The Obligatory "100 Things" Post

1. I was a skinny child and a fat teen.

2. I played the French horn for 3 years.

3. I was yearbook co-editor and #3 in my high school class.

4. I babysat for the vice-principal. I hung out more with my teachers than I did the other kids.

5. Aside from my college years in the dorm, I lived in the same house from the time I came home from the hospital until I married my husband.

6. Said house was located in the same town as the restaurant famous for its Throwed Rolls.

7. I graduated with honors from Southeast Missouri State University with a degree in Home Economics.

8. No, I can't sew. It wasn't that kind of Home Economics.

9. I met my husband at church in the town where we were both attending college.

10. It was not love at first site. He was too skinny and had on a 3-pc. suit. Thankfully, I looked past that.

11. My husband is a nurse anesthetist in the Air Force.

12. We have lived in Cape Girardeau, MO; Dayton, OH (twice); Ft. Walton Beach, FL; Rockville, MD; and Omaha, NE.

13. Now we are in northern CA, between San Francisco and Sacramento.

14. We have 4 kids. Emily is 16, Noah is 12, Halle is 9, and Joel is 7.

15. Noah was born at home. (No, I didn't plan it that way.)

16. He was born on Emily's 4th birthday.

17. Having babies is easy for me. It's raising them that makes me scream for an epidural.

18. Some days I'm glad other women want epidurals. It pays the bills.

19. Other days I wish they'd suck it up so my husband could be home for dinner.

20. I like Dean Koontz novels. The man has an out-of-this-world imagination and a great sense of humor.

21. I have 1 older brother and 1 older sister living. Another older brother was killed in a car accident 8 years ago.

22. When I hear fiddle music, I think of him and miss him.

23. When my husband retires from the Air Force, we're thinking of going back to Omaha.

24. Or somewhere near Huntsville, AL, where my sister lives. Or .... how do we decide?

25. We only have about 2 1/2 to 3 years to go. Time to start planning our dream house.

26. I love looking at home plans.

27. I am a Christian.

27. Back in Omaha, we attended church at least twice a week. Some Sundays we were there nearly all day. We didn't mind.

28. But the dog might have.

29. I have 9 nieces and nephews and 4 great-nieces/nephews.

30. I was the baby of my family. But according to Dr. Leman, I'm also a functional first born and functional only child.

31. I think he meant dysfunctional.

32. I like Disney stuff. We are DVC members.

33. My favorite vacation so far was our Disney cruise in Dec. 2003.

34. We went again in September 2005.

35. That would have been my favorite vacation, but I broke my foot falling down some steps on Grand Cayman.

36. If we don't get to do another one before Emily graduates, we plan on taking another Disney cruise then.

37. I like to watch movies, but am getting fed up with the profanity and sex in them. It's getting hard to find something worth watching these days.

38. I like Jim Brickman. I also have a collection of Barry Manilow albums and CDs.

39. Until I got my van with XM radio, I listened to KLOVE. We can't get KLOVE too well where we live.

40. So I mostly listen to XM 32: The Message.

41. I love to sing.

42. Emily doesn't like it when I sing, even though everyone says I have a good voice.

43. I tell Emily to live with it. When she pays the mortgage, she can tell me where I can sing.

44. Some days I am a soprano. Most days I sing alto or even tenor.

45. I am a wannabe scrapbooker.

46. I have 2 bags full of Creative Memories supplies I need to use.

47. I have about 15 years' worth of pictures to sort and put in albums.

48. Not all of them are in print. The last few years are on CDs or on my hard drive.

49. I want need a housekeeper.

50. I should be doing something other than writing my "100 Things" post right now.

51. Those other things can wait another 30 minutes.

52. We don't have cable television any more. We have way too many channels.

53. My favorite one is HGTV.

54. I used to watch Trading Spaces on TLC. On our first Disney cruise in Dec. 2003, I met Paige Davis.

55. I have a picture of us together, plus an autographed copy of her book.

56. I have an autographed picture of her husband, too. He is a Broadway actor who played Lumiere in Beauty and the Beast and Scar in The Lion King.

57. I'd like to make it to NYC some day to see a Broadway show... maybe Wicked, which we did get to see in San Francisco 3 years ago.

58. I am a fast reader.

59. In college, I stayed up one night and read all of Gone With the Wind. It only took me 5 or 6 hours.

60. I still have a hard time putting down a good book. These days it is liable to be a Karen Kingsbury novel or something by Francine Rivers... or a host of other Christian authors.

61. If I'm not reading, I might be online.

62. I have been online since 1993.

63. I had a Prodigy account (it came with the computer) and can still remember my account name (just a bunch of letters and numbers).

64. My first web page was on Prodigy. Then I moved to Geocities. There is still some stuff there.

65. I prefer blogging. It's quicker and easier.

66. I hung out at the ParentsPlace chat rooms a lot back then.

67. I was known as CareerMom. Most people thought it meant I worked out of the home.

68. But I stay home with my kids.

69. I homeschool my kids.

70. Yes, they get plenty of socialization.

71. Emily would argue with that, but she is thinking of socializing, not socialization.

72. I want to visit Hawaii some day.

73. And Alaska.

74. I'm sometimes a little nervous about moving to CA. The farthest west I've ever been is Kearney, NE. I don't like California and cannot wait to get out.

75. I used to do a lot of counted cross stitch.

76. I don't anymore. My fingers go numb.

77. I like crossword puzzles and word games.

78. The best puzzles are by Dell. "Dude, you should have bought a Dell."

79. I like to play the piano.

80. But I'm only good enough to play for fun.

81. I used to be a La Leche League leader.

82. I nursed for 8 years with only a 2 1/2-month break between my 2nd and 3rd children.

83. I like to eat at Japanese hibachi restaurants. Hibachi chicken is my favorite dish there.

84. I also love a good chicken alfredo.

85. I like to cook, but I hate cleaning the kitchen.

86. Ditto with doing laundry. I don't mind washing it, but I wish someone else would put it away.

87.This is taking me longer than I thought it would!

88. I have big feet: Ladies' size 1o 1/2, Mens' size 9.

89. I hate shoe shopping.

90. I'm not a fan of cold and snow.

91. Nebraska has lots of cold and often lots of snow.

92. I'd like to take the friends I have there and move them someplace warm with me.

93. We were at the airport in Newark on 9/11/2001.

94. We were there when the towers were struck. If we could have seen through the smoke, we would have seen the second tower hit.

95. Yes, it was a scary thing.

96. No, we did not get our vacation to Disney World that was supposed to have begun that day.

97. We bought our Yukon XL 9 days later.

98. But we haven't given up flying.

99. I just wish it was cheaper.

100. I'm glad I made it to 100.

(Edited 3/12/08)