100 Things about Me

In honor of my 100th post, I am attempting the traditional "100 things" post. I will try not to bore everyone to tears as they are reading this. However, one hundred things is A LOT of things to read all at once. If you feel you need a breather, you can stop along the way to refresh yourself with strong coffee.

Here we go.

1. I have a teddy bear

2. His name is Shagga (hence the name of this blog)

3. We share the same birthday

4. I am one year older than he is

5. I don't usually spend a lot of time talking about myself

6. That's why I'm horrible at job interviews

7. Most of my jobs came from actually knowing someone who worked there first, which goes to prove that it's not what you know but who you know.

8. Speaking of jobs, my first one (that I can remember) was working at my Aunt's ice cream place. I loved that job - we got to eat the mistakes!

9. I also worked as a waitress at Golden Corral (my sister worked there first).

10. I HATED that job! and vowed never to work in food service again.

11. I have never worked in retail. My friends in retail say that's a good thing.

12. I finally found my "calling" working in an office -- I'm pretty good at organizing and telling other people what to do.

13. Now I do bookkeeping and I like that, too.

14. I love to balance my checkbook. To the penny. I know, I'm weird!

15. I like to help other people balance their checkbook. I want them to feel as good about it as I do. Most of the time, they don't. But I still feel good.

16. I have never worked in a bank. If they only knew how good I would be...

17. Enough about work, let's talk about school. (I'm such a nerd!) I only went to half a year of Kindergarten cause my birthday's in December.

18. They let me graduate to First Grade after passing the First Grade Entrance Exam with flying colors. Yes, I know my Primary, Secondary, AND Flying Colors!!!

19. I went to two different schools for second grade.

20. One of those schools was the same school my mother attended when she was little.

21. I played clarinet starting in sixth grade.

22. Then I got braces on my teeth, and my First Chair position flew out the window.

23. I finally got used to the braces and my chair came flying back in. (love that picture) I played in the band through the 9th grade.

24. I ran track and cross country in Junior High. I still see myself as a runner even though I probably could not run down the street without getting winded. Ok, I probably couldn't run past three houses without getting winded. A girl can dream can't she?

25. I didn't do sports in high school. But I liked to cheer for my team. "If you can't be an athlete, be an athletic supporter!" :)


Now might be the time for that coffee break.


26. I love to sing! I should have put this one first, as it's probably the one that most people know about me.

27. I've been singing ever since I can remember. I used to wear out our records and then cassette tapes.

28. When I was two, I was in the hospital for spinal meningitis. I was in a coma for a little while.

29. My mom came to the hospital and knew I was on the mend when she could hear me singing down the hallway.

30. I've sung in church choirs all my life. Some of my best memories are of children's choir productions at Christmas and Easter.

31. I even sang in the adult choir when I was a kid (thanks Jerry!)

32. I sang in several choirs in high school. I'm so thankful for the great Music Department my school had.

33. I failed my voice class the first year of University. Actually it was an incomplete for not going to enough recitals and eventually the "I" changed to an "F."

34. I sang in a traveling singing/signing choir for two years in Bible school.

35. We got to go to Jamaica one summer!

36. I got the worst sunburn ever in my life in Jamaica.

37. After graduating from Bible school, I started leading worship at our local church. I haven't stopped.

38. I married a man that likes to sing, too.

39. We sang together at our wedding.

40. We've been singing together ever since.

41. I love it when he helps me lead worship. When we first started, I sometimes had a hard time with being the "leader" and would try to make him do it. Eventually, we came to the understanding that it works best when I lead and he backs me up with the praying and encouraging. This applies only to the worship leading experience. In everything else, I definitely let him take the lead!

42. I always knew I would marry my best friend. I knew it wouldn't be a blind date or anything like that.

43. Billy is still my best friend and I would rather be with him than anyone else in the world.

(44. This post has already taken me over an hour and we're not even half-way there...)

45. Billy and I met in August 1993

46. We started dating in March 94

47. We were engaged in June 94

48. And married in November 94

49. Billy was attending university when we were dating/engaged. At the time, I had NO interest in finishing my education. For a couple of reasons...

50. I hate homework!

51. I am a bad procrastinator. (are there any "good" ones?)

52. At his graduation in 96, I got inspired and said, "I can do that!"

53. So, I started back to school in the fall of 96 and finished in May 98.

54. I got strait A's attending those two years and graduated Magna Cum Laude.

55. It was a Bachelor of Applied Arts and Sciences. The emphasis was in Business. Those two don't really make sense together, but I put all of my different schools and credits together to make this one work.

56. I'm almost done paying off my student loan. Yippee!

57. I really don't like working away from home.

58. When I did work outside the home, I used all my vacation days as soon as I accrued them. I'm not one that would have weeks saved up after a couple of years. I work to live not live to work.

59. Early in our married life, I worked (how did we get back on this subject???) a full-time job and kept saying, "When I get pregnant, I can quit working." Finally, I decided, "I'm just going to quit now!" So I did. That was in Jan 2001.

60. I've never been pregnant. I guess it wasn't the stress of working preventing it.

61. I have been through lots of infertility treatments.

62. It was not fun!

63. I hate needles poked into me. There were plenty of needles during that time in my life.

64. Ironically, I had to have blood drawn for the adoption as well. Apparently, if you want to be a mother, you have to have needles stuck into you.

65. Even though the process was hard, I'm so glad we went through it. Billy and I learned how to lean on each other more. And God was truly faithful through it all.

66. Our adoption of Abby was God-ordained from the beginning. It was a match made in Heaven - by God Himself. She fits us like a glove and brings such joy to our lives! That's why I mostly write about her on this here blog.


Time for another break???


67. Now for some trivial stuff... My favorite color is blue.

68. I like blue paired mostly with white, but sometimes yellow, or pink.

69. I love office/school supplies. I can wander around Staples for hours.

70. I would love to have a laminating machine.

71. My favorite kind of pen is paper mate felt tip pens. They come in all different colors.

72. I just bought a set with purple, pink and aqua last night. They are so pretty!

73. I love movies! While we were both working (aahhhh the working again!) and had no children, Billy and I went to the movies almost every weekend and then rented some, too. Now? not so much.

74. We did go see a movie last night for our Valentine date. We saw "Music and Lyrics." Cute movie, although we could have done without the scantly clad young woman dancing a rather suggestive dance a couple of times.

75. I love it that my man likes to watch "chick flicks" with me.

76. I cannot watch horror movies and even some suspense movies are too much for me.

77. I am a thinker. I will think about the plot of a movie (or book) for days and try to think what happens next or how something that happend in the movie is technically impossible because of this reason or that.

78. That is why I try not to watch movies on Saturday night, cause I don't want to be thinking of the movie while trying to lead worship on Sunday morning.

79. I like to read a good novel every once in a while.

80. If I get into the plot, I can usually finish the book in a couple of days.

81. I can ususally finish a good non-fiction book in a couple of years. Or, never. I do try to read them. But it is more like homework than pleasure.

82. I do like biographies, too. Sometimes.

83. I like it when a movie inspires me to read the book, like Pride and Predjudice.

84. Or when a historical fiction book inspires me to learn more about that period in history.

85. I love my family.

86. I have two sisters and one brother.

87. I am happy to say that we all get along fairly well together. And we're friends as adults.

88. My parents have been married since 1964. And they still love each other!

89. Both sets of my grandparents were married over 50 years before death parted them.

90. I am so thankful for my Godly heritage.

91. I usually like making lists. This one has been hard! It's now been over two hours in the making. But I have had a few distractions...

92. My favorite food is Mexican. Everything EXCEPT the beans.

93. I HATE beans!

94. Except green beans. Those are OK.

95. I love my dogs!

96. I have two Australian Shepherds.

97. Their names came from movies I've seen. Imagine that.

98. Billy and I like to quote movies and try to guess which movie it came from. Recently, my daughter has started quoting movies. Too funny!

99. I like doing crafts: scrapbooks, painting, decorating, etc. This has recently surprised me because I never used to think of myself as an artistic person.

100. This is the longest post I've ever done. I am so glad this list is over cause now, I can write about Abby again....