Kidding Around: 10 Cool Things About Me

Day 16 of Kidding Around asked us to begin by thinking of 10 cool things about ourselves.  This was very hard for Trevor.  He's not especially aware of his strengths and weaknesses compared to his peers, nor does he realize that his interests and talents are particularly unusual.  For example, he just assumes that all kids his age do robotics projects at home like he does.  It was hard for him to see the things he does as "cool."

Eventually, he came up with a few things.  "Not a lot of people know as much about rabbits as I do!" he told me.  "Oh, and my Pinewood Derby car got a Judges' Favorite ribbon!"  Once he thought of the first few, the others came more easily.

Here's Trevor's list, with links to the things I've blogged about:

• I know a lot about rabbits.
• I built an Unchained Reaction that worked really well.
• I made the Hundred Grand Club at school.
• I won the “Be the Change” contest about helping others.
• My Pinewood Derby car earned a Judges' Favorite ribbon.
• I won 3rd place in the kids' tablesetting contest.
• I design and build miniature golf courses in my backyard.
• I am very good at solving mazes.
• I am very smart, honest, and kind.
• I earned a bunch of belt loop and patches in Cub Scouts.

We started by creating a misted background for the journal.  As that dried, we typed up the list of 10 things and printed it out.  Then I pulled out my deco-edge scissors.  Trevor carefully cut out each item with a different pair of scissors.  He glued them to the dry page, then stamped a title across the top and numbers by each item.  Then he drew little suns around each number.

One of my Design Team bios awhile back asked for a list of cool things about me, so it was very handy that I had already done the brainstorming.  Here's my list, with links to the things I've blogged about:

• I've ridden in a helicopter in Hawaii, on a dog sled in Alaska, and on an aerial tram through the rainforest in Panama. 
• I've taught ballroom dance lessons. 
• I was interviewed by Pauly Shore on MTV.
• I've won trips to Chicago, Washington DC, and New York City.
• I've been a volunteer on Mythbusters... twice.
• I found a missing baby. 
• I've led an overnight Civil War reenactment on Angel Island three times. 
• I starred in an instructional video for the Lawrence Hall of Science.
• I was the National 4-H Ambassador from California in 1991.
• I made a difference in the lives of hundreds of children during 11 years of teaching. Now I'm putting just as much effort into the life of one child. 

Here's how my page turned out.  I copied Trevor's sun idea because it looked so cute and festive.

 

I think this might be my favorite page we've done so far.  It's an interesting exercise to list cool things about yourself and I know it will be so fun looking back on it years from now.  For me, it's also a reminder that I haven't told nearly enough of the fun stories from our lives either here on the blog or in the scrapbooks.