Allow me to introduce myself

A few people have responded to my blog with the comment that it's helping them to get to know me better. I thought I'd follow that theme today by telling you a little more about my life. I hope I can highlight the most significant things without getting too rambly. One thing we learned as journalism majors was "brevity, brevity, brevity." We'll see how it goes.

I was born into a Christian family. I have three older brothers. We lived in the country and moved a few times depending on the pastorate my father had at the time, sometimes full-time and sometimes part-time. Our denomination was similar to the Mennonites who back then were pretty conservative. My mother's father grew up Amish and became a dynamic preacher after he left the Amish because of his claim to salvation. Both my grandmothers wore head coverings and were considered "plain." My own parents veered away from some of the older traditions but were still strong supporters of a simple lifestyle, mostly out of belief and partly out of necessity. I always had plenty growing up, but we were never indulgent. I'm thankful for being rooted in simplicity and continue to weigh all the choices we make in modernity. One example is TV - I never had a TV growing up but have just recently acquired a satellite dish service. Hmmm. We are trying to be careful with how we use it. We're still avoiding a large screen or HDTV, although anything else is almost impossible to find at stores anymore.

I had all the benefits of growing up a country girl, and as a teen had lots of fun in high school with extra-curriculars. By the way I was an A student so I hung out with the brains. My high school resume includes one year of track where I rarely qualified to compete (WHY did a short person like myself choose long jump???!!!), then three years of field hockey, choir and a smaller ladies' choral group called the Nine Sharps (no kidding), and both small drama productions and big musicals. I never had a major role in theater but enjoyed the parts I had. Contrary to my sons' opinions, musicals are a blast. Maybe not to watch, but to do - YES. (They're planning to do an anti-musical video which will be hilarious I'm sure.)

Fast forward. Most of you know a lot about me already so this will be really quick. I went to a Christian college for two years then transferred to a big secular university that had a small suburban campus. I majored in journalism/public relations. I met Dave through Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship. We both had come out of hard relationships and were just looking for friendship at first. But the trip to Wendy's was the turning point. He sat down at another table just to be his silly self, then came over and asked me, "is this seat taken?". About two seconds later after he sat down, he asked me, "will you marry me?". I quickly responded "give me three good reasons why". He then gave me three lame reasons and I asked for seven more. Seven more lame reasons, but then a serious conversation about what we'd like in a mate and both of us felt "the chemistry" so to say at that point. The next day was WEIRDDDDD!!! But we finally took the plunge after much fear and trepidation that our friendship would be ruined and we are still best friends to this day. I knew he was the one for me when he showed his true romanticism through mathematics. He wrote me a cute little note saying you plus me equals love along with other similar equations. He used to sing songs to me like "I'm standing at the lightpost of the corner of the street when a pretty little lady walks by, oh me, oh my..."

It's interesting that I'm writing about this while I'm at the beach. The beach is Dave's ideal vacation spot and we've spent many wonderful hours here together. One that stands out in my mind is before we were married. We were strolling along the sand in the evening and my silly guy suddenly turned serious on the subject of marriage (this was before we got engaged). He told me that he didn't know if he could love someone the way his parents loved each other. I think he was wrestling with his feelings for me, not sure what to make of them. I have no doubt now that his love for me equals or surpasses the love he saw modeled growing up.

Well this may be TMI but when I'm writing I try to be free with where my thoughts lead. Because I've written so much already, I'll sign off and do a part two soon. Stay posted...