1.  I live in the town where I grew up.  I love it.  It is just part of me.

2.  When riding my bike as a kid, I used to take the long way home to go down a peaceful street lined with big trees.  Now I get to live on that street.

3.  If it is sunny out, there are neighbors of all ages playing outside.  (Peaceful, not quiet!  We call it recess.)

4.  I taught fifth grade for a long time, then switched gears upon pregnancy to teaching music so I could work part-time.

4a. Although I am not outdoorsy, my favorite week of the fifth grade school year was Outdoor Ed.  The kids that I felt I knew so well were so much more themselves in this totally different environment.

5. My favorite day of work in these nine years of teaching was this past March 14 when I directed “The Music Man, Jr.”  I am still beaming at my fourth and fifth graders, who nailed everything, including the opening train chant “Rock Island”.  I couldn’t sleep the night before or the night after.  Can I do it again?  You don’t have to pay me.

6. In getting to know this musical, I developed a crush on Robert Preston (link: http://img.timeinc.net/time/magazine/archive/covers/1958/1101580721_400.jpg).

7.  I was on Romper Room (age 5).

8. One of my favorite movies is Somewhere In Time, starring Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour.  Thanks to Bryan and Aly, we watched it in the Bel Canto room on my 21st birthday.  This movie spawned my favorite vacation to Mackinaw Island, Michigan, where the movie was filmed.  No cars are allowed on this island.  Take a look: www.grandhotel.com

9. I don’t care what your political views are.  Christopher Reeve was a brave, brave man.

10. I don’t like embryonic stem cell research, but could never look Christopher Reeve in the face and say that.  Nor my next-door neighbor with MS.

11. I skipped my now-husband’s 21st birthday party to meet Aly in Sacramento for a Ken Medema concert.

12.  I’ve never seen Star Wars start to finish.

13. I was a drum major, and loved it.  -Probably because I had a counterpart who did the lame parade stuff (which means I can’t twirll in a back alley).  I just got to do the field show.  It’s pretty fun to conduct on a 10-foot podium with a 100-piece band facing you and hundreds of supporters behind you.  You are sandwiched by energy.

14.  I can’t remember not knowing my husband.  We attended the same pre-school, and his mom was my second grade teacher.

15. The first time I had a feeling for him (his name is Jason) was the first day of school in seventh grade.  We both had first period biology.  We sat together.  At the begnning of class the teacher told us to stand up because he had a seating chart.  It was alphabetical.  He sat next to “Krista C.”  I was jealous.  Cue the theme from “The Wonder Years”.

16.  Krista C. married a guy who won millions in the lottery.

17.  Once in college, after talking to Jason, I hung up the phone, looked at my roommate, and said, “I could never be with him.”  She said, “Send me an invitation.”  She was right.

18. How come they can put a man on the moon, but call waiting is still a loud beep, during which the other person hears your voice cut out, which is followed by the awkward and unspoken, “Does the next caller out-rank me?”

19. To respond to an Addison Road theme: I am uninhibited when talking about sex, and could be totally honest with any youth group that I trusted.  However, my own views and beliefs about sex have changed so much in the past nine years that I would be hesitant to TEACH anything and call it Bible-based.

20. The actual seventh-grade girls I’ve worked with at church amaze me with their self-confidence and are only slightly pre-occupied with boys.

21. I give birth fast.

22.  Fast means you don’t get epidurals.

23. My first pregnancy ended in miscarriage.  Going into an ultrasound giddy to see a heartbeat and then seeing a non-beat was the end of my innocence.  I thought my heart was going to stop, too.

24.  If you know someone who has a miscarriage, don’t tell them that it happened for a reason.

25.  It bothers me when Christians act like God’s laws apply to “Christians” and not “humans”.

26. Whenever I blog something, and then no one else does, I fear that I’ve said the wrong thing.

27. Some friends who moved last Summer GAVE us their grand piano.  That’s pretty cool.

28. If any of you come over and sing, I’ll play it for you.

29.  I have a few mentors, and I don’t know where I’d be without them.

30. My Kindergarten teacher was a man.

31. Thirtysomething was a great show.  Maybe I should watch it again now that I am thirtysomething.

32. First car: ‘68 powder blue Mustang.  I once sat in our garage, in this car, wearing my class ring and letterman’s jacket, thinking, “Life doesn’t get any better than this.”  Wow.

33.  My senior year of high school, I won a competition and got to play a clarinet concerto with an orchestra.  This was incredibly validating.  It was by a composer named Crusell.  The critic called the piece “a less-familiar chestnut of the clarinet repertoire”.

34.  In sixth grade, I threw up in front of a crowd waiting for Shamu the whale.

35.  I am a landlord.  I debated sharing this one.  We are not wealthy, we just did crazy stuff with our money.  It took two years, many books, a few meetings with those more experienced, marriage counseling, and three out-of-state trips for my husband to convince me to adventure with him in real estate.  He convinced me that if we are both going to be teachers, the methods that worked in our parents’ economy will not work in ours.  Blog back to me in a few years and I’ll tell you if we were brilliant or stupid.

36.  Shortly after we bought something in Tennessee, Karen blogged about a tornado.  (Don’t think that didn’t come up in our house.)

37. As far as babyhood goes, we got both ends of the spectrum.  Our daughter cried for hours on end, for no apparant reason.  She was just pissed.  Our son is very snuggly.  If you smile at him across the room, he will laugh.  Thank goodness.

38.  She is much happier now.

39. My parents were scheduled to fly on September 11, 2001.  We didn’t hear from them for four hours, in the midst of the chaos.  That was a very surreal experience.  And oh yeah, my dad had been diagnosed with cancer a month prior to that day.

40.  He was sick for a year, and is now fine.  They shrunk it, and removed it.  Did you know your left lung has two lobes, and your right lung has three?  He had the middle lobe of his right lung removed.

41.  My dad started playing tuba again to maximize his remaining lung capacity.

42.  I have been accompanying a women’s ensemble for seven years.  It is multi-generational, and they are some of my best friends.

43.  Someone is going to have to show me in person how to link something on the blog.  I don’t get it.  Why can’t you just right click or something?

44. I had never heard of the Emerging Church before Addison Road.  I found this site because I googled “Aly Hawkins”.  Little did I know…

45. Whenever I see “Santa Fe” used as an adjective, I think of Mike.  He would make up recipes, and call it “Santa Fe ___”… Santa Fe Chicken, Santa Fe mushrooms, Santa Fe brownies…

46. I felt like I saw Mike turn into a man with each day that he dated Gretchen.

47. Jason and I  were in two small groups over the course of eight years.  They were wonderful.  In lieu of small group, we are now dating.  This is just a hiatus, but I rather like it.

47.  Jason’s New Year’s resolution was to woo me.  I like it a lot.

48. Did you know that when James Taylor sings, he is singing only to me?

49.  My husband is hosting a poker night downstairs right now because the Bunko husbands got jealous.  (Well, that’s what I think!)

50. I enjoy reading your thoughts and feelings, Everybody!