Tag Archives: random facts

15 Random Facts About Me

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Hello there! I thought it might be fun to share a few random facts about myself on this Tuesday afternoon. There have been a few new faces around these parts and it’s high time we got to know each other better! 🙂 

Below are 15 random facts about my life. Do we have anything in common? Go ahead and share a few facts about yourself in the comments, if you feel like it. I’d love to learn more about you!

Let’s get to know each other ✨

  1. I love when I have the opportunity to fly or take a train solo. It’s the perfect excuse to have some uninterrupted me-time! My ideal solo flight includes a new book, an in-flight movie or two, and some delicious snacks (like pretzels and peanut m&ms). On a train, I’m happy to just pop a podcast in my ears and stare out the window at the passing scenery.
  2. I recently read Heavy by Kiese Laymon and it’s easily one of the best memoirs I’ve ever read. I feel like I’ve read so many memoirs by *~*writers*~* lately and most of them are kinda meh but this one and In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado will stick with me for a long time.
  3. During a rewatch of Gilmore Girls, I searched online for a list of every movie they mention in the show. My search proved successful and the list served as the impetus for rewatching some incredible films. So far I’ve tackled West Side Story, Rosemary’s Baby, Mommie Dearest, The Shining, Flashdance, and Bright Eyes. 
  4. Because my birthday is in October, I feel like I was into pumpkin-themed foods long before they were trendy. All sorts of snack foods are putting out pumpkin versions these days during autumn, but Pumpkin Delights will always be a tried and true OG with a special place in my heart.
  5. My perfect cozy night-in involves a dark and suspenseful television show (or a British period piece), popcorn, red wine that doesn’t have to cost a lot, and a snuggly blanket.
  6. The thing I miss most about living in Miami, besides proximity to beaches, is empanadas. Empanadas are so delicious, cheap and convenient in South Florida and I was totally spoiled by working right across a parking lot from a ventanita that served them. 
  7. My cat’s favorite food is cheese. He will scarf down any type of cheese offered to him — from Kraft singles to fancy goudas. When cheese is out somewhere in the kitchen he will pat my leg with his paw to make sure I know he’s available for taste testing and then spin around in circles waiting for a sliver to be bestowed upon him. 
  8. While my real name is Elizabeth, I’ve gone by Beth for as long as I can remember and have never really thought of myself as anything else. When I was little, my family called me Peppy and now my nephew calls me Aunt Peppy — which is very sweet and such a throwback. 
  9. I met my husband in Bowling Green, KY when I was working at WKU and he was in grad school there. Although it’s possible we saw each other years before at a national speech tournament in Boston. 
  10. I started studying ballet at the age of 3 and danced through my freshman year of college. One of my favorite feelings in the world is leaving a warm ballet studio after a great class and walking outside into a crisp, dark evening. 
  11. I love watching YouTube videos about and following social media accounts of people who live at the northern reaches of the globe. I’ve even started to really romanticize the idea of 24 hours of darkness in winter and midnight sun in the summer. 
  12. Things that make me extremely happy: the smell of small health food stores/co-ops, true crime podcasts, hiking trails along big bodies of water, Little House on the Prairie, Monet and Degas, Dolly Parton, edelweiss, listening to the radio, vegan cupcakes, how it feels outside at night in those first few days of autumn and the first few days of spring, and the temperature under my quilt when my cat is under it too. 
  13. There’s really only 3 foods I won’t eat. I don’t like mushrooms or olives and will pick and flick them out of a dish with no shame instead of politely grinning and bearing it. I’m allergic to shrimp although I remember really enjoying it before having a reaction to it. I sometimes want to try my luck and see if maybe I’ve grown out of the allergy… 
  14. Places on my travel bucket list include: Maine, the Pacific Northwest, Rotterdam, Costa Rica, Scotland, rural Japan, the west coast of Italy, South Australia, Bonaire, and the Arctic Archipelago. 
  15. Sometimes when I’m really bored, I’ll Google Street View a city I’ve previously lived in to see if I can still get from Point A to Point B from memory. Recently, I remembered how to get from an apartment I lived in when I was 10 to the ballet studio I went to…which I think is pretty impressive considering I haven’t been back to that city in this millennium. 

50 more facts about me (that I posted in 2015 — see! it’s been awhile).

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Are you a word nerd?

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word nerd

I recently started following the Twitter account @HaggardHawks and I can’t get enough. They tweet old and unusual words, language facts, and a daily Word of the Day. Here are a few random nuggets of knowledge I’ve learned as a result…

  1. A nooklet is a little nook or corner. i.e. The most adorable sounding place to send your toddler for Time Out.
  2. In 17th century English, balderdash was a mixture of beer and buttermilk. Now I can win the board game of the same name with all my useless knowledge!
  3. The word hoverboard was added to the Oxford English Dictionary in September 2015. But still not added to my LIFE. 
  4. The place a hibernating animal hibernates is called its hibernacle. i.e. How I will be referring to my bed until Spring. 
  5. Increasing the size of a typeface by one point means increasing it by precisely 1/72nd of an inch. Your professor will neeeeever notice. 
  6. A paraphernalia was originally all of a woman’s possessions that didn’t automatically become her husband’s property after marriage. i.e. What I will yell at Chet when he tries to use my stuff once we’re wed…”Get out of my PARAPHERNALIA, babe!” 
  7. Straughty-squinty is an old Scots dialect word describing a route that is intermittently straight and then winding. I know a few folks’ life paths which could be described as such as well. 
  8. “Butter upon bacon” was 19th century slang for needless extravagance. i.e. The Paleo Diet. 
  9. In 17th century English, a piss-prophet was a doctor who diagnosed diseases by examining patients’ urine. i.e. Me, when my pee is crystal clear; “Wow, I am the MOST healthy today.” 
  10. The Inuit word iritajangajut means ‘hands that appear wrinkled because they’ve been immersed in water too long’. I prefer “prune fingers” but I’ll give this new one a go…it sounds a lot less creepy. 

If you hear me busting out any words like these at a future dinner party you’ll totally know my secret. Haha! Hop on over to Twitter and give Haggard Hawks a follow if you want a fun and informative bit of word nerdiness to look forward to as you scroll through your feed! And if you’d like to follow yours truly, you can find me HERE. Make sure to say “Hello!” if you do. xoxo

What are your favorite accounts to follow on Twitter? I’d love recommendations! 

It’s my birthday!!! (+ 50 facts about ME.)

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Goodbye 20’s…HELLO 30’s!!! That’s right ladies and gentlemen, TODAY IS MY 30th BIRTHDAY! I’ll fill you in on the celebrations in a later post. Just know, I am very spoiled and lucky and each year, amazingly, keeps getting better than the last. I’ve had quite an exceptional 29th year…I learned a ton on the marketing team at Good Foods Co-op, celebrated a fantastic holiday season with my family and my love, made lasting memories with friends, saw my brother get hitched, watched my sister’s artistic creation come to life, spent lots of quality time with the Mama (usually over some delicious dish that she dreamed up and expertly prepared), checked things off my Lexington Bucket List, GOT ENGAGED(!!!), and moved to Miami with my lovely fiancee. I can’t wait to see what this next year holds. Life is good, y’all. xoxo

In honor of my birthday, I thought I’d just go balls to the wall and really make this post ALL about me. Haha! So, in case you were curious, here are…

50 Facts about ME!
  1. My favorite store is probably Target. Chet and I typically go there every Sunday and even though I don’t buy something every single time we go it’s a nice tradition and a fun place to wander through on boring afternoons.
  2. My first pet was a guinea pig named Annie that my family got after my brother and I had the chicken pox. She loved to eat carrot sticks and would squeak whenever she heard the fridge door open. She lived a very long life in her cage which sat on top of a hutch in our dining room.
  3. I don’t have cable. Netflix, Amazon, Hulu Plus, and YouTube are enough to keep me well stocked with plenty to watch. I had none of the above OR cable my last two years residing in Bowling Green. Instead, I checked out a stack of DVDs from the Warren County Public Library each week, a ritual I now miss.
  4. My mom is a vegan and an amazing cook/baker. I love her pizzas and cupcakes but she can “veganize” just about anything, including a McDonald’s Big Mac, which I also adore.
  5. I danced classical ballet until my sophomore year of college and loved going en pointe. I still walk quite turned out due to the ingrained muscle memory and years of training.
  6. My dreams are never very fantastical and typically feature real people doing normal things. I used to dream about the holocaust a lot (I read WAY too many concentration camp/WWII books as a child) but now most of my nightmares involve a lack of preparedness (ie. I’m entered in this speech tournament?! Uh oh!)
  7. My brother, sister, mom and I have a group text called Bergers Being Bergers. The messages within consist primarily of emojis.
  8. My (condensed) birth story: I was delivered by a nurse because the doctor didn’t get there in time.
  9. I’m the middle child which I thought was a disastrous fate as a kid but now I think it’s probably the best place to be in the birth order. My brother is 2 years older than me. My sister is 5 years younger.
  10. I’ve lived in Lexington, KY; Vienna, Austria; Dublin, Ireland; Bowling Green, KY; and now Miami, FL.
  11. I prefer to read books with a female narrator and/or main character. Similarly, when someone suggests a certain movie to watch I may ask, “But are there any girls in it?” I think this comes across as childish but I don’t really care. I need lady representation if I’m gonna invest my time.
  12. I consider myself a lifelong learner and have always enjoyed more self-directed studies. My interests are vast and ever-changing!
  13. I never get bored of oatmeal and consider it a comfort food.
  14. When I worked at Western Kentucky University my office only had walls ¾ of the way to the ceiling (ie. a cubicle situation) and I could throw things over the top of the wall to my co-workers. In retrospect, it was a pretty plush work space, even more so because I shared it with some of my best friends.
  15. This time last year I was in Louisiana eating beignets and listening to Cajun music.
  16. I prefer quilts over comforters.
  17. I went to Catholic Heart Work Camp for 2 summers in high school. While there, we renovated houses for underprivileged families. We used power tools with little to no training and sweated our butts off but it was a really heartwarming experience. I would highly recommend a similar experience for all whiny, bratty teens.
  18. I like to carry a small backpack instead of a purse because having my shoulders off-kilter for an extended period of time makes me grumpy.
  19. I love hanging out with one other person or a small group much more than a large group. Whenever I’m at a restaurant with a large group of people choosing where to sit at the table gives me a lot of anxiety and I always feel like I’ve chosen wrong.
  20. The plot line of Downton Abbey bears a striking resemblance to what went down in my Playmobil dollhouse. Although, a giant rodent never appears in the show and I was always letting my pet mouse loose to roam the dollhouse halls.
  21. I try not to leave the house without water and a snack.
  22. I’ve worn glasses since elementary school and my first pair were a super round, quintessential 90’s, wire-rimmed set that were oh so sexy.
  23. The advent of 3-way calling definitely ruined a few of my middle school friendships.
  24. The in-flight movie on my first international flight was Mr. Holland’s Opus. Other memorable airplane viewing: a bio-pic about Jackie Joyner Kersee that finished before we’d even taken off (delayed on the runway) on a trip home from Germany with my dad (2 thumbs up!) and enduring the same movie to AND from Buenos Aires, Argentina (I don’t remember what the movie was but 2 thumbs down for the situation!).
  25. I’m incredibly indecisive. Sometimes paralyzingly so. Yet, in a crisis I can make split second decisions and stick to them.
  26. When I was really little I fell down my Grandparents’ basement steps and got 2 black eyes. I’ve also broken my collarbone falling out of bed, broken my wrist when I slipped wearing ballet tights on a slick kitchen floor, sprained my ankle going up steps backstage at a dance recital, and tore my MCL when I fell on a patch of ice. The summer before my junior year of high school my platelet count dropped so low (due to ITP) that I was covered in petechiae and bruises for weeks.
  27. I was an early adopter of smart phones (my first was a Blackjack) but I listened to a disc man far longer than would have been considered socially acceptable and still use the radio as my primary means of music consumption.
  28. I don’t like mushrooms or olives because their texture bums me out.
  29. Some of my favorite plays I’ve performed in include; Peter Pan, Oklahoma, The Crucible, and Night of the Pterodactyls.
  30. My favorite events to do in college forensics were Informative Speaking and Prose Interpretation. Essentially, I love telling a story.
  31. I’ve taken full and immediate advantage of the fact that our condo complex has a pool! HelloOoOoO South Florida!
  32. I love the feeling of cracking my hips and cleaning out my ears.
  33. Aside from a few streaks of color (Read: orange) at 16, I’ve never chemically altered my hair. As a result, it’s super healthy and one of my favorite features. However, due to a general lack of hair knowledge and laziness, I typically don’t do anything with it.
  34. My dad once had a meeting about hemp with Woody Harrelson.
  35. My favorite nail polish color is navy blue.
  36. Growing up, my family went North for vacations instead of South. We spent our summers on Lake Michigan.
  37. I blush really easily. Many times a flush will come over me due to second hand embarrassment. So, if you see me pink-cheeked, it could in fact BE YOU! 😉
  38. I drink 2 cups of coffee every morning.
  39. I’ve never had to spend the night in a hospital.
  40. I’m thankful to have grown up in a generation where it was ok to set off on your bike for an adventure in your neighborhood as long as you were home by nightfall.
  41. I love the smell of lavender and rosemary.
  42. The last time I was sick I had either food poisoning or a 24 hour virus and my recovery involved watching every single episode of Catfish and eating saltines.
  43. I hate going to the dentist.
  44. I prefer volumes to be set to an even number.
  45. My favorite fast food meal is the #5 from Jimmy John’s. My favorite food to MAKE fast involves throwing whatever I have on hand on top of toast.
  46. Coaching speech made me a better listener, researcher, and writer.
  47. I really want to go to Mexico City next year. I really want to go to Iceland in the next 5.
  48. I love, love, love to laugh and love to surround myself with funny people. I’m so lucky that Chet is literally the funniest person I know.
  49. I have no shame when it comes to tracking down a piece of knowledge. Read: Gossip. I just like to know things!!!
  50. I’m obsessed with my cat, Wink, and think ragdolls are the best feline breed to ever exist.