So.. if you love me (and I know you do) why not take part as well, get back to the old blogger within you, the one who used to care about technorati ratings and link love *grin*

Things you’ve already done: bold
Things you want to do: italicize
Things you haven’t done and don’t want to – leave in plain font

1. started your own blog
2. slept under the stars
3. played in a band
4. visited Hawaii
5. watched a meteor shower
6. given more to charity than you could afford
7. been to disneyland/world
8. climbed a mountain
9. held a praying mantis
10. sang a solo
11.bungee jumped
12.visited paris
13. watched a lightning storm at sea
14. taught yourself an art from scratch
15. adopted a child
16. had food poisoning (who hasn’t???)
17.walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty
18. grown your own vegetables (nope, just eat the ones grown by my MIL *yum*)
19. seen the mona lisa in france
20. slept on an overnight train
21. had a pillow fight (and I WON!)
22. hitch hiked (From Manchester to Bristol and back with Aminatta way back when..)
23. taken a sick day when you’re not ill(again.. who hasn’t??)
24. built a snow fort
25. held a lamb – and bottle fed it (i’ll stick with my daughter thanks..)
26. gone skinny dipping
27. run a marathon ( *shudders* )
28. ridden a gondola in venice (definitely on my list – blow the cost!)
29. seen a total eclipse –
30. watched a sunrise or sunset –
31. hit a home run
32. been on a cruise
33. seen niagara falls in person
34. visited the birthplace of my ancestors
35. Seen an Amish community
36. taught yourself a new language (I don’t think just ‘hello/ goodbye’ ‘please’ and ‘thankyou’ count)
37. had enough money to be truly satisfied (it’ll never happen *sigh*)
38. seen the leaning tower of pisa in person
39. gone rock climbing
40. seen Michael Angelo’s David in real life
41. sung karaoke (Me?! Karoke LOL nooooo.. *grin*)
42. seen old faithful geyser erupt
43. bought a stranger a meal in a restaurant
44. visited Africa
45. walked on a beach by moonlight (more creepy than romantic I found)
46. been transported in an ambulance (sadly twice gotta love motorbikes eh?)
47. had your portrait painted (if I had the money this guy would be doing it)
48. gone deep sea fishing
49. seen the Sistine chapel in person (On our tour of the vatican – amazing place!)
50. been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris
51. gone scuba diving or snorkelling (if only I didn’t have menieres disease *sigh*)
52. kissed in the rain
53. played in the mud
54. gone to a drive-in theatre
55. been in a movie
56. visited the great wall of china
57. started a business
58. taken a martial arts class (Kendo, aido, jiujitsu and wing chun)
59. visited Russia
60. served at a soup kitchen
61. sold girl guide cookies
62. gone whale watching (A friend did and his pics were amazing, I was so jealous!)
63. gotten flowers for no reason (AND they were off Stef!)
64. donated blood (medically exempt)
65. gone sky-diving
66. visited a nazi concentration camp
67. bounced a cheque (never deliberately)
68. flown in a helicopter (I know.. but surely my footprint is small enough for ONE ride?)
69. saved a favorite childhood toy (sore subject, mother has never been forgiven)
70. visited the Lincoln Memorial
71. eaten caviar (foul stuff, wildly overrated)
72. pieced a quilt
73.stood in times square and watched the ball fall at New Year
74. toured the everglades
75. been fired from a job (nope, but taken great satisfaction from quitting!)
76. seen the changing of the guard in london
77. broken a bone
78. been on a speeding motorcycle (see the ambulance question above LOL)
79. seen the grand canyon in person
80. published a book
81. visited the vatican
82. bought a brand new car If I could only get a license..
83. walked in Jerusalem
84. had your picture in the newspaper (Many times in the Daventry express as a kid)
85. read the entire bible
86.visited the White House
87. killed and prepared an animal for eating (nope, but i did watch Stefs aunt do a chicken when we were in Italy..)
88. had chickenpox
89. saved someone’s life
90. sat on a jury
91. met someone famous (Every other day when I worked at Manchester Academy)
92. joined a bookclub
93. lost a loved one
94. had a baby
95. seen the Alamo in person
96. swum in the great salt lake.
97. been involved in a law suit (divorce counts, right?)
98. owned a cell phone (well, a mobile..)
99. been stung by a bee

What.. no 100? In that case I’ll add one I want to do

100. <em>Have one room set aside as a library in your house</em>

Yup, it seems people still know of my online existence *grin* well one person anyhow.. Since I love the loudmouthman to death I guess I have no choice but to fall in line – I’ll not pass it on though because I doubt there’s many of you who stop by here much anymore – it’s a tad dusty.

So, my task is to discuss 8 random things about myself.. Hmmm.. I think the trick here will be to find something about myself that I haven’t already discussed at length – what with me being so backwards at coming forwards and all LOL

Right.. I’ve had a think and to kick off:

1. I can’t breathe through my mouth. If I have a cold I’m in real trouble because it is almost impossible for me to breathe, for some reason I can take a couple of shallow breaths through my mouth before I start choking but otherwise it’s as though my throat closes up and stops me taking in oxygen orally.
2. I have a mole on my right cheek (the facial one before you start getting ideas!) it tends to sprout hair that grows remarkably swiftly and 2 of my brothers are forever giving me grief about it – I once attended a party where the elder decided it would be funny to write on the fridge about my ‘guest’ and how it really needed a shave. I was not amused. Unfortunately I’m too squeamish to pluck it so when I remember (or Stef nags at me) it gets trimmed, otherwise my ‘beauty spot’ gets to grow “..all creepy and Eeuuuuuwwwwww” as the younger brother shudderingly describes it – gotta love my family.
3. When I was in Junior school I entered a song writing competition, I wrote the lyrics and someone else wrote the music. We either won or came second (my memory on that part is hazy) and were supposed to go on Pebble mill to collect our prizes. My mum wouldn’t let me go, so someone else went in my place – I got an Anglia building society (see how long ago that was? before it changed it’s name to nationwide..) account with £5 in it plus a big yellow pyramid shaped money box. I’d rather have been on telly
4. At the age of 19 I was the face of ‘Salford Way’. A mate of mine had been commissioned to take photographs for some promotional material for a council scheme helping women get back into education in Salford. There were about 6 of us in the photos but my ugly mug got pride of place on all the posters as well as being featured in the ‘photo story’ on the leaflets – for that we all received the princely sum of £20 and a meal at a place called Courtneys – what made it more embarrassing was that people on my course in the Salford area all got the leaflets through the post, I got the mickey taken out of me for WEEKS!
5. I don’t sleep. I’ve always had real trouble getting to sleep at night, when I do finally doze off I’m more likely to dream (well, have nightmares) than hit deep sleep, for a while I’d managed to start getting some refreshing sleep again, but since falling pregnant it’s back to the doze/dream/wake cycle – this makes for a very narky Vicky.
6. I have UK size 3 feet. This may have been mentioned before but basically I wear kids shoes – no tax on my footwear! I have been warned that during pregnancy this may change and I’ll go up a size but so far so good..
7. Speaking of feet, I LOVE having mine rubbed – the problem is, when receiving any kind of massage I make what Phoebe would refer to as ‘sex noises’ I can’t help it, cats purr when stroked, I moan. It’s instinctive and I don’t even realise I’m doing it which can be quite embarrassing on occasion..
8. Since it’s taken me over an hour to get this far I guess I’ll have to succumb and write something about the bump.. I can’t picture myself with a daughter. A son I can imagine easily and have even dreamed of in recent weeks but I just cannot picture a little girl in my life – this is why I’m almost positive we’re going to have a boy. If truth be told I’m almost scared to think of having a girl – I’ll have to learn how to ‘do hair’ and stuff..

For a while after that it seemed everywhere I went online Dan of The wrong advices blog was a step ahead of me, he then introduced me to mybloglog and I amused myself by browsing the various blogs on offer there. I haven’t bothered with it for a while because other things caught my attention but today I was reminded of it (albeit indirectly) through twitter.

That’s right back to twitter. You see the person who indirectly reminded me of mybloglog was Nik aka loudmouthman, the guy who talked me into trying out ubuntu. I stalked him on twitter too – and it’s all the fault of Master K since he nagged me into signing up to the damned thing in the first place.

Anyhow, Nik posted a tweet linking to an online identity score (go ahead, just do it yourself and see what comes up, I apparently score ’8′ both for my name and for rosevibe) It was while googling myself I came across this meme linking me.

Why am I linked on a blog I don’t recall stumbling across before? Because of mybloglog.com. You see how incestuous everything online is?

I met Master K through my original blogger blog several years ago and I count him a pretty good net friend due to our intermittent correspondence, he introduced me to twitter where I met both Dan and Nik, the latter being someone I greatly admire and can see becoming an RL friend in the not too distant future. Dan introduced me to mybloglog and Christy obviously found me there.

I wonder how long it would take me to find myself again just from following a random link from Christys blog? maybe someday when I’m bored enough I’ll have to see. For now, I have a meme to do – it seems only fair to do so after shouting to the world about it

These are the meme rules:

1: Each player starts with 8 random facts/habits about themselves which others do not know about them.

2: People who are tagged need to write in their own blog and post these rules.

3: At the end of your 8 random facts post, you must select 8 more people and leave a message at their site that they have been tagged….

Hmmm.. First of all, it’s going to be tough writing something about me on here that you guys don’t know about (or can’t find out by trawling the archives) secondly that rule #3 is just begging to be broken, I’ll not perpetuate I’ll just participate.

So.. My 8 random facts or habits:

1. I do my best not to bend/ crease the spine of any book I read and make sure to use something as a book mark rather than bending the pages over or placing an open book face down and flat – I HATE seeing people vandalise books in this fashion.
2. I struggle with verbal conversation most days as I only take in half of what’s going on, not because I’m not listening but because I can’t process speech quickly enough and end up skimming what people say. This is why I like karaoke nights so much, I’m not required to talk a great deal or follow a conversation but I can still enjoy the atmosphere, sit with friends and have a sing.
3. I like going to the theatre on the rare occasion I can justify the expense.
4. I like walking around art galleries and spend a fair amount of time looking at pictures online.
5. I have been between 9 and a half stone in weight for the last 12 years
6. I can keep a bar of chocolate in the house for over a month and not eat it all. As long as I know it’s there I don’t get chocolate cravings.
7. I don’t like receiving ‘smellies’ as gifts, soaps and toiletries are personal things and I like to get my own.
8. When I’m thinking I press my fingers together in the ‘excellent’ fashion of Mr Burns and I don’t even realise I’m doing it half the time.

Still, shouldn’t take me long to do this *grin* I’m to pick a few posts that seem to have been ‘unpopular’ but that I quite liked,

Now then..

Lets go waaaaaaay way back eh?! Now this one is an amusing tale from way back when I used to work as a ‘bouncer’ that’s right, diminutive lil me. I loved that job, I worked there for 6 years and only stopped when this damned illness kicked in.

The next offering I have for you is a piece of creative writing inspired by the Bob character from Twin peaks. I remember feeling quite chuffed with this as I hit the ‘post’ button.

Then of course we have the whole divorce thing, now i’m not pointing this one out because i’m particularly proud of the piece, I’m pointing to it because I think this is something that sadly a lot of people can relate to.

And there you have my three (well, actually he never said what the required number was for the meme but I like three, it’s a cracking number)

Now for this I am going to pass the torch, firstly to Master K because he has some gems in his archives and I would like to see the ones he wished had more attention when he wrote them, along with Kelly (assuming she gets a chance) and obviously Vixen of the bad girls guide – her archives are sooooo made for this type of meme!

He also requested that I stick up a photo, since this one is in use all over the place as my avatar (mainly monsters game, my blog log and twitter) I thought why waste time looking for something else?

I touched upon the subject of why I blog in this post but it doesn’t really answer Dio’s query, so to see what I said you’d best whisk yourself over there and see my response.

(It was here but since I got the wrong end of the stick I had to edit and forward and all sorts of mucky muck.. Good job i’ve nothing better to do eh?!)

Now I realise this is all a blogfest and linkwhoring and all the rest of it, but I promise you, I don’t actively seek to ‘up’ my ratings.
Sometimes I turn ‘sheep’ and feel that I should, recently I’ve been bleating all over the place following link after link and instead of merely flipping past sites I’ve taken the time to leave a comment (or 3) when the subject has interested me enough to do so and in the process I’ve virtually met some cracking people.

Yes Dan, I mean you. *grin*