1.      1.    Evacuated from an approaching hurricane with my family and two dogs.
2.    Was held by then-President George Bush Senior as a baby. The picture was printed in a newspaper my Dad found at his Air Force base while serving in Saudi Arabia during Desert Storm.
3.    Lived across the street from an insane man who threatened to kill us while my Dad was teaching me how to ride a bike.
4.    Lived next door to Ku Klux Klan members who burned down the houses of two families on our street.
5.    Lived one street over from a methamphetamine lab which blew up one night while we were sleeping.
6.    Lived two houses down from a man who died in his house and was found by the mail man two months later.
7.    Fought a fire at age twelve with my eight year old sister with nothing but a couple of buckets and a spring 200 yards away.
8.    Broke my collar bone by leaning back on a backless bench at a shoe store.
9.    Jumped from a barn loft into a pile of hay.
10.    Free -climbed the wall of the oldest continuously inhabited castle in Europe.
11.    Convinced my Pastor that I was ready for baptism by completing all the baptismal studies at age nine.
12.    Rode the subway alone in Rome, Italy at 1:00 AM with a couple of drunks.
13.    Weighed between 82 and ninety pounds for five years from age ten to fifteen – and didn’t have an eating disorder. Don’t worry, I’m normal size now.
14.    Started a bread baking business at age eight.
15.    Raised prize winning Holland Lop and Mini Lop (and a couple Mini Rex and French and English Angora) rabbits in my own rabbitry at age eleven, and then sold the entire enterprise later for a large sum of money.
16.    Didn’t learn to ride a bicycle until age ten.
17.    Convinced my little sister that my silver capped tooth was a button to turn on the eyes in the back of my head.
18.    Convinced my little sister that the jet planes overhead were hila monsters come to kidnap her and the only way to survive was to close the windows and hide under the bed.
19.    Convinced my little sister that her reflection in the mirror was her twin who never talked and liked to mimic her.
20.    Moved to Albania and started a literacy program and kindergarten for gypsy children at age sixteen by a miracle from God.
21.    Stood under a waterfall and almost got bit by a copperhead snake hiding in the rocks nearby.
22.    Went fishing with my uncle and caught my first bass at age six.
23.    Taught a creative writing class at a Christian youth camp.
24.    Managed to ride for twelve years without getting thrown – and then broke my record riding bareback at my dressage stable.
25.    Watched my great-grandma die.
26.    Learned to shoot a rifle when my Dad was working in another city for a few months and needed someone to defend the sheep from cougars and coyotes.
27.    Was used by God to help save a gypsy witch doctor’s grandson from pneumonia.
28.    Drove home during a hurricane that was pushing over power lines, flooding roads, and ripping palm trees from the median – two days after I got my license.
29.    Walked among the giant sequoia trees in Yosemite.
30.    Visited Niagara Falls in January during a snowstorm.
31.    Attended the funeral of a childhood friend at age twelve.
32.    Visited twenty-eight states and eight countries.
33.    Saw the northern lights.
34.    Finally found a best friend that understands me completely.
35.    Hiked to ancient cliff dwellings.
36.    Found out I was picked for the Violin honor recital at my music academy minutes after my great-grandma died.
37.    Started leading trail rides at a ranch when I was fourteen.
38.    Watched my Mom give birth to my little sister in our bathtub when she went into labor quicker than expected.
39.    Worked as an intern for a Christian youth magazine at age fourteen.
40.    Yanked my little sister out of the vehicle when we got in an accident and I thought the van was going to explode (it was filled with smoke, and I was twelve).
41.    Helped my Dad skin a rattlesnake and preserve the skin.
42.    Searched for a bathroom in Saint Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican.
43.    Flew across the world alone for the first time at age fifteen, and then did it three more times.
44.    Tried to dig a hole to China at age seven, but hit the Florida aquifer after eight feet.
45.    Was chased by a cotton-mouth snake in a boat on my Grandparent’s lake.
46.    Fell into a sewer while chasing my horse.
47.    Had a life-changing experience as a camp counselor at age seventeen.
48.    Was awakened by my Dad sticking an alligator head in my face that he had just chopped off some road kill.
49.    Sat in the Coliseum in Rome and tried to appreciate the moment while my little sister snapped photos of herself in my hat.
50.    Convinced my then-best friend’s older brother that our septic tank was a cellar and had him go in for potatoes.
51.    Was miraculously cured from Leukemia at age four after my church praying for me.
52.    Arranged a funeral for a caterpillar that I brought with me all the way from NC.  
53.    Swam with dolphins.
54.    Landed in Orlando, FL during a hurricane, via crosswind landing.
55.    Missed a tornado by two minutes that wiped out the road we’d be traveling on.
56.    Won a ribbon for my roller coaster cake that I entered in the county fair.
57.    Swam in five seas – Pacific, Atlantic, Mediterranean, Adriatic, and Aegean.
58.    Stayed up all night long and watched the sun rise.
59.    Had a meaningful conversation with a beggar.
60.    Milked a goat.
61.    Fell into a grave while collecting genealogical data in an ancient cemetery.
62.    Choreographed an Irish dance for my sister and I to perform on the trampoline.
63.    Watched the Bulgarian Prime Minister’s motorcade drive by.
64.    Slept under the stars.
65.    Wrote a protest letter to American Girl.
66.    Read the Iliad and the Odyssey, Shakespeare’s sonnets, Romeo and Juliet, Plato’s Republic, Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, and The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire – all in one week.
67.    Had a complete stranger pay for my meal at a restaurant – twice.
68.    Had my picture in the newspaper – several times. Once when I went (in costume) to see a wagon train passing through, once when I and my dog entered a dog show and won third place, once when the president held me,  and I can’t remember when else.
69.    Swam in the Great Salt lake.
70.    Realized I’m not quite as independent as I thought I was, and that I don’t like being alone.
71.    Was chased in a canoe by a twelve foot alligator during alligator mating season when they are extra aggressive.
72.    Painted an entire tree and tree-house pink with sidewalk chalk.
73.    Hosted the American ambassador to Albania in our house for lunch.
74.    Was walked in on in the bathroom by the ambassador and her bodyguard.
75.    Was hit in the head by a D battery my sister threw at me when I was six and she was two. She throws hard. Does that explain anything?
76.    Toured Athens and the Acropolis while recovering from pneumonia.
77.    Went nine years without eating chocolate once.
78.    Learned to run a household (cooking, cleaning, laundry, ironing…) at age four when my Mom was pregnant.
79.    Thought to myself that I am living my own dream.
80.    Kneeled on a battlefield of the civil war and thanked God for keeping our country united.
81.    Stopped using recipes at age nine and never went back, except on special occasions.
82.    Discovered ice cream at age fourteen and immediately fell head over heels in love.
83.    Memorized the entire living history tape set when I was seven.
84.    Spent three full days trying to get home for Christmas – snowstorms, missed buses, delayed planes, re-routing through Slovenia…
85.    Had several people ask me for my autograph that had seen me in a magazine.
86.    Wrote my first published article at age twelve.
87.    Got spit at by our llama while trying to keep it from biting my pony.
88.    Started sewing or designing nearly all of my own clothes.
89.    Slept for a complete 24 hours without waking.
90.    Caught forty-seven jellyfish with my sister in Greece.
91.    Stopped being a germ freak and started sharing food and drinks and eating food with bugs.
92.    Worked as a dentist’s assistant for six months.
93.    Discovered a passion for wearing chopsticks in my hair.
94.    Never dyed or permed my hair, got a fake tan, or wore eyeliner.
95.    Started a conversation with a stranger on a plane about my ministry in Albania, and was given a check for fifty dollars.
96.    Was unable to eat raisins for five years after once eating a bunch before discovering worms in them.
97.    Refused to eat bananas for twelve years, until my best friend convinced me to try one again.
98.    Was a jockey for a Mafia boss in Albania, before learning who he was.
99.    Almost rode his horse in the “Albanian National Race” (I don’t think it’s even official… just a bunch of wild men on horses running a long track), until it strained a tendon.
100.    Was able to tell a child who had never heard the name of Jesus who He was.

Ah, weddings. It’s funny how my perspective had changed through years of attending wedding after wedding.

The first wedding I attended was at the age of six. I was the flower girl, which meant I was in that little room watching the bride get ready. The bride was just about to have a panic attack and the bridesmaids were running around frantically doing each other’s makeup and hair, half dressed and giggling like school girls. I remember thinking how silly it all was – all the worry and the little details – why couldn’t weddings be simpler?

Then a few years later I attended another wedding. By this time I was ten or eleven, and I spent my time sitting at a table full of girls my age discussing the bride’s dress, the cake, the decorations, and how good looking the groom was. This time I was much more concerned about the color coordination than I was about simplicity.

Fast forward another couple of years – to my seventh wedding. This time I was fifteen. Once again I found myself sitting at a table full of teenage girls – this time discussing our plans for our own weddings. Every girl at the table had her wedding planned down to the music and food – and most of them were just thirteen or so. We eavesdropped on the boys at the next table discussing how they wanted to get married outside with as few people as possible and then take off on a tractor. We girls sat giggling and dreaming of horseback getaways, honeymoons in Paris, and cathedral length trains.

Now, a few years after that wedding, I’m helping at another. This time I’m in on it – designing centerpieces and making floral arches, sprinkling Hershey’s kisses on tables and stringing lights. I used up my morning making tulle swags and putting floating candles into glass bowls of water, and at the reception I spent most of my time behind the food tables saying “Alfredo or marinara?” over and over.  

But this time, I have to admit – there was a slightly different emotion in me. As I watched the bride and groom taking their vows, cutting their cake, dancing their first dance – there was an ever so slight amount of jealousy in me. I was mad at myself for even feeling such a thing, but I couldn’t help but envy their happiness – such complete and total joy.

That’s not supposed to happen until you’re thirty and still single, but it does. I guess it’s just something that is programmed into every human – a want for companionship and love.

But then I stop myself. This is a time to celebrate their joy, not mine. So I push my thoughts away and shove through the bridesmaids for a chance at catching the bouquet.