1. As of this writing I am 27 years old (28)

2. My name is Bertha. Yes, it’s my real name and yes, I have always hated it. Feel free to call me ‘B’

3. I love animals and have 2 cats. I’m allergic to them & various pollens so I need to take a Claritin every single day to keep my eyes from leaping out of my skull in itchiness. Their names (the cats, not my eyes) are Ripple & Cassidy. They are named after Grateful Dead songs.

4. Contrary to popular belief, I was not named after a Grateful Dead song.

5. If we owned our own home, I’d have a dog too.

6. I love tattoos. I have 3 of them and would probably get more, but I promised my husband my most recent would be my last. I got my first tattoo when I was 18, and visiting my friend at art school down in Georgia. It’s a star on my ankle. I want to get it redone or removed as I no longer like it. The second I got about 4 years ago, it’s a pair of wings on my hip. It symbolizes Paul McCartney’s post-Beatles band “Wings,” which is the reason my husband and I got together. My last tattoo I got almost a year ago. It’s the “Tree of Gondor” from Lord of the Rings and it’s on my back. The other tattoos didn’t hurt very much, but this one was excruciating.

7. I’ve lived in Massachusetts my whole life, except for a 4 year stint in which I lived in New Hampshire.

8. I have 2 brothers. Terry is 7 years older than me. John is 4 years younger than me. Terry is a currently a poker dealer in Las Vegas and John is studying to become a teacher.

9. I graduated with honors from Gloucester High School in Gloucester, MA in 1997. I was accepted to Northeastern University, the only school I applied to.

10. After graduating I was burnt out on school, and decided to take a semester off before starting college. One semester turned into 2 semesters which turned into a year. By then I had a “real” job and ended up not going to college. It is my biggest regret.

11. I am a software quality assurance engineer. That means I test the software my company makes for bugs before it gets released to the public. I don’t love it; it’s tedious. But I am good at it and it (sort of) pays the bills.

12. I want to be an elementary school teacher.

13. I have been married to my husband Matt for 2.5 years now. We got married in Salem, MA on 5/22/04. My grandmother is a minister and she performed the ceremony. We honeymooned in Miami and Key West, FL.

14. We dated for 5 years before getting married.

15. I moved in with him after 1 date and never left. I would not recommend this course of action to other people. We are lucky to both be alive after that first year of co-habitation.

16. I am pregnant with our first child. June born on 1/31/07!

17. I have never lived alone.

18. Is this 100 things yet?

19. No?

20. This is harder than I thought it would be.

21. I’ve always had a lot of hobbies, but most of them don’t stick. A few years ago I became obsessed with learning how to play the fiddle. I bought a starter fiddle for $125 and an instructional DVD. I absolutely could not do it. So I sold the fiddle on eBay. About a year later I became re-obsessed with it. This time I bought a $400 electric fiddle, thinking maybe my problem the first time was not having good equipment. That fiddle got sold at a music shop 3 months later.

22. I can however play the guitar and some piano.

23. My current hobbies are quilting, sewing, and knitting.

24. I learned to quilt about 3 years ago. I told my husband I was interested in trying it, and he got me a quilting book and a gift certificate to the local fabric store for Christmas. I still quilt today, so this must have been one of the ones that stuck.

25. From quilting, I discovered the online world of craft blogging, and became interested in learning to sew other things like stuffed toys and bags. It was around that time that I discovered Illustration Friday and Loobylu’s Month of Softies. I started a blog so I could participate in those activities.

26. My friend Sarah taught me how to knit in October of 2005. So far, this has become my biggest obsession, hobby-wise, though I think my real hobby may in fact be purchasing yarn, more than actually knitting it. Few things in life make me feel more content than surveying my mighty yarn army.

27. I have a particular inclination towards hand-painted sock yarn, even though I have only ever knit 1 pair of adult socks, and 2 pairs of baby socks.

28. I am not a “process” knitter. Most of the time I do not actually enjoy the actual knitting. I find it stressful. But I am usually so happy with having a finished product that I don’t mind. I think as I become a more experienced knitter, it may not be so stressful for me. Since I am still learning a lot and still making a lot of mistakes, it gets frustrating.

29. What I hate about quilting: Basting. What I hate about knitting: Picking up stiches, sock gussets, weaving-in ends, and seaming.

30. I love professional sports, mainly baseball and I am a diehard Red Sox fan. I also like the Celtics and the Patriots. I do not like Hockey.

31. I despise college sports and get violently angry watching SportsCenter during college football season and March Madness.

32. My favorite current TV shows include 24, American Idol, Mythbusters, Arrested Development, and The Simpsons. I also usually like whatever is on the Food Network or Animal Planet (except those shows like Animal Cops where they deal with animal abuse…I can’t watch that stuff). I am also obsessed with Seinfeld, The Waltons and The Wonder Years. Also any cheesy family sitcom from the 80s.

33. I also still watch kids shows like Sesame Street and Zoom.

34. My favorite music includes: Grateful Dead, Indigo Girls, Beatles, Wings, Bruce Hornsby, Bee Gees, U2, Donna the Buffalo, Bob Dylan, Coldplay, Paul Simon, Tom Petty, Neil Young, Fountains of Wayne, anything folk/bluegrass, anything 60s/70s/80s.

35. I also love to read. My favorite is the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Second to that is the Anne of Green Gables series. I also love Terry Pratchett’s DiscWorld series. I also enjoy the classics and non-fiction. I also love to re-read books that were part of my childhood like Roald Dahl and the Ramona books.

36. I am a big American History and European history buff.

37. I love documentaries.

38. One of my favorite places on Earth is Canada, and if I had the means to live anywhere in the world, it would be in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

39. I love cool, cloudy, rainy weather. My husband has SAD so I will never get to live in Seattle, Halifax, or Scotland.

40. Fall is my absolute favorite season; I love everything about it. Most especially the foliage, Thanksgiving, and picking apples to make pie.

41. Summer is my least favorite season. I hate long periods of hot weather.

42. My favorite colors today are orange & red.

43. I always have a pet betta fish that lives in a 3 gallon luxury condo on my desk at work. This one is Luke.

44. I have an unhealthy love for nearly all cheeses.

45. I do not like cottage cheese, lunchmeat, mayonnaise, tomato sauce or any tomatoes in cooked form.

46. My favorite kind of candy is chocolate covered cherries. I also love high-quality gummies (like Haribo gold bears, or any gummies from Germany).

47. My favorite time of the day is bedtime. I really, really love sleeping. I usually get 10-12 hours of sleep on weekends and sometimes even take naps after that. Most people can function on 6-7 hours of a sleep a night. If I don’t get 8-9 hours at least, I do not do well. I am a little worried as to how this will all work out when the baby is born. Working out OK!

48. My toenails must be polished at all times, even in the winter. The only time my toenails are without polish is the 2 minutes in between taking off the old polish and putting on the new polish. This is interesting because I am not a super girly-girl and I rarely ever wear any other makeup.

49. I am extremely liberal in my political beliefs.

50. I am a Democrat.

51. I will not vote for Hillary Clinton under any circumstances, so if she gets the democratic nomination, I will vote for a 3rd party candidate (”Go ahead! Throw your vote away!” /Kang)

52. I hate absolutely everything about cars and driving.

53. On weekends, my husband and I are wedding DJs.

54. My favorite clothing stores are Old Navy & The Gap.

55. I have a fantastic relationship with shoes and purses. I love Kate Spade and Coach. I love boots, mary-janes, and kitten heels.

56. I am always looking for the perfect pair of low-heeled knee-high boots, in both brown and black (haven’t found them yet).

57. I usually can’t afford to pay retail for my expensive tastes so I am a hard-core eBay addict.

58. Speaking of hard-core addictions: Starbucks. But I don’t drink coffee. I think it’s disgusting. I don’t even like coffee flavored ice cream. I am a huge tea & hot cocoa fan.

59. I wear contact lenses 90 % of the time. I wear my glasses 3-5 times a month. I hate the way I look in glasses. I am legally blind without them.

60. Ohmygod I am so boring.

61. I cannot believe this isn’t 100 yet.

62. I love the taste of meat but feel very guilty about not being a vegetarian. It’s hard because A. I have no willpower and B. I do all the cooking at home (My husband does all the cleaning, so it evens out…I hate cleaning) and my husband would NEVER be a vegetarian, so I’d still need to prepare meat for him. I also hate all tofu and soy based products that I have tried. I do try to prepare several meat-free meals per week, and when I do prepare meat, I try to always use organic or free-range meats.

63. I am spiritual but don’t regularly participate in organized religion.

64. I don’t like monkeys. They disturb me.

65. Other things I am terrified of include spiders, tornados, horses, and nuclear war.

66. I love to ski. It’s one of the few athletic endevours I am good at.

67. Here are the months in order of my most favorite to least favorite: September, November, October, December, August, May, June, January, February, April, July, March. I seriously hate March.

68. I love to sing and do so very loudly in my car when I’m stuck in traffic every day

69. I love sports radio

70. I am terrible at math. Seriously. Even basic math. I am not stupid, I just absolutely hate it. Another reason why knitting is a challenge for me. I got straight As in high school, in every single subject, except Algebra, Algebra II, and Pre-Calculus. I got a D- in all of those. I did OK in Geometry though (I think because there were pictures). I always keep a calculator in my purse.

71. One of my upper front teeth is a smitch shorter than the other. I was playing “Red Rover” in elementary school and I was part of the chain. When they sent Patrick right over, he busted through my arms at full force and his knee landed in my face, knocking one of my permanent front teeth loose. I went to the dentist and he kind of wired it to the other tooth until the root re-took hold. Ever since then it’s been a little shorter.

72. I have a big scar on the side of my right leg, next to my knee. My parents had one of those small, ceramic plug-in Christmas trees with the Christmas lights on them…it was sitting on the edge of a table with the cord hanging onto the floor. I was running from my bedroom (past my bedtime) into the family room and I triped on the cord, knocking the tree onto the floor, where it broke…since I was still half running, the cord was tangled on my leg, and it yanked up the half-broken tree which bounced onto my leg, slicing deeply into the muscle. It was a huge scene, but I didn’t want to tell my parents since I was up past my bedtime, AND running in the house. So I wrapped it up with paper towels tight and went to bed. The next day at school the wound started leaking through my pants (ewwwww) so I had to go to the nurse and she called my parents right away. Since the cut had already started to heal, they couldn’t stitch it up, even though it really needed stitches, so it never healed cleanly and it’s a big old nasty scar.

73. I like cookies.

74. I’ve always wanted dreadlocks (but will never have them. My hair is too baby fine and my husband would probably leave me) (Kidding, but he really would hate them).

75. I am trying to become certified in SQL programming.

76. I’ve only been to 20 states: Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Minnesota, and Michigan.

77. My favorite non-Massachusetts state is Virginia, and I’d like to be able to move there within 5 years, though this probably won’t happen.

78. I used to be fluent in both French and Spanish, but not so much anymore…

79. I’m kind of scared of old people. Nursing homes are absolutely nightmarish for me. I volunteered at one in high school to try to overcome this, but it didn’t work out.

80. I absolutely love county fairs (Topsfield Fair is our local one - the oldest in the country). I love seeing the giant vegetables, all the animals, eating awesome fair food, the carnies, everything.

81. If I was on death row, and could have anything I wanted for my last meal, I’d have about 4 McDonald’s Egg McMuffins, with a couple of their hashbrowns, and a giant, icy, fountain Coke.

82. I could easily eat cereal for dinner every night if I had to. I *love* cereal.

83. There’s an A/C vent over my desk at work, and some individuals in the office insist upon the office being kept at around 60 degrees year round, so it’s always blowing right on me. On a 90 degree day in the summer, you’ll see me in jeans, a long-sleeved t-shirt, and a hooded sweatshirt. It’s seriously so cold in here.

84. In real life, I get along much better with men than women. I don’t have any problems with my female internet friends, but in real life, I only have 3 close female friends. All the rest of my friends are guys. It’s been ths way since I was a kid…all my best friends were guys. I don’t know why this is.

85. Because of this, I worry about having a daughter. I fought with my mom ALL the time growing up and if we have a girl I don’t want it to be the same way. This was unfounded (so far!)

86. I don’t really believe in the zodiac, but I am a Taurus and I am extremely stubborn.

87. I hate talking on the phone.

88. My parents are still married. It was a casual wedding…

89. I’m not a big drinker, but I love fine Scotch.

90. I have a terrible sense of direction. I literally get lost in the mall. When we’re on vacation or somewhere new, I am continually getting us lost by telling my husband to go the totally wrong way from where we should be going because I can’t read the stupid map.

91. My most prized possession is my wedding set. It’s made up of 4 rings. My engagement ring, my wedding band, a small diamond band at the bottom for our first anniversary and a matching one for the top for our second anniversary. It’s not huge or anything, but it’s mine, and it’s sparkly, and I feel completely naked without it. It’s the only jewelry I wear on a daily basis.

92. When I was a kid, I used to eat Kleenex (unused!) as a snack. I just liked the papery taste and texture. I still enjoy that taste and texture, but I think they probably are full of chemicals, so I don’t eat them anymore.

93. I’m not a “fly by the seat of my pants” type of girl. I like everything orderly and planned out in advance.

94. I want to skydive once in my life.

95. I’m an excellent swimmer and have passed lifeguard certification classes.

96. I want to learn how to do yoga.

97. I love to dance but I’m a terrible dancer…there’s a dance studio down the street from our apartment and we want to take classes at some point.

98. I got married twice. Our “big” wedding, then a smaller, informal service in the Greek Orthadox church (my husband’s family is Greek and wanted our wedding blessed by the Greek church.)

99. I like men with beards. I get seriously close to tears if my husband shaves his off, so I don’t allow him to anymore.

100. I can’t believe it took me 4 full days to come up with this list….