Before we go any further down this road of getting to know each other, there are some things that I thought you should know about me…

1) I saved Eartha Kitt's dog.

2) Little Jimmy Dickens saved my dog.

3) I live in a log cabin that was a tollhouse in the 1830s.

4) I fell off a cliff in a car, landed in the ocean {and lived to tell about it}.

5) I leave my Christmas decorations up until Valentine's Day.

6) I am psychic {psycho to my close friends}, so watch what you think about me {I can hear you}.

7) I was being discharged from the hospital on September 11, 2001 in New York City.  My uterus had ruptured while giving birth, and the doctors saved my newborn and me in 4 minutes. While coming to the hospital to take us home, my husband and one year old daughter witnessed the planes hitting the World Trade Center.

8) In Raleigh {a city of over 400,000 people}, I moved out of the same house that my future husband moved into next {before we knew each other}.  Before he met me he got my junk mail, now he just gets my junk.

9) If you can’t find me behind my camera, I might be on the tennis court {and you may not want to get too close}.

10) Without knowing who he was, I gave Prince Edward $5 off discount coupon advice in a store in NYC. He was very sweet about it, with his gorgeous British accent {and his laugh}.

11) In college, I rode through a car wash in my new car with all of my windows down and my sunroof open {because I was so nervous about driving over the hump to get the carwash started}.

12) I am passing my leaky tear duct gene down to my daughters.  I cry at the airport when I see other strangers cry.  I cry at movies. I cry at commercials. I cry while reading books. You name it and I cry at it. I have lived up the nickname my three sisters called me {crybaby}.

13) I have had snakes chase me up a hill before.

14) When I was an elementary school librarian, a parent came in to meet me because her child came home and told her that Miss America was her new librarian.  {If only everyone could see through kindergarten eyes}.

15) I love my grey hair {even if now I look more much more like a Golden Girl than Miss America}.

16) My favorite actor is Cary Grant.

17) When we lived in New York, I used to walk 110 blocks for lunch {because I thought it was fun}.

18) While snorkeling in the Turks and Caicos, a baby shark swam over the continental shelf to meet me.  I ran out of the water in fear of what might be coming to meet me next.

19) One of my strange pet peeves is that I hate when kids call me Ma’am.  I have never or will never be a Madam {which is what Ma’am is short for}.  I would rather kids just be polite, look me in the eye, and say hello with a smile.

20) I have eaten sheep brains served to me in a skull {just to be polite}.

21) I don’t snack {especially on sheep brains}.

22) One year I won the NBC Today Show Halloween Costume Contest by sticking fake pigtails on my bald baby’s head {so that she could be Pippi Longstocking}.

23) Katie Couric was on my honeymoon {not with me of course}.

24) I had the strength to give up my high maintenance drink at Starbucks.  I have now replaced it with all sorts of other bad habits {that I will have the strength to give up later}.

25) While moving out of my apartment in New York City, I ran out of packing tape. I walked a block to the office store, empty tape gun in tow. I told the lady at the cash register that I was packing and had a gun in my purse and needed help.  I started rifling through my purse {for lack of a better word} to show her the type of gun. Everyone looked scared of me, and when I left I was “accidentally” given not only my supplies, but also all of the items of the other shoppers in line as well.  When it finally dawned on me that I had never mentioned that it was a "tape" gun that I was "packin", and that the people in the store thought that I had a real gun. I called the store to straighten things out.  They told me to keep the supplies {and not to come back}.