Our 200th Episode ~ 100 Things About Me

To honor this momentous occasion you are going to get the famous post I should have done for my 100th post...
100 Things About Little Old Me, You Probably Don't Care to Know

1. My full name is Penelope Anne (Prellwitz) Bartotto
2. I was born June 10, 1970 and we once owned a car that came off the assembly line that day, it is my dream car to get another one of...an Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme.
3. I was born in Appleton, Wisconsin.
4. The realization that I was a bun in mama's oven, halted my papa's attempt to dodge the draft.
5. While hitch hiking home from California so dad could meet his draft appointment a truck driver gave my parents a ride and offered to drop them off at a really cool place...Spahn Ranch, home of Charles Manson and the Family.
6. I am named after Penelope, the wife of Odysseus in Greek mythology (Ulysses in Roman mythology).
7. Yes, my parents occasionally called me Penelope Pitstop, but generally my nickname was and still is Penny.
8. The first few years of my life were a shuffle of Greyhound bus trips, base living, and camping out with family while my daddy did his tour in Vietnam.
9. I think my daddy looks like John Lennon, and the song Imagine always makes me cry.
10. The first time my father got to see me I cried nonstop and would not let go of mom.
11. I love the smell of Old Spice on my father, and Stetson on my husband.
12. I have one sibling, a younger sister...Gwendolyn Evelyn, aka Wendy, who lives in Chicago.
13. I have an irrational fear of heights, bridges, and riding in school buses.
14. As a little girl I had a black lab puppy named Ebony, that once she grew I became scared of.
15. My daughter sleeps in the same bed my parents bought me when I was 4 years old from Montgomery Wards.
16. My first taste of therapy came in the 3rd grade when I wrote mean things on the Valentine cards I passed out to my classmates...all I got from therapy were cute little warm fuzzies. A pom-pom with google eyes, felt feet, and a ribbon that had a "happy" phrase on it.
17. By age 9 I had a college reading level, thus our backwater school had to hire a tutor for me.
18. I attended a Catholic school, the nuns hit my hands with the ruler because I refused to hold my pencil the way they wanted and hated the fat pencils they insisted we use.
19. In 4th grade my parents loaded up the car and moved to... Oshkosh, Wisconsin. They became house parents for a group home facility for juvenile delinquents. Yep great place to raise 2 little girls.
20. For the record I have never owned or worn any Oshkosh B'Gosh clothing for myself...I had a few outfits for my kids.
21. I have a half moon shaped scar on my scalp where my baby sister in a fit of jealous rage (I was home sick from school) took a pipe from our vacuum cleaner and clobbered me on the head while I was sleeping.
22. I have suffered migraine headaches since I was 2 months old.
23. When I was 10 I found a leather whip in the woods behind our house... I wonder what my papa did with that.
24. I played the viola from 3rd grade through 8th grade. I also played the cello and dabbled on the bass. I quit orchestra when I met the conductor at the high school for my placement audition.
25. I spent the night at my boy friend's house when I was in 5th grade... in his sister's room, you perverts.
26. I was a Girl Scout as a child... Brownie and Junior level.
27. When I had a daughter, I became a Girl Scout leader, and she became little miss uber-scout.
28. In the 7th grade, my best friend (at the time) and I were called Twiddle Dee and Twiddle Dum because we dressed alike the first day of school.
29. I had my first real crush on a friend's brother, named Colin.
30. Colin nicknamed me nickel in 7th grade, and each year he upgraded me... dime, quarter, half dollar, and then dollar in 11th grade. He was a year older than me.
31. I had my first French kiss (no, not with Colin) after school at a playground called the Boat Park, old boats made into equipment.
32. I got picked up for the first time when I was in 8th grade. A friend and I were wandering and some high school guys with a pick-up no less, took us to the park.
33. I got drunk for the very first time with the same friend as above in 8th grade. Her mom was gone and I spent the night at her house. We tried every kind of liquor in the cabinet with a variety of Kool-aid flavors... I still can't stand the smell or taste of Kool-aid.
34. For one brief semester of my freshman year (9th grade) I attended Oshkosh North High School.
35. My favorite classes in High School were art, history, English, journalism, drama, and psychology.
36. I had a crush on my psychology teacher.
37. As a Junior I participated on the Academic Decathlon Team, yes I was a geeky nerd.
38. I worked as a library aide during study periods during high school.
39. I lettered in Forensics, I participated in Debate, Speech, and One-Act Plays.
40. I was an active member of the Drama Club during high school, affectionately called "The Lynch Mob" after our teacher, Mr. Lynch. I still have my jacket, from when we as a team went to state.
41. When I first started at Oshkosh West mid-freshman year, I hid in a bathroom during lunch period for a month because I couldn't remember how to get to the lunch rooms.
42. I was inducted into the National Honor Society as a Junior.
43. My first real job, meaning not babysitting which I had started at age 9, was as a waitress. The brown polyester uniform was super sexy... NOT!
44. At the age of 15 I attended a summer camp program sponsored by the DNR, called YCC (Youth Conservation Corps) where I learned how to care for, prune, and girdle trees in national and state forests; how to work at a fish hatchery; and how to handle a forest fire.
45. While at the above camp I had an accident with a brush axe, cutting off most of my left thumbnail and a chunk of the thumb. I had no thumbnail for 3 years...the first camp counselor to see it fainted at the sight of the blood, his name was MR. Grover and we used to sing about him rolling us over in the clover.
46. After that accident I had my first medically recorded anxiety attack, that was originally misdiagnosed as an allergy to codeine.
47. I was a roller skating Queen, when roller rinks were the hip place to be. My first skates had a key, I had tennis shoes skates then, and finally the fancy ones with colored laces, and giant pom-poms. I could speed skate, dance, and really get down as I haunted the rink almost every Friday and Saturday night.
48. In 2006 I tried to roller skate again on a Girl Scout field trip... less than 3 minutes onto the rink and I fell hard, concussing myself and needing a trip to the ER. No more skating for this mama.
49. In my Senior year of high school I forged an excuse slip (signed my father's name) that allowed me to leave after 6th period so I could go to work early. I was never caught.
50. I won a scholarship for college by competing in a debate competition sponsored by the VFW about Veteran Affairs.
51. Like a true nerd I lettered and medaled in Academics in High School.
52. I graduated with High Honors from Oshkosh West High School on June 9, 1988... one day before I turned 18. Yes, I have a 20th Reunion coming up this summer.
53. I once believed I wanted to be a lawyer, specializing in juvenile law.
54. I attended UWGB (University of Wisconsin: Green Bay) for 1 year and 1 semester.
55. I lost my virginity in the backseat of a car when I was 17.
56. I smoked my first cigarette when I was 12, smoked sporadically in high school, and steadily by college... I quit when I met my husband, though had a small lapse once.
57. During college I smoked the girliest cigarettes around, Capris.
58. When I would be working on an art project for class I would smoke, drink wine, and listen to music.
59. I was an artsy fartsy kid during college. I dressed weird, acted weird, and hung with a weird crowd. They hooked me on The Rocky Horror Picture Show and cheap, fruit wines.
60. I didn't get my driver's license until I was 20.
61. I was once a cocktail waitress.
62. I know the secret recipes to most KFC foods.
63. One night in college my roommate and I got seriously drunk, went wandering the campus in our pajamas, and ended up falling asleep on the Astronomy observation deck on campus. The only time her and I got along.
64. I have a certificate that allows me to be a day care teacher for children birth through kindergarten, because my mom made me go to classes with her. When the group home closed they opened a day care center and gave her a job as assistant director.
65. In 1990 I almost joined the Navy. Had I stayed in Wisconsin chances are I would have enlisted and who knows where I would be now, but because my godmother was a recruiter in Texas I moved to TX by her. Turns out I weighed too much to get in immediately there, and needed to lose 20 pounds.
66. I learned how to make awesome Mexican food while living in Texas from a coworker at the grocery store I worked at while I attempted to lose weight.
67. My godmother's husband sexually assaulted me while I was there. My godmother did not believe me, and kicked me out. Thanks to a coworker I found a place to sleep and was able to contact my parents and come back home.
68. The coworker who helped me that night apparently had a secret crush on me, that turned obsessive once I was back home. He mailed me letters and artwork almost daily, to the point he scared the hell out of me.
69. When I came home, I took a job at the daycare center my mom was working at.
70. I met my husband the day after Thanksgiving, 1990 when he came to the daycare center after his mother mentioned I was looking for someone to hang out with.
71. Allen Bartotto and I had our first date on December 1, 1990 ~ he proposed that night, and I accepted.
72. I moved in with Allen on my mom's birthday... December 28, 1990.
73. When our engagement announcement was in the newspaper a guy I went to high school with called our place and told me I shouldn't marry Allen, because he had always loved me.
74. I had no real boyfriends in high school, I did not attend Prom, so the above was just plain weird.
75. I laughed during our entire wedding rehearsal and cried from the second my father took my arm to walk me down the aisle until the ceremony was completed.
76. My father did the greatest thing for my wedding... he rented a tuxedo with tails, spats, and a top hat. He decked himself out for me and because he figures my sister will never get married.
77. On April 20, 1991 I became Mrs. Allen Lee Bartotto.
78. After the wedding ceremony but before the pictures were taken the punch bowl broke (full, of course) all over our best man's tux.
79. I was pregnant when we got married.
80. A few weeks later I miscarried that baby. We knew if we could survive that trauma, we could survive anything thrown at us... we celebrate our 17th anniversary next month.
81. I gave birth to our first child, Nikolaus Xavier, in July 1992.
82. Allen says I raped him to conceive our second child, Zachary Alexander, born in August 1993 at 29.5 weeks gestation, he was to be born on Halloween.
83. In 1994 I got my first, ADULT, full-time job working for an electronics assembly company.
84. I gave birth to our baby girl, Micheyla LeeAnne, in August 1996.
85. Stupidest mistake of my life? Getting my tubes tied. This prompted the PCOS I apparently had to go into overdrive and by 2000 I lost my right ovary, after 4 years of pain and problems I had a hysterectomy in 2004.
86. My family was homeless once... we lived in 2 hotel rooms for 2 months.
87. I homeschool our 3 children and have since Zachary started kindergarten.
88. I was a freelance writer for Oxygen Media from 1999-2001.
89. From 1996 to this very day I have worked online for one website or another as a chat host, message board moderator, or Administrator. I now co-own and co-operate my own site called coffeetalkladies.com.
90. In 2005 our family experienced a huge change when Allen was laid off from his job of 16.5 years...thankfully he found a much better position.
91. From August 2005 to October 2006 I was the Director of Christian Education for Wesley United Methodist Church in Oshkosh, WI. I will be best remembered as the gal who put kids in boxes for the entire holiday pageant and who gave a rockin' VBS.
92. I have worked at Miles Kimball Catalog Company numerous times, most recently leaving there in August 2007. I worked in the Call Center, and am a damn good customer service rep.
93. I am a wannabe author with 3 novels currently in process.
94. I collect the following items for myself or family... bears, snowmen, fairies, postage stamps, souvenir spoons, shot glasses, wolves, wizards, and decorative swords.
95. I love to be a pen pal to people all over the world (females only)...old fashioned snail mail.
96. I am a Fabricaholic and a Paperaholic...I collect far too much of both, but eventually I do use it.
97. I am a Boy Scout Merit Badge counselor, and will soon be an officially trained Adult Leader for Boy Scouts.
98. I love to read, and support our local library with the late fees. I also review everything I read at my other blog: The Manic Bookworm's Ballroom.
99. I cannot stand to use a dull pencil or a dull crayon.
and finally per my kid's instructions I am to say...

100
I am kid-tested, and family approved!

So there you have it a glimpse into my personality which is definitely sarcastic, and sassy.

Peace Out Peeps!
The Mama Bear
~ Penelope Anne