The Obligatory "100 Things" Post

(This post was edited Mar. 19, 2010, and re-edited April 26, 2011.)


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 was a nurse anesthetist in the Air Force. Now he is a director of an anesthesia department at a local hospital.

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

13. Now we are in Huntsville, AL and plan to stay for good!

14. We have 4 kids. Emily is 19, Noah is 15, Halle is 12, and Joel is 10.

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 15 years ago.

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

23. My husband retired from the Air Force on Jan. 1, 2010.

24. If he hadn't found a great job here, our second choice would have been Omaha.

25. We only have about 2 1/2 to 3 years to go. Time to start planning our dream house. We made a last minute decision to retire, so didn't build a house. But we found a great one anyhow.

26. I love looking at home plans. No need to look any longer!

27. I am a Christian.

27. We attend a great church here and I sing on the praise team.

28. We have a 8yo wire-haired fox terrier named Campbell and a 4yo Great Dane named Rory.

29. I have 9 nieces and nephews and 6 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. Hopefully we'll plan another cruise soon.

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 don't get KLOVE here.

40. So I mostly listen to XM 32: The Message, although I've become a recent "Rick and Bubba" convert on The River 100.3.

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

50. My favorite one is HGTV. I'm not sure I have a favorite anymore.

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

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

53. 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.

54. 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 5 years ago.

55. I am a fast reader.

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

57. 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.

58. If I don't have a book in my hand, and I'm not watching TV or singing, I might be reading a book on my iPhone using the Kindle for iPhone app. I think every book I have on it is one I got for free (and they aren't all the classics, either).

58. If I'm not doing any of the above, I'm probably online.

59. I have had some kind of online account since 1993.

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

61. My first web page was on Prodigy. Then I moved to Geocities, and finally here to Blogger.

62. I prefer blogging. It's quicker and easier than maintaining a regular webpage.

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

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

65. But I stay home with my kids.

66. I homeschooled my kids until this school year. Now the three youngest are in a small private Christian school and my oldest is in community college.

67. Yes, they get plenty of socialization.

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

69. I want to visit Hawaii some day.

70. And Alaska.

71. 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 move. I am thrilled to be back in the South again!

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

73. I don't anymore. My fingers go numb. I had carpal tunnel surgery in both hands (not at same time... one in February, one 3 weeks ago) and they feel so much better, I may give it a try again soon.

74. I like crossword puzzles and word games.

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

76. I like to play the piano.

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

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

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

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

81. I also love a good chicken alfredo.

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

83. Ditto with doing laundry. I don't mind washing it, but I wish someone else would put it away. I'm enjoying it more these days; maybe because I feel like I have more time to do it now that I'm not trying to teach the kids and do laundry at the same time.

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

85. I have big feet: Ladies' size 10 1/2 - 11, Mens' size 9.

86. I hate shoe shopping.

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

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

89. I'd like to take the friends I have there and move them someplace warm (like here!) with me.

90. We were at the airport in Newark, NJ on 9/11/2001.

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

92. Yes, it was a scary thing.

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

94. We bought a Yukon XL 9 days later.

95. But we haven't given up flying.

96. I just wish it was cheaper.

97. If I had to work outside the home, I would want to own a bookstore, preferably one that specialized in children's and young adult literature.

98. I have a strange "affliction" that makes me burst out in song whenever I hear something that reminds me of a song lyric. It doesn't even have to be the actual lyrics to a song; it can be just slightly reminiscent of one.

99. I have a late-night load of school uniforms awaiting me...

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