Documenting the Years of No Pants

Here I present the evidence for #69 on my 100 things list:

I'll give you three guesses to figure out where we went on this family vacation. I have to say that Mark makes a better Lady Liberty than yours truly. And please appreciate my dad's boredom and/or studied ignorance of our earnest efforts to be statuesque.

Remember the tiny private school I attended (#9 & #10)? The entire student body (not just my class) signed this sweatshirt.

Okay, so my lower half is technically clothed here. But I think the make-up job, well, makes up for it. And Mark really struts his pants-less stuff.

You're welcome.

100 Things: Part the Second

51. I’m a picky eater.

52. My food dislikes are based on texture.

53. I don’t eat ground meat.

54. That doesn’t mean I don’t like beef. (For some reason, when I tell people I don’t eat ground meat, they often respond by asking, “What about steak?”)

55. I don’t like the width and texture of spaghetti noodles.

56. Because of that, I didn’t think I liked pasta at all until someone introduced me to fettuccine alfredo as a teen.

57. I love chocolate.

58. I like peanut butter.

59. I don’t enjoy chocolate and peanut butter together.

60. I love tea.

61. My favorite tea is Earl Grey, with a little bit of milk and sugar.

62. I don’t prefer herbal “tea” – it makes me feel like I am drinking potpourri.

63. When I eat, I choose my last bite before I take my first bite.

64. My comfort-food is a grilled cheese sandwich, preferably on sourdough bread.

65. At age four, I learned to read from a Care Bear book bought to prepare me for the birth of my baby brother.

66. Around the same age, that baby brother could multiply 3-digit numbers in his head.

67. In many ways, those two facts summarize most of our similarities and differences as siblings.

68. Both of us love to cook.

69. In a lot of pictures of my brother and me in childhood, one or both of us is not wearing pants.

70. We used to trade off playing “girl games” (Barbie, My Little Pony) and “boy games” (dinosaurs); he claims I still own him a game of Transformers.

71. When I first read the Chronicles of Narnia, it only took me four days to devour all seven books.

72. I despise running.

73. I enjoy Pilates, biking, some aerobics, weight-lifting, and swimming.

74. I was baptized as an infant.

75. After learning about believer’s baptism in youth group, I was convicted that I ought to be baptized again. (I was, in a river in Georgetown, TX.)

76. I came to faith in Christ in kindergarten.

77. Paranoid, I repented again and again until a wise chapel speaker at my elementary school suggested that I wouldn’t be worrying about whether or not I really believed in Jesus unless I had truly been saved.

78. In my late teen years, I realized for the first time that regular Bible reading isn’t just for pastors to do.

79. Through the influence of my high school youth group, I came to believe in the active presence and ministry of the Holy Spirit.

80. In college, I embraced Christian feminism.

81. I was adamantly opposed to Reformed theology throughout high school and college.

82. Now, I am a Reformed, charismatic, complementarian Christian.

83. During one summer break from high school, I spent three weeks traveling in France, Germany, Switzerland, and Spain.

84. I spent the summer of 2000 studying literature in England, Scotland and Wales through the Wheaton-in-England program.

85. Aaron and I honeymooned in Barcelona.

86. We have vacationed with my parents in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, and in Quebec province.

87. I hope to someday visit Italy, Greece, and Australia.

88. I’ve now lived away from Texas for almost ten years, and I wish I still said, “Y’all.”

89. Somehow I managed to make it through an English major without reading any Charles Dickens; I read his novels for the first time after college.

90. I am horrible at making small talk.

91. I married a man who excels at making small talk.

92. I get very chapped lips, and I have a bad habit of rubbing off the dry skin.

93. As a child, I always got annoyed when my mother sang along to songs in the car.

94. I always sing along to songs in the car.

95. I have a freckle above my right earlobe that I often mistake for a spot of dirt.

96. Same goes for two freckles on the palm-side of my left index and pinky fingers.

97. Both of my grandfathers are in their mid-nineties.

98. I really enjoy filling out forms and paperwork.

99. I invited President George H. W. Bush to my 7^th birthday party.

100. I am named after my (now-deceased) grandmothers, Ann and Jenny.

100 Things: Part the First

1. I am 100% Dutch.

2. I was born in Redlands, CA.

3. When I was 3, my family moved to Colorado Springs.

4. When I was 7, we moved to the D.C. suburbs.

5. My Dad was in the Air Force.

6. When I was 10, we settled in Austin, TX.

7. I attended private Christian schools for kindergarten and 2^nd-5^th grade.

8. I skipped first grade.

9. My fourth grade class had six kids in it.

10. Ten years later, I encountered two classmates from that tiny school at my small college in the Midwest.

11. My mom home-schooled me for one year, between 5^th and 6^th grade.

12. I attended public schools for 6^th-12^th grade.

13. Even though I could have gone into 7^th grade after my year of home-schooling, I decided that I wanted to be with kids my own age and to start middle school at the same time as all the new 6^th graders.

14. My childhood best friend (during the DC years) was Rachel Cronkhite.

15. Her dad worked as the head chef at the Blair House.

16. As Rachel and I were true children of the 1980s political subculture, our greatest pledge of friendship was that we would attend each other’s weddings even it one of us married Gorbachev.

17. We did, in fact, attend each other’s weddings (neither of us married Russians).

18. I sucked my thumb until 4^th grade.

19. At age 7, I began wearing braces to correct an overbite. The braces came off when I was 14.

20. To stop me from sucking my thumb, I had my mouth wired shut for a summer.

21. I saw Les Miserables for the first time when I was nine.

22. “Lovely Ladies” was my favorite song from the musical; I didn’t understand what it was about, but I liked the lively melody.

23. I took ice skating lessons for a couple years; my highest achievement was a one-foot spin.

24. I stopped taking lessons when we moved to Austin, because the only ice rink in town sat in the middle of the mall and I didn’t want people to watch me.

25. I took piano lessons for nine years.

26. In college, I was too intimidated by the Wheaton Conservatory students to keep up with piano practice.

27. I wish I hadn’t let fear of other people get in the way of pursuing hobbies I enjoyed.

28. I was a cheerleader in 8^th grade.

29. My first car bore the nickname “The Target,” because it had notable dents from the number of times it had been hit by other cars before coming into my possession.

30. The Target had no air-conditioning; talk about delightful in Texas summers.

31. The Target also had a leak that prevented it from retaining any power-steering fluid; I developed strong arms fast.

32. I wrote a lot of mediocre poetry as a teen.

33. Some of it was deemed publishable in “Frontage Roads,” my high school’s literary journal.

34. I used to fall asleep every night to the movie Breakfast at Tiffany’s (my TV had an off-timer).

35. I dislike math, though I have a reasonable aptitude for it.

36. My senior year of high school, I took AP Calculus in order to avoid math in college.

37. Right before the AP exam, I found out that the college I would attend offered a simple math competency exam to test out of required math coursework. I doodled on my AP Calc exam and still passed.

38. In high school, most of my good friends were guys.

39. Now, for the most part, I am better friends with their wives.

40. I was president of the drama club at my high school.

41. I had roles in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Inherit the Wind, Our Country’s Good, and The Sound of Music – respectively:

42. Helena.

43. A townswoman/Rachel Brown.

44. Mary Brenham.

45. Elsa Scraeder.

46. At birth, I had red hair.

47. From toddler-hood to late elementary school, I had scraggly towhead blond hair.

48. In 5^th grade, my hair turned light brownish-reddish and thickened up considerably.

49. In my mid-twenties, my mildly wavy hair developed into soft curls.

50. My favorite colors are brown, green, and blue.