The Last Five Years: 30 Day Photo Challenge: Day one!

It has been a little more than five years since Bry and I started writing this blog in the hopes of becoming wildly famous! Just kidding, we just really enjoy writing.  But five years ago we did a photo challenge and having recently reread those posts I decided that we should revisit them to see what has changed in five years.

Still displeased. (Right picture is in China.)

1. I feel special when animals or babies sleep on me or in my arms.

Five years later: Yeah, that's still true. These days it's just Alice that's in my arms, but how many babies and animals can you hold at one time anyway?

Update from several minutes later: Bry was asleep and I got to try to move sleepy Alice to my bed but she was waking up. She stretched in my arms and let out a giant fart. Mmm. Babies.

2. I love bad movies. I collect them.

Five years later: Who even really collects movies anymore. Netflix is cheaper. I try to buy movies- old movies I want to share with my nonexistent kids, though. Most recently I bought Beetlejuice and Hocus Pocus. 

3. I can't sleep with socks on. I just can't do it no matter how cold I am.

Five years later: Yes. Still the same. Who in the hell can sleep with socks on?

4. My usual nightmares involve losing someone I love or all my teeth.

Five years later: Yup! I've added two or three wedding nightmares to the mix, but my most common ones are about losing teeth. They fall out and I try to shove them back in and make them stay. Never works.

5. I usually make funny faces in pictures on purpose for fear of trying to take a good picture and it turning out horrible.

Five years later: See picture above.

6. I enjoy doing grandmotherly things like baking, crocheting and wearing silly sweaters.

Five years later: I recently crocheted an octopus. And I am currently wearing an ugly sweater that Steven gave me five years ago. 

7. I still have a crush on Shang from Mulan. 

Five years later: He's still dreamy. Last summer, I tried to convince David to buy Alice either a stuffed Shang and Mulan doll or Shang and Mulan Barbie dolls from the Disney store in the mall. He surprised us all by buying one of each Mulan. WHAT GOOD IS THAT???

8. I wish I were talented enough to be in musicals.

Five years later: Since writing this, I got to sing Carmina Burana. Not a musical, but it did at least fulfill a life dream. I also got to sing WAY more karaoke so I'll have to settle. I just can't dance.

9. I love writing poetry but can only manage to produce something I don't hate every few months or years.

Five years later: I am not confident that I've written ANY poetry since writing this...

10. Out of all the characters I learned in China, the only four I write almost every day are "I really miss you".

Five years later: I have taken and passed the HSK 1 (97%) and HSK 2 (89%). My Chinese is much better but I think even if I was fluent I'd still shy away from speaking to native speakers. I have much more confidence when shouting orders at babies or cats.

Always the life of the party. (Note: right photo is just after I'd come home from the hospital after birth.)

1. My most embarrassing moment is from 5th grade, and it involves watermelon seeds.

Five years later: Since the birth of my daughter, I can honestly state that I have had a new "most embarrassing moment."  It turns out that after you give birth, your body is a little empty but somehow still full of air.  When the nurse came to massage my belly to help my uterus shrink back down... she didn't massage so much as manipulate me like a tube of toothpaste... and squeezed out a long string of farts.  I had, thus far, only allowed my husband to hear a handful of those butt whispers in our 7 years together but this nurse didn't seem to mind helping us reach a new level in our marriage.

2. I developed earlier than most of my friends, in that I got acne when I was 9.

Five years later: You know, the beauty of being pregnant is that you get to experience the thrills of puberty all over again!  Only, this time, you aren't allowed to use any sort of medicines because those could hurt the baby.  My lovely Chinese coworkers were thoughtful enough to let me know any time my face erupted- which was constantly.

3. I fell in love with Mozart- as in the character from the movie Amadeus- and learned flute so I could be a child prodigy... because no one explained how that was supposed to work.

Five years later: It has now been 17 years since I started learning flute!  And also officially it has been the longest I have gone without playing.  I don't believe I've touched my flute since I left for China in August of 2013!  That is heartbreaking... I gotta break that sucker out and give her a whirl.  

4. My inability to master Mandarin Chinese is something that frustrates me everyday, and occasionally in my dreams as well.

Five years later: I've been living in China since August of 2013!  My Mandarin has expanded nicely, as well as my listening skills for bumbling through life abroad.  Still nowhere close to fluent, but happy.  

5. The fact that I never got to mourn the death of our childhood dog, Buddy, (who was put to sleep when we were studying abroad) will always haunt me.

Five years later: Gosh, and now my parents replacement dog for Buddy has died.  They rescued Shirley (an older dog) a mere two or three months after Buddy passed, back in 2008, and had her put to sleep a few months ago.  One more family dog I never said fare well to.

6. I feel extremely accomplished every time my cats come to their names- which is hardly ever, but still...

Five years later: I'm trying this out on my 6 month old... with slim results as of yet. She takes up all of my time these days.

7. One of the happiest moments of middle school was the realization that I could now check out three books per week, and I would, even though I could never finish all three before they were due back.

Five years later: The last book I read was by Frederick Douglass- nearly 6 months ago.  See answer number 6 for the reason I no longer read.

8. My first interaction with "race" was when I was 6 and a black family moved in a few houses away in my gated community- I was fascinated.

Five years later: I have become the very type of person I hate!  I point out all the foreigners to my husband- because there are so very few of us in our neighborhood in Shenzhen.

9. The first time I saw David, I knew he was going to be trouble.  Despite agreeing to marry him, he manages to cause a little trouble in my life at every given opportunity.

Five years later: Our daughter is also trouble.

10. I joined track to stalk a boy.  Stupidest. Mistake. Ever.

Five years later: Can't say I've done anything this stupid since then, except, perhaps, having a baby in China.