Anna Maria Locke

Last week the adorable and hilarious Alex tagged me with a blog award!

I am supposed to say 7 things about myself that you don't already know.

This is going to be tricky since my family and bf read my blog...so sorry if you don't see any surprises ;)

I don't have tv in my apartment! Well, I have a television (that I bought at a garage sale this summer for $40) but I only use it to watch the rare and occasional dvd since I am too cheap to pay for cable! I would rather spend the $$ on groceries. Blogging has pretty much filled my reality tv niche although I do miss Bravo!
Speaking of groceries, I LOVE grocery shopping. It is so much fun. I love seeing all the groceries and being inspired by all the things I could potentially make! Strolling the g-store is also very calming and therapeutic for me; I have begun to go there as soon as I get back from visiting Ben or as soon as he leaves from seeing me, since those transitional hours are usually pretty emotionally stressful.
I interned for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for the past 2 summers/schoolyear (they are the agency responsible for enforcing and regulating the endangered species act, among other things). I became a bit of a bat expert and spent many LONG NIGHTS netting bats to learn about the endangered Indiana Bat. (FYI, little fuzzy bats are VERY CUTE and very smart)

(this is an ideal bat "flyway"...a tunnel of trees covering a stream)

(me setting up a net to block the flyway and hopefully catch bats!)

4. When I was little, my childhood fantasies revolved around Peter Pan, the Boxcar Children, and the Trixie Belden series. I elaborately daydreamed that I was an additional character in those stories :) The day my local library "cleaned out" their inventory and got rid of the decaying Trixie Belden books was a bad, bad day.

5. I get severe performance anxiety regarding pretty much everything in my life. I am so afraid of being judged, I guess...especially for things that mean a lot to me. This covers piano recitals, tests, papers, running races, trumpet solos when I was in band, etc etc. Even calling someone on the phone who I don't know that well.

6. Ever since I spent 2 months at Holden Village (magical place of joy...I could gush for pages but will spare you) I have not minded washing dishes (since we had to take turns doing dish duty...which was actually really fun, since they make everything there fun). Doing dishes for 1 person (or even a few) is no big deal after you have washed the nasty pasta residue off 100 people's plates! It's gotten to the point where I actually like washing dishes. It's kind of therapeutic at the end of the day. Like grocery shopping. who am I???

Here's a random Holden pic, just in case you have never heard of it before :)