my 100 things

for those of you who don't know, it's a blogging tradition to post 100 things about yourself in honor of your 100th post. well folks, this is number 100 (took me long enough, don't you think?) so, drumroll, please...

100) i met my husband when i was 16.
99) we weren’t high school sweethearts and didn’t even date until after we both graduated high school.
98) my first job was teaching karate lessons when i was 14 years old.
97) i didn’t get paid for it until i was 16, but my dad got a break on the price of my own lessons.
96) i got my black belt when i was 14.
95) i competed in lots of national tournaments and one international tournament while in high school.
94) i’ve broken my nose three times.
93) twice, because i got punched in the nose during karate tournaments. i won both fights.
92) once playing powder puff football my freshman year of college.
91) the second break was the worst, the only break that was crooked and needed to be set. the british girls’ coach set it for me on the spot while i gritted my teeth and clenched my fists. but that’s a post unto itself.
90) the only time i went to the hospital was for the last break, which was also the only break to bleed.

89) i also tried kickboxing, but quickly realized it wasn’t for me.
88) i didn’t like sparring men twice my size or going home with a headache each night.
87) i played tennis for several years into high school. it’s a much safer sport.
86) now, i’m a runner. but, a slow runner.
85) i ran the dallas white rock marathon this last december. all 26.2 miles. it was only the fourth official race i’ve ever run as an adult.
84) the first was five years ago on thanksgiving morning. it was a 5k. i was beat by a 9-year-old boy.
83) luke was born in a birth center which means . . .
82) i’ve only been to the hospital once in my life, for breaking my nose.
81) i decided i wanted my children to be born naturally before i ever got pregnant.
80) not because i’m some super woman. i’m definitely not.

79) but because i really believe that the research shows that natural child birth is best for the mom AND baby.
78) i don’t think less of my friends who’ve had epidurals.
77) or scheduled c-sections.
76) but, giving birth naturally was one of the most empowering things i’ve ever done. i know that sounds new agey, but i don’t mean it to. it was just . . . amazing. but also intense and painful.
75) we use cloth diapers most of the time.
74) some of my friends think i’m a little granola and i’m okay with that.
73) my favorite beverages are sweet tea and coffee. but only good coffee.
72) currently, i love peet’s coffee. my friend stephanie introduced me to peet.
71) i rarely drink soft drinks because i don’t care for the strong carbonation and “bite.”
70) my favorite food genre is italian.

69) i worked at the olive garden for about ten months and still love to eat there.
68) as a server, customers often asked me if our chef was italian. i usually just smiled. i wanted to tell the truth: our head line cook, along with most of the kitchen staff, was mexican. and our culinary manager was american, mid-western american. but he didn’t cook much.
67) it probably isn’t a surprise at this point that my favorite fast food is fazoli’s.
66) it makes me very sad that there isn’t a fazoli’s in north texas.
65) i’ve grown to like tex-mex since moving to texas.
64) but, there is good tex-mex in indiana, too. for some reason, people don’t believe me when i say that. but, there are a lot of mexican migrant workers in indiana and, thus, a lot of authentic tex-mex restaurants.
63) mostly, i still go for the chips and queso. but, now i eat the guacamole, too.
62) as a kid, my favorite food was fried chicken. as a former southerner, my mom makes great fried chicken.
61) i grew up with two younger sisters, so i don’t know much about raising a boy.
60) dr. dobson’s book, bringing up boys, was my first purchase after we found out we were having a boy. it’s a great book.

59) i’m thrilled to be raising a boy. he’s already so much fun! and energy.
58) as i was growing up, i wanted to be an astronaut, a veterinarian, and an artist.
57) i was six when the challenger disaster occurred.
56) i decided not to be an astronaut when my friends told me i would die if i went to space.
55) i decided not to be a veterinarian when my parents told me i would have to clean up after the animals.
54) i love to create, whether with words, paint or with the shutter: in addition to painting and pencil drawing, i like photography a lot.
53) in high school, i really thought i might go to art school after graduation.
52) our high school art teacher sent us on a three-person field trip (with a friend’s mom as chaperone) to the local, well-known art school to check it out.
51) my guy friend walked unknowingly into a nude drawing class. we were all three naïve enough not to know they had nude drawing classes. that’s when i decided not to go to art school.
50) now, i’m an artist only on random occasions, but i am a writer. at least on this blog. someday, i hope to get paid for what i write.

49) the first job i ever got paid for (besides babysitting) was teaching karate lessons.
48) i’ve also been paid for asking, do you want fries with that? at chick-fil-a. that gig lasted about three months.
47) and for driving a water truck at a gravel pit one summer. i got to wear a hard hat and steel-toed boots. it was a fun job.
46) and for washing windows. i fell off a six foot ladder, but i’m okay. thanks for asking.
45) and for editing our college newspaper. so, i guess i have been paid for what i write.
44) and for guiding rafts safely down the rapids of the arkansas river in colorado.
43) i once fell out of the boat i was guiding.
42) it happened in the rapid where the photographers take your photo, so i have series of pictures somewhere of the entire happening.
41) the people in my raft didn’t know i was swimming in very big waves until the photographer on the rock got their attention and pointed at me.
40) now i get paid to make sure other people do what they are supposed to do for a really cool ministry. it’s a lot of fun and i can’t imagine doing anything else.

39) except for being a full-time stay-at-home mom. which is what i’ll do once michael gets a job, hopefully later this summer.
38) my first job post-college was working with the navigators in manila, the philippines.
37) i lived there for a year with four other post-college 20-somethings.
36) we worked with students at ateno university and university of the philippines.
35) it was a life-changing year in many respects.
34) through that year, God developed in me a heart and passion for adoption. thankfully, michael is also excited to one day adopt one or more children.
33) it was also a year in which my relationship with God grew in very intense ways. i still can’t really explain it.
32) and, it was a year in which i got to do a lot of writing: journaling, creative writing and emailing to my boyfriend-now-husband back home (we have a large box of printed email from that year).
31) i made a quick decision to come back to the states when things started to feel unsafe to us in our area of the city.
30) i then had the opportunity to work with the navs at purdue, where michael was still a student.

29) for the first time in our relationship, we lived near each other.
28) and we’ve never lived apart since.
27) before we moved to dallas, i got paid 40 hours a week to do about 4 hours of work. i worked with, by far, the most unique people i’ve ever worked with.
26) it was the industrial engineering department at purdue. enough said?
25) they were a quirky bunch. one guy was asian and i could only understand about half of what he said.
24) since they didn’t have much work for me at the time, and had hired me to work on a paper they were still working on research for, i had a lot of time to entertain myself.
23) that is when i first started blogging, almost four years ago.
22) this is the third blog i’ve had in those four years and i plan to keep it for awhile, though michael would like me to change the name (he can’t spell it).
21) i also got to surf the internet and look for a job in dallas.
20) when michael and i got married, he wanted to be a dentist

19) but, we changed courses pretty dramatically when he wasn’t accepted to dental school and ended up here in dallas.
18) after sitting in class for a week, michael came home and said, i’m so glad i’m not a dental student!
17) we’re about to have our second child who will be born at the same birth center where luke was born, assuming we still live in dallas at go-time.
16) this time, we’re not finding out the baby’s gender. i like surprises; for michael, it’s more of an economic deal. he doesn’t want to pay the out-of-pocket costs for the ultrasound.
15) we’d like to have a large-by-today’s-standards family. maybe five kids.
14) probably at some point we will adopt, probably locally, but we’ve not ruled out international adoption.
13) we have a multi-racial family by marriage and we’d be excited to have non-white children in our own immediate family.
12) i have been out of the country three times: to the philippines, to greece and to canada.
11) actually, i went to the philippines twice.
10) i went to athens, greece on a mission trip while in college.

9) i went to niagra, canada with some friends while visiting new york. the state, not the city.
8) in greece, we got in “trouble” for climbing on some ruins in corinth. i don’t know exactly what happened, but our greek friends said it wasn’t pretty.
7) our greek friends also thought it was hilarious to say, it’s greek to you!
6) the canadian side of niagra is really pretty. the american side is really dumpy.
5) but the falls from either side are beautiful and romantic, if you’re with a certain someone.
4) but, i also think gazebos are pretty romantic. if you want to know why, make sure you read our love story.
3) and camping under the stars, which we haven’t done much since moving to texas.
2) it's taken me a long time to compile this list. uncharacteristically, i've been working on it for months.
1) i'm glad it's done.