Wednesday, June 08, 2005

My 100 Things

1. I don’t know if I can think up 100 things about myself.

2. I am a 45-year-old female.

3. I am married to a 46-year-old guy who does Internet security for a company you would know. He keeps a low profile to protect the company, so I can’t say the company name.

4. I have 5 kids--3 boys, 2 girls.

5. I, coincidentally, came from a family of 5 kids.

6. I was the oldest child and the only girl.

7. It is great being the oldest.

8. Being the oldest has its disadvantages.

9. When you are the oldest child, you get to make all the mistakes first.

10. Your siblings should learn from your mistakes, but they generally don’t.

11. I thought at one time I would never be able to have children.

12. I have had 2 miscarriages. I never knew if they were boys or girls. I hope to get to meet them one day in heaven.

13. I thought when I had 3 boys that I was done for good.

14. God had other plans.

15. God (not Al Gore, as is widely circulated) created the Internet just so that I could meet my second husband. At least, that is how I see it.

16. My first husband had fidelity issues...he could not be faithful to one woman. I divorced him in 1994, four months after the birth of our third son.

17. I was single for about 3 years when I had a sudden and strong urge to buy a computer. I did not know why the urge was so strong at the time.

18. I met my soon-to-be 2nd husband on an online matchmaking service (now defunct) called “The Christian Connection.”

19. My family, including my father, a retired Highway Patrolman, thought I had lost my mind to use an online matchmaking service.

20. All my big, burly brothers, my mother, and my father accompanied on my first “date” with my Internet love.

21. After a very thorough interrogation, I was permitted to date sans familia!

22. Our first solo date was to The Old Spaghetti Factory, a neat, refurbished warehouse in Nashville. Incidentally, if you notice on the map, it is just a hop, skip and a jump from where my great-great-great-great-great-granddad, James Robertson, founded Fort Nashborough, the beginnings of Nashville. Cool, huh?

23. After a year and a half of very unconventional dating, he proposed in front of both sets of our parents on one knee (his mother made him spit his gum out first!) We married on July 4, 1998. The whole country is nice enough to celebrate our anniversary every year.

24. My husband has absolutely no excuse for forgetting an anniversary.

25. We moved from the South to the North for one year.

26. I cried for a whole year.

27. We moved back to the South.

28. I think that the South is the ONLY place to live, but I am partial.

29. I never thought I would have a daughter.

30. I have 2 daughters.

31. All my kids have Bible names...Daniel, Samuel, Micah, Sarah, and Hannah.

32. My husband has a Bible name...Timothy.

33. I am the only one without a Bible name. sniff sniff!!! But "Dana" is not as common as some other names, so I like it just fine. It suits me.

34. I used to have pets, but they were all eaten by wild animals, caught in traps by an evil neighbor (which I cannot prove,) or ran away. (Update: we have now replaced said lost animals with 2 dogs and a cat.)

35. I once owned the stupidest registered Golden Retriever in the world. She would not stay home, and she chewed up everything of value, including our back door.

36. She now lives with a little old widow and her granddaughter on the next street. The widow feeds the dog hot biscuits, and she is fat as a tick. I am glad the dog is “protecting” the widow and the little girl. She does bark well.

37. We have one part-time cat. She divides her time among neighbors. The rest of the cats have, sadly, become coyote food.

38. My husband, my older kids, and I are all believing, practicing Christians.

39. I take my faith very seriously.

40. I have very little patience with people who do not take their faith seriously. I feel you should believe and have some zeal or don’t believe, but get off the fence.

41. I am a people-lover.

42. I generally believe that most people are good, and I think the best of others until they show me otherwise.

43. I love to observe human behavior. I think they call it people-watching.

44. I am a night owl. I think best after 11 p.m.

45. My mother is a morning person. We drive each other crazy.

46. My mother and I are virtual carbon copies. It is scary. We can wear each other’s clothes, shoes, hats, whatever. Our feet were once exactly the same. (We have gotten older now, and feet change.)

47. My mother and I have some sort of mental connection. We dial the phone at exactly the same moment, at all different times of the day.

48. My next-youngest brother has the same mental connection with Mom.

49. My brother and I always call Mom at the same time, and she has to pick one of us to talk to, just like always.

50. I love my brother.

51. I have not always loved my brother.

52. My brother was as mean as a snake when we were kids. He got bettah! (A reference to a scene from the “Holy Grail” movie.)

53. My family used to always watch “A Christmas Story,” “Raising Arizona,” “Christmas Vacation,” or “Monte Python and the Holy Grail” whenever we got together. It was always as funny the 75th time as the first time.

54. Some of these movies had bad words. Now we say, “What were we thinking?” Now we like to watch edited movies...all the laughs, none of the bad stuff.

55. I have 3 other brothers who are very different than the oldest one. It is as though they were raised by different parents. Two are married, and one is a bachelor living in Germany.

56. I adore my parents. They are both superlative people.

57. My dad has a voice like Pavarotti. No kidding.

58. Mom had a voice like Julie Andrews. It has gotten lower in range with age but it is still pretty. Now she is more of a Karen Carpenter, if you are old enough to know who that is. If you aren’t, you need to look her up. She was awesome.

59. My parents sound like a pair of songbirds when they sing.

60. I did not inherit their singing talent. That is one trait I would have loved to have gotten. I was good enough, however, to make the chorus in college. I love singing a capella. It’s a pure sound.

61. My dad can paint, draw, write, sing, play music, speak well in public...pretty much anything he wants to do. Dad is right-brained.

62. I got my creative juices from my dad, and my left-brain-ed-ness from my mom.

63. I grew up with 3 sets of grandparents, due to divorce. I thought everyone had three sets.

64. I loved all my grandparents, but I guess I idolized my maternal grandparents.

65. I re-named my grandparents when I was born. The other grandkids had to suck it up and change what they called them. I called my grandmother “Nanny” and my grandfather “Cocky.” Don’t ask me where I got those names.

66. My uncle said that my relationship with my grandmother was much like the relationship between Jesus and John--the disciple whom Jesus loved. Our spirits were indeed quite bonded.

67. Nanny’s death in 1987 was the hardest thing I have ever had to endure.

68. My other grandmother’s death in 2004 was probably the next-hardest.

69. My “Cocky’s” death in 1989 has never really seemed real because I did not get to come home for the funeral. I was a military wife in South Carolina at the time.

70. I am an enigma to most of my friends.

71. I have no patience with rude or foolish people.

72. I cannot stand it when people do not give me their full attention when they are talking to me. I try to give others my full attention when they are talking to me. That is just common courtesy.

73. I could care less if you are rich or poor, fat or thin, tall or short, toothless or have the perfect smile. I love all kinds of people. But I especially love poor people. They make the best friends. That seemed to be a secret that Jesus knew, too.

74. I now go by “Oprah’s rule.” Believe people the first time they treat you a certain way. Don’t wait until the 29th time to “get it.”

75. I “get it” a lot more now than I used to. I was raised with rose-colored glasses by good, protective parents, and I turned out a bit naive. I still get blind-sided every now and then, but it is just not as often now.

76. I live by the golden rule. I try to always treat others the way I would want to be treated or better.

77. I believe that children have feelings and should be treated with dignity. God believes that children are quite special, too. That is why I think that anyone who mistreats a child will have an especially rude awakening on Judgment Day!

78. I don’t believe that children are so important that you should have to interrupt a conversation with an adult to acknowledge a child. The child is not going to die if he/she has to learn to be respectful and patient and wait 30 seconds to be acknowledged.

80. I believe in the Trinity-- the Godhead--three in one--- as well as the deity of Christ, the power of God, the work of the Holy Spirit.

81. I believe that every word of the Bible is inspired by God.

82. I believe that each one of us does come with an instruction manual, and it is called the Bible.

83. I believe that God had a plan for everything that matters in our life. The plan is in the instruction manual, the Bible.

84. I believe we can understand the Bible and that God is going to hold us accountable if we don’t try.

85. Believing firmly that there is a pattern for everything we need, I don’t have a lot of patience for people who have never read the plan and claim that there is no plan and that we can all safely do what we want.

86. I hate sin, but I love sinners.

87. Some sinners are more lovable than others. Some sinners, like some Christians, are just down right despicable.

88. I am definitely “old school.” I still believe in men holding doors for women, saying “Yes, Ma’am” and “Yes, Sir” to anyone older than me, and pulling over for a passing funeral procession. I believe in waiting 'til marriage for sex, and I believe that God made marriage between Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.

89. I love our country, the flag, and our military. I am not ashamed to say it or show it.

90. I love to read, but I rarely have time to do it while raising children. They come first. There might be a little time left for reading by the time I raise all five of them. When I do read, I love murder mysteries best of all. I also like American prose and poetry.

91. I am fiercely competitive, but I try to be a good sport when I lose. I am always up for a good competition, if the old body will cooperate.

92. I am most afraid of snakes, mice, sharks, alligators/crocodiles, and flying roaches the size of Texas, in that order. Spiders only bother me if they are poisonous.

93. I am a neat person who lives with 6 messies. I have tried to reform the messies, but I suspect I will die trying. I firmly believe that it is more important to have a happy home than a clean one. If you feel differently, you need not visit here. If you don’t mind sharing the couch with some unfolded clothes, come on over.

94. My favorite perfume is Aqua Di Gio by Armani. My favorite flavor is chocolate. I prefer fake jewelry to real stuff, but I do like the metal part to be real gold or silver. The only "real" jewelry I own consists of my wedding rings and a strand of pearls my husband gave me before we married.

95. I never snuck out of the house once as a teenager. I would kill my kids (not literally, just their back sides) if I found out that they snuck out. Some of my friends don’t know that their kids sneak out. My husband snuck out many times as a teen. But it’s cool; he’s already confessed to his parents.

96. Red and Purple are my favorite colors (not together, though.) I wear a lot of black because it is slenderizing, and I need a little slenderizing. O.k. maybe a lot of slenderizing. I don’t worry about my weight except as it relates to health. I am not vain. I’m lucky that my husband likes robust Italian women. Please don’t tell him I’m not Italian. There is nothing wrong with being thin if that is who you are. But real women are not all skinny. If you want proof, go look at a picture of Botticelli’s “Springtime.” (“La Primavera”) or something by Peter Paul Rubens done in the pre-Barbie days.

97. I love to cook, but I prefer to do things from scratch rather than a cookbook.I come from a long line of from-scratch cooks. I do use cookbooks occasionally.

98. I also come from a long line of over-achievers.... Charlemagne, Jonathan Edwards, Thomas Jefferson, Aaron Burr, Eli Whitney (inventor of cotton gin,) James Robertson (founder of Nashville.) It’s no wonder that I have a big mouth and big ambitions.

99. I did not think I could think of 100 things to write about myself.

100. The ground is level at the foot of the cross. My sins as well as yours put Jesus on the cross. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God, so no one is any better than anyone else. God loves us all and wants us all to come to repentance so that we can be saved. If you are not sure how to be saved, e-mail me, and we’ll talk. It’s in the New Testament. “Seek and ye shall find.” Read it, believe it, and do it!

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