Things you maybe didn't know that I have now turned into blog fodder

*I've been married nearly five years and I still get completely weirded out when someone calls me Mrs.Cheung. Mrs.? Really? I'm also not a big fan of being grouped into "The Cheungs" (even though I do this frequently on my website, see: Camp Cheung, Cheung Household) but The Cheungs sounds like... I don't know. Like we have fourteen kids and have been married so long we've morphed into the same person. But Mrs. is the one that I can't handle. MRS. UGH.

*I've bitten my nails since second grade. I've tried everything short of hypnosis to stop, but at this point in my life I've simply accepted my man hands and gnawed-on nails. EXCEPT. Pregnancy makes my nails grow so fast I am momentarily so awed at their length that I manage to stop biting them for a few days. Well, in groups. Like, "Oh, my pointer finger looks awesome, I'll try not to bite that one" and then my pinky finger gets bitten down to the quick. Whatever. But someone in the moms group wants to go get manicures and now I am panicked because what are the manicure ladies going to think when they see my man hands and shredded nails? Gak.

*Pregnancy also made the calluses on my feet go away. I know! Weird!

*When I found out my family was moving to Italy I was distraught. Why? Because I hated tomato sauce. HATED. Did my parents want me to STARVE? I still hate tomato sauce, unless it is the kind they make in Italy. You have no idea how much effort I've put into finding stateside tomato sauce to equal Italy's. I've even tried making my own (bad idea). The closest I've found is Pomi crushed tomatoes.

*In the same vein, I would not eat pizza or drink pop when I was little. Tomato sauce! Carbonation! Ick! All the parents at the birthday parties would ask my mother how she got me to drink milk instead of orange pop.

*I wanted to adopt kids until I started reading adoption blogs. Turns out I hadn't thought about things like ethics and paperwork. Actually, I still want to adopt, I think, someday, but I am not so rose-colored-glasses about it anymore.

*I am secretly grateful that I had a boy first and am having a girl second. Because I am the first and also a girl, see, and maybe this way I won't have expectations of my daughter. Or, at least, the expectations will be different. And more than the expectations I worry about what Oldest Girl Issues I would pass on to my own Oldest Girl and, let's be honest, she's not starting out with excellent mental health genetics in the first place. I worried that I would compare my own Oldest Girl experience to hers. But now, it's not at all my experience. And so: secretly relieved.

*I think I would be perfectly happy if we bought a bigger Seattle-area house in the next few years and I lived there for the rest of my life. I'm a little ashamed to admit that, as my one goal in life not so long ago was World Traveler, but I sort of don't care anymore. I like it here.

*I love American grocery stores. The nicer ones, with the giant produce sections and prepared food cases. Maybe this makes me a Spoiled American, but you try shopping at 50-year-old military commissaries and European "grocery stores" for years and not feel a sense of amazement when you walk into your recently remodeled neighborhood Safeway. I don't always like having to GO to the store, but I always like being IN the store.

*My aunt made my senior prom dress and my wedding dress. I am pretty sure that if I had tried those dresses on again in the months before I got pregnant with Jack, they would have both hung on me like tents. Knowing that makes me happy and sad at the same time.

*Even though I was one pound away from losing all the baby weight when I got pregnant the second time, I'm scared I'll never be that size again. It's weird to think that I never really had body image issues until I lost weight.

*I can't drive stick. All right? JUST DEAL WITH IT. And not for lack of trying, either. I think I have some mental block. I think about driving stick through downtown Seattle and my brain just shuts down. I mean, I barely figured out how to drive an AUTOMATIC.

*I put ads on my website. Maybe you noticed. I have this crazy idea that maybe they will pay my hosting fee and I'll no longer feel a twinge of guilt when we go through the budget looking for things to cut. Because cut my Typepad fee? Um, no.

Comments

[Jen]

I got used to the Mrs. really fast because I was a teacher right after I got married. And they say your name about ten thousand times a day, so it was adapt or die.

I also love American grocery stores, although I miss the little produce shop from England.

I will click on some of your ads when I remember to help you pay your hosting fee. :) It makes me feel productive.

[blog nerd]

I lived in England for a year--when we came back stateside I had friends over to visit.

The cereal aisle blew one of my British girlfriends away. "Gor--how in the hell do you decide what to buy for breakfast??"

She couldn't believe the number of different cereals we had to choose from. It's changed a bit but at that point it was pretty much mueslix and oatmeal at the village shop.

[ashley]

I came back from Thailand as a middle schooler and was FLOORED(floored) by the sheer amount of food products.

Dozens of OREO flavors!?

It was a little overwhelming, but I don't really buy too much processed food now, so I just avoid that section.

I've never lived near a Whole Foods (hello, yummy prepared food) but I will be moving in July...within a mile of one. I'm a little too excited, to be honest. Yuppie grocery stores are great.

[Liz]

I have to say I do miss the marches in France - the fresh produce and the little men with gnarled hands telling you how to prepare whatever it is he's selling. And the fat ladies with the cheese so fresh it's all gooey-runny in the middle. Mmmmm. I like food.

When I was first back in the states, I hated grocery stores because I would just get overwhelmed and depressed and leave with NOTHING. It took a while to get over that.

[lee]

have you had susan's tomato sauce? it's pretty dang italian and pretty dang tasty. it doesn't look that hard to make, either.

[Kate P]

I gave up trying to learn stick. My legs are too short to put the clutch all the way in unless I'm sitting on top of the steering wheel (unsafe!), and as you said, downtown is no place to be driving stick.

The manicure ladies might take pity on your nails and do their best to make them look nice. Think positive!

[Wickedly Scarlett]

Good for you for monetizing your site! (Doesn't that sound so official and professional?) I've been thinking about ads lately, but I don't think I get enough readers to make it worthwhile.

Also, I don't think it matters how long I am married, when I hear The New Last Names, I will always think of Colby's parents.

And before we went to Italy, I had no idea that supermarkets were such an American thing. They seemed to have a pretty good array of them in Britain and Ireland, but in Italy all we could find were delis, meat shops, cheese shops, and tiny pharmacies.

[Manda]

Dude, I LOVE American grocery stores. Especially the ones that have Starbucks or Jamba Juice actually IN THERE. I also love grocery store sushi and that is just wrong, wrong, wrong. It's not even good! I just like that it's there!
And this is why I only go to Trader Joe's anymore. Because I spend million dollars and five hours at a time at the other places.