About Me

100 THINGS ABOUT ME  (a work in progress):

1. I turned 41 in 2008, and I LOVE it.  Each year has been better than the last. 

2. I’ve been married for 13 years to my best friend – he’s an officer AND a gentleman. 

3. I’m a Mom to two very naughty little beagle-beasties, Bad Dog Chuck & Her Highness: Queen Chippie.

4. I’m passionate about my various careers:  an artist, a genealogist, a preschool art teacher, and an adult education teacher for paper arts, art journaling, and genealogy.

5. I’m the Vice-President for Ann Arbor Women Artists, as well as the Committee Chair for AAWA’s Juried Exhibits.  

6. If I were granted 3 wishes, I know without a doubt that wish #1 would be to have my own miniature animals petting zoo, stocked with ponies, dwarf goats, miniature pot-bellied pigs, pygmy sheep, rabbits, chickens, hedgehogs, prairie dogs, chinchillas, plenty of food for them all, and staff to do the dirty work so all I have to do is cuddle the animals.

7. I hate winter in Michigan.  Hate it, HATE it!  I hate the cold, I hate the gray, and I hate having to get all bundled up just to run to the store.  I’ve lived here my whole life, and I’ve never acclimated.

8. I love the heat down south, even in the summer, even if it’s humid, even if it’s 110 degrees AND humid.  I could suck in that hot humid air for YEARS and never get enough of it.  I can’t wait to retire in Arizona. 

9. Throughout most of junior high and high school, I planned to be a teacher. 

10. But then I got a music scholarship for college, and spent 4 years planning to be a composer and performer. 

11. But after college, there wasn’t much of a market for young, white, female, American composers, so I started nursing school.

12. My first two years of nursing school were amazing – I loved the bookwork, I was a straight-A student and I aced every test.  But at the start of my third year, I had to actually work on the hospital floors WITH SICK PEOPLE.  I discovered that there wasn’t a single body fluid/substance that doesn’t make me gag, so I quit after my first week, and took a job as a secretary.

13. I hated being a secretary.  If I ever again have to spend hours in front of a copy machine and press that stupid little green “copy” button while I photocopy endless journal articles, you might as well just shoot me.

14. 20 years later, I’m a teacher, just as I’d always planned.  And I’ve never been happier. 

15. I’ve traveled more than I ever dreamed I would: Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Italy, Spain, France, England, Scotland, Ireland, Canada, and many places within the US.

16. I’m neither a morning person NOR an evening person.  I hate getting up in the morning, regardless of what time it is, and I’m usually ready for bed by 9:00pm. 

17. I’m a desperate introvert, highly skilled at acting like an extrovert. 

18. I hate using a ruler when I make arts & crafts.  If it can’t be approximated or eye-balled for measurements, I probably don’t want to make it.

19. I like pretty much all foods except for tripe, olives, caviar, and capers.

20. My favorite male actors are Sean Connery, Pierce Brosnan, and Harrison Ford.  Something about those James Bond and Indiana Jones characters…

21. I don’t know how to stop buying beautiful old hard-covered books from the late 18th century and early 19th century.  I don’t read them – I just like to have them.

22. My birthday is on Christmas Eve.  And so is my husband’s.  What were the chances of THAT?

23. I don’t like to watch movies more than once each.  I don’t understand the attraction of watching the same movie again when you already know what’s going to happen and what’s going to be said.

24. Ditto for re-reading books.

25. I was a nanny for a horrific family in New York City one summer.  Why I still love children is beyond me – that experience should have scarred me for life.

26. My favorite comfort food when I’m sick is chicken noodle soup with LOTS of pepper and wide egg noodles.

27. My favorite comfort food when I’m depressed is garlic & onion mashed potatoes topped with sharp cheddar cheese.

28. I was the best flute player in my junior high school, high school, and college, but now I’m lucky if I think to play it every few months.

29. Yes, I WAS one of the last kids ever picked for team sports in elementary school, junior high, and high school.  But now as an adult, I’m fiercely competitive, I KICK ASS and you WANT me on your team.

30. I’ve always been fiercely competitive, and I rushed to earn as many Brownie and Girl Scout badges as I could so I’d have more than the other girls.  I also rushed to have the most flower petals on my “reading flower” in kindergarten (each book read equaled another flower petal). 

31. I pulled the fire alarm on the last day of school in junior high, as part of a dare.  After everyone evacuated the building, and the special ed kids were wheeled out, and the fire trucks were pulling up, I high-fived someone and promptly got caught. 

32. I once quit a summer job in high school simply because they asked me to go out and sweep the parking lot.  I thought that was a ridiculous waste of their money and my time. 

33. I get extremely claustrophobic and start to panic if I’m having a hard time removing a necklace or bracelet or shirt. 

34. I’m the person you want if you need someone to throw a hissy fit for you in public or on the phone.  Someone giving you the run-around?  I’m your gal!  Put me in front and me & my attitude will get things done.  

35. My feet are always cold.  Even in the summer.  Yes, I’ve had my circulation checked – I’ve simply got cold feet.  And yes, my therapist & I think the symbolism is incredibly ironic.

36. I don’t wear a watch.  This used to be unusual before everyone started relying on their cell phones for the time.

37. I have a cell phone, but anytime you call it, it’ll be turned off.  Sorry, I just don’t want you calling me when I’m out & about.

38. I would sleep with the window open every single day of the year, if my husband wouldn’t complain about the window being open in the middle of winter while the heater’s pumping furiously to keep up with it.  Yes, I hate the cold, but throw a couple dozen blankets on me and let me wrap myself in them like a cocoon with only my head sticking out, and I’m a happy gal.

39. I’m a liberal Democrat.  I’m married to a Republican.  Each election, we cancel out one another’s vote. 

40. I pretend I don’t speak English when I’m approached for money on the streets, and I respond in a made-up foreign language. 

41. And I pretend I’m deaf (by using made-up sign language) when I ride public transportation so people won’t speak to me.  Ask me about the time I pretended to be deaf on the bus while I had my headphones on…

42. One day my girlfriends and I took an early morning flight from Detroit to Providence, RI and then took an evening flight back home that same day.  Why?  Flights were only $99 roundtrip and none of us had ever been there before, so…

43. I rarely finish most things I start.  I get super-excited about new things, but then bore quickly.

44. I like to google myself.  Apparently there’s another Mrs. Katherine Willson that lives in Mobile, AL; a Katherine Willson on the faculty of Education at the University of Alberta in Canada; and a Katherine Willson who’s an Information Systems guru. 

44. I love walking behind men wearing sexy cologne.  I don’t care to look at them – I just love the smell of their cologne.

46. I love to eavesdrop on other conversations around me, whether in a restaurant, in line at the post office, or in a crowd.  I hang onto every word, and have been known to delay my actions just to hear the end of certain conversations.

47. I love looking in other people’s windows when I’m walking through neighborhoods.  No – not in a Peeping Tom style where I press my face against the glass - just casually looking in from the sidewalk. I love seeing what others are doing.

48.  Yes, I’m THAT nosy.  I was once the Neighborhood Watch captain for our neighborhood ’cause I watch EVERYTHING that goes on around here.  I’m just fascinated by most people. 

49. I’m an INFP on the Myers-Briggs personality test (Introversion, Intuition, Feeling, Perceiving).  See #17.

50. I STILL haven’t figured out how to use chopsticks.  And I’m okay with that.  Forks work just fine. 

51. I can hold a grudge better than most people I know.  And I disagree with those who say holding grudges only hurts yourself – I ENJOY my grudges immensely. 

52. I’m allergic to kittens & bunnies, but I love them immensely.  How unfair is that?

53.  Cooking raw poultry repulses me, and I will go to great lengths to avoid having to prepare a whole chicken or turkey.  I’m proud to say I’ve reached the age of 41 without ever having to cook the Thanksgiving turkey. 

54. Faces on most inanimate objects freak me out.  I don’t like faces carved on pumpkins, Halloween decorations with witch or ghost faces, jewelry with faces, or even most doll faces. 

55.  I have two younger siblings – a brother and a sister.

56. I’m “Auntie Katherine” to my sister’s two little girls (ages 6 & 8) and my brother’s newborn baby.  I LOVE being an Auntie – I spoil them rotten, then send them home.  I was born to play this role. 

57. I like to crochet, but only in the car (while hubby drives, of course), and only on long drives.  I tried knitting, and it takes WAYYYYYY too long, so even though everyone else is knitting, I’m sticking with crocheting. 

58. I don’t like soda, and I ESPECIALLY don’t like it when it’s cold.  I think it’s that cold fizz that bothers me – it just burns too much on the way down. 

59.  I LOVE coffee.  Dark roast.  Extra-strong and extra-bold.  With milk and sugar.

60.  I’m one of those rare girls who hates shopping.  And hates buying clothes.  Having to go to the mall is pure torture for me.  Unless I get to stop at Papyrus, the paper store.

61.  But I really enjoy shopping at thrift stores.  The local Salvation Army is huge and full of wonderful treasures. 

62. I have no tattoos, and only a single piercing in each ear, and I’m okay with that.  However, if I WERE to ever get a tattoo, I think it’d be hilarious to have, right above my bikini line, a stick figure pushing a lawn mower with tiny blades of grass flying out.  I’m cracking up just typing that. 

63. I’m “contemporary music”-illiterate.  I have no idea who’s popular in today’s music worlds, be it pop, rock, country, or anything other than classical.  But I can tell you all four classical music stations that your radio will pick up if you’re in Ann Arbor. 

64. I don’t believe much in astrology, but I LOVE reading my horoscope.  And after reading my horoscope, I usually think, “Wow! That’s so ME!” But then I remember that David and I are BOTH Capricorns, but the horoscope NEVER seems to apply to him. 

65. I collect elephant figurines.  I don’t know when or how this started, but now people bring my elephant figurines back from their travels.

66. David and I got married twice.  Without ever divorcing.  David’s in the Army Reserve and his unit was activated during the Bosnian conflict in December of 1995.  We were in the midst of planning a June 1996 wedding, and knew there was no way he’d be home in time for that, so we called the pastor to explain the situation, and he invited us to come down to the church for a “quickie” ceremony.  The church was beautifully decorated and candle-lit for the holidays, and we had a simple (no music or flowers or attendants or big white dresses) ceremony on a Friday night.  With only two days notice, 165 people showed up.  Best news of all?  Three days after the wedding, his unit’s orders were cancelled, so we went ahead and had the “Big White Dress” wedding in June, as planned.  Now I make him take me out to dinner twice ever year for our anniversaries. 

 67. I had my wedding dress made out of a white, light cotton brocade (with pockets sewn into each side so I didn’t have to carry a purse), and then prompty ripped the dress apart after the wedding so I could make a quilt from the fabric.  That was in 1996 and the quilt pieces are still in the basement (see #43).

 68.  I almost always have music running through my head, and my feet are almost always tapping along, but I’m rarely aware of this.  When I become aware, I have to spend a couple of seconds trying to figure out where the melody’s from, and where I would have recently heard it.  This is especially annoying when I’m trying to fall asleep…

69. Similarly, my fingers are frequently “playing” the flute or piano when I’m thinking of – and doing – something else.  So there go another few seconds trying to figure out what song I was “playing,” and why.

70. I learned to drive in a stick-shift.  With my younger brother laughing hysterically in the back seat each time I stalled or made the car jump.  I don’t like stick-shifts anymore.    

71. My family moved a LOT when I was growing up, and we weren’t military.  I was born in southeastern Michigan and lived there until I was 4 or 5 years old; then moved and attended kindergarten through the first half of 6th grade in a town at the tip of Michigan’s lower peninsula, then moved again and attended the second half of 6th grade through 11th grade in a town a little further south, then moved again and attended my senior year of high school in ANOTHER town a little more further south.  Yes – I was the “new kid” for my senior year. 

72. For the first couple days during my senior year at this new school, no one would sit with me at lunch time because no one knew who I was.  They all assumed I was a new, incoming freshman.  So one morning, I made a sign on a piece of cardboard and during lunch that day, I propped the sign up in front of me.  It read, “No, I’m NOT a freshman, and I’m NOT a nerd.  I’m just new.  Hi, my name is Katherine.”  I met some of my best friends that day.

73. I accidentally set a girl’s hair on fire in my high school chemistry class.  She was my lab partner, we were working with those bunsen burners, she had on WAYYYYY too much hairspray, and when she leaned in front of me to better see what I was heating up, her hair started sizzling.  Luckily the teacher grabbed a towel and put out the fire before it ALL went up in flames.  We still remained lab partners.

74. I studied Spanish in high school for 3 years, and for another year in college, but I don’t remember any of it.

75. Each time I see a fun service vehicle, my first thought is, “Cool!  I wish I could drive one of those just once!”  I thought it the first time I saw a golf cart, the first time I saw a Segue, the first time I saw a Zamboni, and each time I see one of those 3-wheeled autos in Europe (which aren’t service vehicles, but wow!  They look so fun!). 

76. I love words, especially long words that aren’t used much in everyday conversation.  When someone uses a word that I love, I don’t hesitate to interrupt the conversation and say, “Cool word, by the way!”  Some people are amused by this, others are irritated, and only one other person ever stops the conversation to hold ANOTHER conversation with me about how cool the word was.

77. Unlike most women, I’m not a big fan of shoes.  I don’t have a bunch of different ones to match different outfits, and I’ve never desired to do so.  If I could, I’d wear only my Crocs in the late spring, summer, and fall, and I’d only wear really warm, furry winter boots in the winter and early spring; but alas… that hasn’t always been possible. 

78. My dreams are the most incredibly-detailed, rich-in-imagination dreams you’ve ever heard of.  I could write award-winning screenplays or novels if I took the time to record my dreams.  Seriously.

79. But I can almost never remember my dreams two days later, so if I don’t write it down, they’re lost forever. 

80. I grew up thinking I would someday adopt a child. 

81. This was before I knew infertility would be make its appearance in my marriage.

82. But now that infertility IS a problem, and the timing for adopting a child is perfect, I discovered that I’ve married a man who has no interest in adopting. 

83. So we’re a childless couple.  Not by choice.   

84. See #40.