another time….TMI overload might incur if I combined it with this one (giggle).

1. I love elephant jokes…..Why don’t elephants ride bikes? They don’t have a thumb to ring the bell. My sense of humor drives my husband insane.

2. One of my favorite movies is Drop Dead Fred. Did I mention that my sense of humor drives my husband insane? We watched this movie while we were dating and I do believe if he had given any serious thought to my insane giggles throughout this movie I never would have had a marriage proposal. In fact when he did propose, and I said yes, he was very surprised. He said ‘I asked you thinking you would say no’….now what is a girl to make of that????????

3. I started blogging in 2006 as part of the therapeutic process. Many of you have followed my blogging journey since that time as I processed my past in The Whippoorwill Chronicles, as I confronted my life long battle with depression and anxiety in The Bipolar Diaries. Now you can follow me at Acres of Diamonds (www.daniellebatog.com) as I continue to move forward building the life I have always dreamed of.

4. I love riding in the car with the windows down and no music playing…especially at night when I am driving home on the country roads that lead from the bigger bigger city (where I teach) to my home. I am able to hear the night sounds, see the deer clearly and one evening I even saw a herd (??) of wild boar.

5. I bought our home without my husband even seeing it. After all, this is what military wives are trained to do…take control and make decisions as our other halves are usually gone training for war or actually engaging in a war.

6. I want to get a tattoo around my ankle but I know I can’t erase it when I grow up.

7. I have fired an M16 out of a foxhole. I always mention that one of my ‘battle scars’ incurred during my stint in the Army was when I jumped into a foxhole (to fire my M16) and I jammed my knee. Another ‘battle injury’ was when the buffer I was using to buff the mess hall ran over my foot.

8. I have an autographed photo of John Travolta hanging in my study. I know, I know, how juvenile and I love it. It was given to me several years ago by a student whose husband works for John Travolta at his home here in Florida.

9. I have co- written a book about motherhood. How is that for someone who never had a template on how to be a mom??????

10. I am a Johnny Depp groupie (so much for John Travolta, eh??).

11. I would continue to be a college professor even if they didn’t pay me. No really. I love.love.love teaching.

12. The best gift I ever received is my husband….my daughter….my therapist…and of course salvation.

13. My first car was a Mustang, I now drive a Toyota Camry, I want to drive a Hummer.

14. I love playing golf. My husband first introduced me to golf when we started dating. I had a very stressful job as a counselor for the mentally disabled. When I play golf I think of nothing else but hitting that darn ball. Stress??? What stress? Sad to say that golf has taken a back seat to my photography but the psychological benefits of capturing my world through my camera lens far outweigh searching for that dang golf ball in the trees.

15. My all time favorite classic books are Gone With The Wind, Little Women, Jane Eyre and Crime and Punishment.

16. Why do elephants paint the soles of their feet yellow? So they can hide upside-down in the custard.

17. One thing I wish I had done differently is that I wish I hadn’t been so afraid of having children.

18. The best surprise was when I found out two weeks before my 40th birthday that I was pregnant with Miss Sam.

19. My favorite time of day is dusk. That’s when my husband and I sit outside and talk about nothing in particular…which shrub to pull up next, should we re-sod or spend that money on a fishing trip….have you seen the lizard family lately?

20. My blood runs red, white, and blue. I was an Army Brat, an Army Wife and I am an Army Veteran…and the daughter-in-law of an Airborne Army Veteran. Hooo-hah! However, I can’t dismiss the beliefs of my youth when I burned candles against the war in Vietnam and wore my silver POW/MIA bracelet faithfully for years.

21. My favorite place in my home is my study/studio. Family members wish it was the kitchen.

22. I miss my best friend Anne. We met in biology class and during a lecture on when life begins she slipped me a note that read ‘life really begins when we finish this course”. We have grown in separate directions and it has been difficult finding our way back to each other.

23. My father and my husband’s father were stationed at Fort Bragg, North Carolina at the same time. Although we did not run in the same circles. I was safety patrol in the sixth grade and my husband was two and still in diapers.

24. I like younger men (grin).

25. Why are elephants large, gray and wrinkled? If they were small, round and white they’d be aspirins.

Today’s ‘Around the Square’ is: Michelle from Sleepy Cat Hollow. Michelle embodies those things that I wish I could make more time for….like cooking, gardening,, soap making….she is just so, so creative!!! You really should go over and check out the awesome recipes that Michelle has written about lately. I have them bookmarked and will try them all out soon.

Today I am grateful: that I am still recovering from this nasty cold that left me without a voice. It made for an excellent reason for canceling my counseling appointments for today. After all, how can I effectively counsel if I can’t talk?????

Today I will simplify my life: by continuing to catalog my photo cards. I developed an awesome system yesterday and it has motivated me to keep the photography business moving forward.