My 100th Post!

I don't know if I should be pleased or embarrassed, but eitehr way, this will be my 100th post. Already. Boy, I sure do post a lot. What can I say? I have poor self-control when it comes to "expressing" myself! lol In "honor" of my 100th post, I'm going to do a list of "100 Things About Me". I've seen this on a couple of other blogs (Kat and Annie) so I thought I'd give it a shot, too. But I have to say...coming up with 100 things about myself is harder than I thought it'd be. (Who knew I would ever struggle for words?) So I guess I'll get to it and see if I come up with enough stuff to fill all the slots...here goes...brace yourselves....

1. I was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma back in 1963.
2. I have one sibling, a sister (Sherri).
3. Sherri cursed me with the nickname of "Sissy", apparently at or near the time of my birth. I've never forgiven her for it.
4. In addition to Oklahoma, I have lived in Delaware, Georgia, Japan, Alabama, New York, Mississippi, Montana, Florida and Texas.
5. I am exactly 1 year and 8 days younger than my sister.
6. My two youngest children are exactly 11 months and 9 days apart in ages.
7. I have 4 children.
8. Nicholas Wayne (born 1980)
9. Sherriann Desiree' (born 1987)
10. Randey Kaleb (born 1990)
11. Jacob Steed (born 1991)
12. I had a miscarriage on July 7, 1981. I didn't even know I was pregnant. Still broke my heart.
13. I am 6 days older than my husband, Randey. I hate those 6 days. Don't know why.
14. Randey is the romantic in our marriage.
15. I always get the date of our anniversary wrong. I have it in my head that it's the 21st, but it's the 20th. I think.
16. I played the tenor saxophone for about 2 weeks in 6th grade. Darn band lessons interfered with my social life...they were making us practice during recess. Please. Like that was going to work.
17. When I was 4 or 5 years old, the doctors told my parents that I had rheumatoid arthritis and would be in a wheel chair by the time I was 12. They were wrong. Thankfully.
18. I wanted to be a lawyer when I was in high school (I think I just like to argue, though, to tell you the truth. Seemed like a good vocation to do that).
19. I'm left-handed. But I can't use left-handed scissors. Go figure.
20. I have hazel eyes.
21. I fractured my ankle when I was 13. My daughter fractured hers in the same place when she was 13.
22. Can you believe I'm only up to number 22?
23. I gave birth to all three of my boys naturally...I had an epidural with my daughter. I highly recommend an epidural. Really. "Mother Earth" it all you want...but get the epidural.
24. Christmas is my favorite holiday (now there's a surprise, huh?).
25. I'm allergic to cats. But I love them. Especially kittens.
26. I loved to water ski when I was a kid.
27. I don't swim very well. Great incentive for staying up on the water skis.
28. I used to have very straight hair. The older I get, though, the curlier it gets.
29. Too much rain brings me down.
30. Too much sunshine and heat roasts my brain. Oh, wait a minute, that's the menopause, isn't it? (Come on - you KNEW I'd be sneaking in a menopause reference somewhere along the way, didn't you?)
31. I'm near-sighted. Not as near-sighted as my mom and my sister, but still near-sighted.
32. My husband is extremely far-sighted. A doctor once told us his far-sightedness and my near-sightedness might even out in our children and they might have perfect vision. Quack.
33. I'm afraid of spiders, snakes, rats and mice.
34. My favorite cake in the whole wide world is a Red Velvet cake. And nobody can make it like my Grandma McBride used to. Heaven on a cake plate, I kid you not. Ahhhhhhhh.
35. My favorite pie in the whole wide world is a cherry pie as made by my Grandma Steed.
36. My second favorite pie is called a Million Dollar Pie and it's so easy, even I can make it. Unfortunately, I can eat it even easier than I can make it which just doesn't help with that ever spreading arse I'm sportin'.
37. I'm generally a disaster in the kitchen. Don't like cooking, don't like cleaning up after cooking and I probably hold the record for the largest number of stove/oven fires without actually burning the house down.
38. I'm a crazy-scary Star Wars fan. (Another huge revelation, huh?)
39. I'm crazy about all things Harry Potter. (Yet one more big shock, no?)
40. I love and adore chocolate. I make near obscene moaning noises when I'm inside a Godiva store. I know. It shames me.
41. I love (most) Nicolas Cage movies. Probably because he reminds me of my oldest son. Very expressive face.
42. My sister and I are married to brothers. No. Not our own brothers. She and her husband (my husband's brother) have been married 28 years this month and my husband (her husband's brother) and I have been married over 18 years. People tend to hear banjo music when we try to explain our family tree (that's a vague...and disturbing... reference to the movie "Deliverance" for all of you under the age of 40).
43. I smoked for over 25 years. I quit almost 6 months ago, on Valentine's Day. Randey quit the next day. Yay!
44. I eat lemons...peel and all.
45. I don't eat seafood. Of any kind. Ever. At all.
46. I only drink iced tea unsweetened since my Grandma McBride passed away. No one makes sweet tea like she did.
47. I've driven from Oklahoma to Alabama, back to Oklahoma and up to Colorado, back to Oklahoma again and then all the way up to Plattsburgh, New York (close to the Canadian border) with just my 3 year old son for company. I was young and foolish. Obviously.
48. I would eat cake for breakfast every day of my life if I could (amazing how I think it's my metabolism that's keeping me chunky, huh?)
49. I don't make friends very easily.
50. I have a terribly, horribly hard time forgiving someone if I feel they've betrayed me. I'm working on that.
51. I wish I'd done this list on my 50th post instead of my 100th. Geez.
52. I hate to fly. It terrifies me. I used to fly often as a kid. I even flew in a little 4 seater plane from Oklahoma City to Mobile, Alabama. That was before my brain cells were fully developed. I was about 13. Do you know a 13 year old girl with fully developed brain cells? Liar. No, you don't.
53. I've been known to put up a Christmas tree on the last day of September. My children begged me not to open the living room curtains until after Thanksgiving that year. Kids. Always so worried about what others will think.
54. I don't do well working 8 hours a day in an office. I feel like I'm suffocating.
55. I once had a job at a cell phone company that I despised so much that I made my password in their computer system "fireme" in the hopes that someone from the home office would audit the passwords, discover my impertinence and well, ...fire me. They never did. I quit one year to the day after I started (had to work a year to earn the vacation time I had already taken!).
56. When I was 12 or 13 years old, I totally and completely loved Johnny Bench. Who, you ask? JOHNNY BENCH! He was the catcher for the Cincinnati Reds baseball team. He is, without a doubt in my mind, THE greatest catcher in baseball history. He was also born and raised in Oklahoma. I thought that made us soulmates. (Man, I really was wacky as a 13 year old, wasn't I?). Still, JB was one fine baseball player. Poetry in motion, that's for sure.
57. I can still name every player in the defensive lineup for the 1975-76 Cincinnati Reds. But I can't name one single pitcher.
58. My great-uncle (my father's father's brother) was a United States Congressman from the Great State of Oklahoma for 33 years (Tom Steed). Sounds cool, huh? but I never got to meet him.
59. I sometimes feel like I let my parents down by just being a housewife. I was supposed to do more, I think.
60. I can (and do) use a 10 key to balance my checkbook or do anything else with numbers, but using a calculator just throws me. Anybody know the difference between a 10 key and a calculator? It's subtle, but enough to mess me up. lol
61. I drink Coke, not Pepsi. And yes, there is a difference. Huge difference.
62. I love Dean Martin music - nothing sounds as good when I need to be soothed.
63. I love Dean Martin movies - remember the old Martin/Lewis ones? Models and Artists (or was it the other way around?)...I loved that one. But I loved Dino without Lewis, too. Anybody remember "Bells are Ringing"? That's a great, great movie.
64. I love Frank Sinatra's Christmas music. Fabulous.
65. I've always thought it would have been fun to go caroling at the holidays. I never did, though.
66. I signed up for church camp twice when I was a teenager. Twice my parents wouldn't let me go. Something about....the camp money having to go towards paying for a new window (one badly thrown softball and my church camp dream for that year was gone) and then having to fix the drywall in the hallway the next year (temper, temper...one shouldn't kick a wall when angry at one's sister. One should apparently just kick the sister. It's cheaper.)
67. I've kissed the Moose at McGuire's Irish Pub in Destin, Florida. And I'm not talking about kissing my granddaughter.
68. I've only been to two concerts in my whole entire life. The first one was a Prince concert. It was his Purple Rain tour...I saw him at the Superdome in New Orleans. It was awesome. The other concert was Rodney Crowell. We saw him in Montana. His singing was great. His opening act was freaky. That's all I'll say about that.
69. I have an embarrassingly weak stomach.
70. I can pick things up with my toes. And throw them.
71. Less than a month after 9/11, my husband and my oldest son deployed to an unknown location in the Middle East and were under communication blackout for 6 weeks. It was the longest 6 weeks of my life. Strangely, the fact that both of them went was the only thing that kept me from going completely insane. I knew they would take care of one another. And here's the part that always makes me cry when I think of it: My husband (Randey) worked with the aircraft ground crew, my son (Nick) was part of the air crew. My husband had to stand back and watch the boy he had raised from the age of 8 fly into his first combat mission. Literally. Randey and the rest of the ground crew stood on the side of the runway and saluted the aircraft as it flew away, carrying my baby into a war. Even though he couldn't get mail out at that time, Randey wrote it all down as they awaited the return of the plane. That note makes my heart ache to this day when I read it. Obviously, all was well with my baby on that mission and he and Randey came home to the U.S. of A. safe and sound. Thank God.
72. I love a Braum's limeade. (Those of you in Texas or Oklahoma will probably know what I'm talking about).
73. My favorite color is green.
74. My second favorite color is green.
75. My third favorite color is green. Just kidding. I like pink and yellow, too. But I LOVE green.
76. I have a skill that NO ONE else in my house has. I can change the toilet paper roll and the paper towel roll. I've tried to teach this skill to my children and my husband, but to no avail. Maybe one day they'll get the hang of it.
77. I love drinking hot cocoa with whipped cream while sitting by the fireplace with just the glow of the fire and Christmas lights to illuminate the evening.
78. My favorite quote is by Edmund Burke. It's "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing".
79. I believe that quote comes down to this: If you have the ability to fix a wrong, you have the responsibility to do so.
80. My second favorite quote is this: "I did the best I knew then. Now I know better". I believe this quote can be attributed to Maya Angelou and I may not have quoted it verbatim. But you get the idea. You can't beat yourself up over things you did in the past. Back then, you may not have been in possession of all the knowledge you have today.
81. I've learned that no matter how bad something may look, give it time. Nothing stays the same forever.
82. I can't stand talking on the phone. The phone should be for quick exchanges of information for the most part. I've blogged about this before. I'm such a jerk when it comes to phone calls.
83. Ive been bitten 3 times by dogs. Once when I was a kid. I ran from a German Shepherd. Dummy (me, not the dog). The 2nd time, my sister's dog was fighting with my dog (both were Chows). I yelled at my dog to stop, he did, I reached for his harness and that psycho-lunatic mutt that my sister called a pet bit clean through my hand. (It's not like I'm the only one that nutcase ever bit, either. No love lost for that dog, I'll admit). The 3rd time, my dad's dog had wandered under the table and decided to jump out and attack my dog who was on the other side of a glass door. (This was not a smart dog.) And the little beast bit my leg when he was making his sneak attack. Still...didn't hurt as much as my sister's devil dog did.
84. We survived Hurricane Ivan in 2004 in Florida. The hurricane wasn't easy. The aftermath was worse. No power for 9 days. In September. In Florida. Yeah...I felt a little like a spoiled rotten overly pampered American. But still. No A/C. In September. In Florida. Not pretty. Oh and by the way, MRE's? You know, the pre-packaged meals our brave military are eating out there in the field? Eeeeeewwwwww. Freakin' eeeeeeewwwww. That's one good thing to come out of that experience. It even further reinforced my love and admiration for our military!
85. I helped strip our roof of shingles after Hurricane Ivan (all the roofers were BOOKED!). Here's a tip: sliding on your butt because you're afraid to stand up will only get you little bitty tiny pieces of fiberglass embedded in your behind. And that hurts.)
86. I have a thing for lights. Like lamps and hanging light fixtures and chandeliers. I can't go to Lowe's or Home Depot without checking the light aisles for any sales. It's crazy. I've got extra lamps stashed in just about every closet in my house.
87. I think eating watermelon by the pool is a glorious feeling.
88. I can't believe I'm not at 100 yet. Good grief.
89. I'm a better mother to my younger children than I was to my older kids. I've learned more patience and have relaxed enough to laugh with my kids now.
90. I get really upset with people who don't vote in the national elections but then gripe about who gets elected. Get your butt out there and VOTE. (But I'm really, really bad about voting in local elections. Yeah, I know. I'm embarrassed by that shortcoming).
91. I love peeking into people's lives here in Blogland. It fascinates me.
92. I love sparkling water. Can't stand to drink tap water. Blah.
93. I'm lousy at math. And I used to be a bookkeeper. Yes, I really was good at it. No, I didn't like it. It's hard to dress up a 10 key to look pretty. And I never liked working around boring things...like spreadsheets and file cabinets and invoices. I've done it when I've had to, though.
94. I had no concept of racism until I was in the 5th grade. I hate that my innocence had to end. I've made a conscience effort to raise my children to know that race doesn't define a person, actions do. When will our society be done with this stupid fixation on color? On BOTH sides of the argument.
95. I feel like I've been typing this for a week. Who thought this up and why did I think it was a good idea?
96. I'm an Oklahoma Sooner fan (you're wondering why it took me so long to say that, aren't you, Charlotte? lol).
97. I wish every person in the world could and would watch the movies World Trade Center and American History X. I won't go into why. They'll speak for themselves once you've seen them.
98. I hardly ever wear jewelry. Except a watch when I leave the house. And my wedding band. I always wear that.
99. I love my husband more and more every day. And considering I was pretty fond of him over 18 years ago, I sometimes think my heart's going to burst every evening when we kiss goodnight. The love just keeps growing that much. And I am grateful.
100. I'm done, I'm done, I'm done. (Sad that I have to use that accomplishment as my 100th thing, isn't it?) I know that only the most foolhardy are still reading this list at this point and to you few souls, thanks for the interest. I can honestly say I won't be doing this again at post #200! lol