Excited as Jessie Spano at a dance competition

Dear Internets,

My mom is the third of six children that came in girl/boy/girl/boy/girl/boy order. As the middle daughter, she was usually considered the keeper of secrets by her siblings, and sometimes even her parents. As the family confidante, my mother gave up on being surprised by gifts at a very early age.

According to my mom, my grandmother was the worst at keeping secrets. After Grandma planned and got a gift together, she was too eager to wait until a birthday or holiday came along to give it to the recipient. Every year, my grandmother would come along with a gleam in her eye and pull my mother aside.

"Prissy*," she'd say. "What if I show you just one of your gifts?"

The next thing my mom knew, my grandmother would have gleefully shown her all of her presents, as well as those of her siblings.

***

I'm a lot like my grandma.

Although I have neglected my Internets this week, I haven't been totally lazy: I've been working on putting together Christmas presents for my friends and family. I think they're going well, and I really want to show them to someone. However since they're all somewhat similar, I can't really show my mom what I made for my friend without spoiling the surprise of my mom's gift and vice versa.

Here's the thing: I really want to put pictures of the gifts up here, but most of my friends and family know about my blog. I have told them not to look at my blog until after Christmas, but if they're anything like me, they won't be able to stand the suspense and they'll end up peeking.

What do you think, Internets? Is it safe to reveal my handiwork to the Internets? If you had been told not to look at my blog, would you peek or would you wait? If you peeked, would you tell me or fake surprise when I gave you your gift?

Love,
Jane

*My mom's name is Priscilla, so while "Prissy" is sort of a horrible nickname to be stuck with, at least she wasn't given the name due to some sort of personality flaw.

Biting my tongue

Dear Internets,

I decided to tag myself on a meme today to avoid talking about things I shouldn't talk about on my blog. (Don't worry - they are not interesting things; they're mostly just whiny things.)

I decided to modify the meme a little in the interest of over-sharing. So, without further ado, I present:

Six embarrassing things you (probably) don't know about me

1. I had an unhealthy obsession with My Little Ponies as a child. I (secretly) played with mine until well into middle school.
2. I can't stand mini paper clips. I just don't understand the point of a paper clip that can only hold two or three pages together. But they're so utterly recyclable, I feel guilty just throwing them away. So if I have mini paper clips, I always try to use them first.
3. I have an addiction to self improvement books. I never really follow their instructions (and thus, they are pretty much completely useless to me), but I still can't stop reading them. Also, I really like those "how I changed my life in one year using some ridiculous premise" memoirs.
4. I went through a phase where I bought dental floss almost every time I went to the grocery store, because I could never remember if I was running low or not. I still have about 8 rolls left. Same with deodorant. I won't run out until 2012.
5. I have been too afraid to open up my IRA statements for the past few months. So... I haven't. They are sitting unopened at the bottom of a pile of receipts by my desk at home.
6. I regret buying my condo. I feel like I bought at the worst time to buy in Austin. Also, owning a condo just makes me feel really tied down.
   

I'm not going to tag anyone with this (I think that would be kind of mean), but feel free to share your own dirty little secrets.

Love,
Jane