Meme, back from road trip

I'm back from my short road trip to visit my family in southern Ontario. It was a short visit, but great to see my family. I don't get home often enough. I didn't take a single picture while I was there since I've been sick with a nasty cough and cold since last week. My Mom is a nurse, so I had her fetching pills and juice for me. :-)

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I guess the meme is next - my post today is a little disjointed, thanks to the many versions of tylenol I've been taking lately! lol

Cdncowgirl tagged me this time and I'm happy to participate, since it is a fun one.

Six Things You Don't Know About Me

1. The origins of the nickname "littlekeebler" - since Cdn requested that - here is the kind of boring answer. I'm quite short - about 5' even. Waayyyy back in university we were out with a group of friends and the weather turned cold. I didn't have a coat or a sweater, so we stopped by a friend's place and he lent me a hoodie. This friend was about 6'2"... Another friend laughed about how big the sweater was and they flipped up the hood - and someone shouted - "hey, a keebler elf!". And the name stuck. I always seem to have some sort of nickname - half-pint, littlekeebler, keeb, shorty (real original...).
2. I am a total shop-a-holic. I love shopping and spending money on expensive things - horse related or not. I was practically raised in a mall - so I'm blaming my family! hhahaha - just kidding (sort of). I try very hard to resist my shopping urges, as I would like to save up money for my retirement!
3. I looooove to travel. I daydream about all of the trips I could take if only I had more time off work and more money. I don't do budget travel well, I like to be in clean and safe hotels. So far, I've been to England 2x, Scotland, France, Switzerland, Mexico, Aruba, Alaska and many other parts of the US, as well as lots of places in Canada. Places I'd love to go: Sweden (a friend of mine breeds Lippizzaners!), Russia, Italy, Germany, Peru, Brazil, Costa Rica, Vietnam, anywhere in Africa...
4. I studied five different languages in university. French, Spanish, Russian, Italian and Polish. I don't remember much anymore, except for French. I use French about 40% of the time in my day-to-day work. I love being (almost) bilingual. I think it is good for the brain.
5. I collect information - books, papers, magazine clippings, how-to's, recipes, etc. on all of my favourite hobbies. I also don't like clutter, so I have binders for all of my different collections. A horse info binder, a workout binder, several binders of recipes, etc. Instead of keeping piles of magazines around, I rip out all of the stuff I want to save and put it in my binder. I also have tonnes of electronic files - pdfs, digital photos, web links. I tend to gather lots of information and then not do anything constructive with it, except organize it!
6. I'm a "what you see is what you get" sort of person - I'm an introvert, so I'm not a big social butterfly. If you are a friend or acquaintance and I tell you that you look nice, I mean it. If I offer to help you move or something - I mean it. I can often be quite blunt, but honest. I try to be diplomatic if I can - I guess it is the libra in me. The one contradiction to this is that my sense of humour is very sarcastic and this often confuses people. Once they get to know me, I've been told that I can be quite funny.

*Phew* That was harder than I thought! I tag anyone that reads this and wants to participate. Leave a note in the comments to your responses in your blog...