100. I married my first boyfriend. 10 years and 1 daughter later, we’re still happy… but I sometimes hesitate to give new friends this information for fear that I will look like a). a hick or b). a scary, judgey conservative usually reserved for Wife Swap.

99. I drove a VW Bug for almost 5 years, and I loved it. I cried when we sold it and still miss driving it daily.

98. I sometimes wish I could go back to high school for just one day, to catch up with everyone that I miss. I hate that I’ve lost touch with people who were once pivotal in my life.

97. I can’t wear bracelets. I don’t know why. They just seem to… hang there really unnaturally. They look out of place on my wrists, even though I love seeing them on other people.

96. I am quirky. Obviously.

95. I really love going to church on Sunday. It grounds my week, and when I don’t go I feel off-kilter.

94. Breastfeeding felt like a privilege to me. I hate that it ended so abruptly.

93. I love wine. As such, our wine rack is rarely full (or even close).

92. I love my incision scar from Madeline’s birth. It’s so tiny for the enormity of what happened… it’s pretty to me, a constant reminder.

91. I believe in angels, and have seen evidence of their existence in my life.

90. I also believe in ghosts, but you’ll never catch me saying that out loud for fear that they’ll hear and try to reveal themselves to me.

89. My day is not really complete until I’ve spoken with my mom.

88. I have three sisters, and it was a giant pain in the ass growing up. It is now one of my largest blessings, and I’m thankful for it daily.

87. I used to think that my dad and I didn’t get along. Now I realize that we have very different personalities; however, we respect and love each other very much, so the differences matter very little.

86. I am incredibly sentimental. I love objects with meaning, and use them in places that are important to me.

85. I am stubborn, to a fault. This gets me in trouble more often than I’d like to admit.

84. I love housewifey tasks and getting organized. I often think I was born in the wrong era.

83. I still have the Care Bear that I received for my first birthday. When Jimmy’s not home at night, I still sleep with it. Madeline likes him a lot, but she can’t have him yet.

82. I started to wear glasses in kindergarten. I was teased terribly about them until I began to wear contacts in eighth grade. To this day, I feel self-conscious when wearing them and I have a hard time believing anyone who says they’re “cute.”

81. I was afraid to wear jeans until fifth grade or so. I don’t have a good reason why, but pictures will testify that I spent most of my elementary school days in leggings or those terribly patterned Hammer pants.

80. For the most part, I prefer to drink water with meals. It’s a virtuous habit developed from… who knows where? As I don’t have many of these, I am grateful.

79. Sodoku gives me small panic attacks…

78. But I LOVE word games and frequently play them in my head on long car trips, taking words from signs and using the letters to create as many other words as I can.

77. I’m inherently pretty nerdy. I like me that way.

76. I love to read, and I can do so very quickly. On road trips as a child I’d back a bag full of books – living in Michigan, I could finish a book or two on a four-hour trip up north.

75. After I was married, I wanted to be a wedding planner. Then I realized that most post-wedding brides feel this way and I got over it.

74. Mexican food is my weakness. The more authentic, the better – when I can’t easily converse with the wait staff I know I’m in for a good meal.

73. I’ve been a nail-biter for years. Several times each year, I try to stop and am usually successful for a bit. It seems that this disgusting habit is my personal crack.

72. I hate coffee. The smell, when strong enough, can make me gag. I’ve tried to reform this fact many times, but it always remains the same. I’ll stick with hot chocolate, thanks.

71. I love my eyes, mostly because they match my dad’s and my grandpa’s. Madeline inherited the blue, but hers are much brighter and far prettier than mine.

70. I was entirely happy to be pregnant, and miss it frequently. There is no feeling quite like that of your child within you.

69. I really, really love to sing. However, unless I’m within a crowd or in the shower, I generally shouldn’t.

68. I love to eat cold grilled cheese. I credit this to my Catholic school upbringing and the fact that I hated tuna when I was young. There aren’t many other choices during Lent, you know.

67. My Catholic school upbringing has rendered me unable to imagine sending my children to public school. I know that sounds snobbish, but I have no apologies.

66. I have no tattoos, either. The idea of them really squicks me out.

65. Pedicures make me feel prettier than just about anything else. There’s something so finished about having polished toes.

64. I would like a dog someday, but I would like it to come to us fully trained. I’m having a hard enough time with Madeline.

63. I don’t love breakfast. Meaning: if we go out for “breakfast” after church I am just as likely to order a burger or salad as I am bacon and eggs.

62. I am convinced that dolls and stuffed animals come to life at night, and as such I hate it when Jimmy calls any of them “creepy” because I feel that they’re going to exact revenge on me…

61. I am very self-conscious while dancing. Somehow I’m always convinced that I look like Elaine on Seinfeld with her “little kicks.”

60. Jimmy and I own the entire set of Seinfeld seasons and we watch them way too much. Probably my favorite show ever.

59. I could eat ice cream before going to bed every night. I never seem to get tired of it.

58. I believe that you haven’t really lived until you’ve gone sledding country-style, in the rural ditches. It’s a challenge and so much fun.

57. When I was a senior in high school, a large group of my friends drove tractors, lawnmowers and combines to school. Some rode bikes. Traffic was backed up for miles. Kids still do that each June.

56. I am a world-class napper. I would nap every day if I could.

55. I am embarrassed by my perfume. It’s Victoria’s Secret’s “Very Sexy” and I am somewhat humiliated every time someone asks what I’m wearing. It sounds like innuendo and just… wrong.

54. I watch way too much E! and HGTV. I would probably be more productive without cable.

53. I procrastinate. Impressively. I hate this about myself, but keep putting off improving it.

52. I love school supplies and the smell of fresh, unused notebooks. Brand new pens make me happy.

51. To that end, fresh calendars and planners make me happy. I have a hard time disposing of them at the end of the year. I still have the calendar I used during my wedding planning and pregnancy – their appointments and reminders are little memories that make me smile.

50. I really, really love mushrooms. My husband really, really hates them. It’s one of the few issues we haven’t found a compromise for yet. So I eat a lot of mushrooms when we go out.

49. I sort of like to do laundry. I always feel really accomplished when I’ve beaten the mountain. It’s a sickness.

48. Relatedly, I love to change the sheets. You cannot beat sheets fresh from the line on a sunny summer day.

47. I love Michigan summers. You can’t beat them.

46. I can’t imagine living more than two hours away from a body of water. I love to swim and play in the lakes all around us and hope that Madeline loves it, too.

45. I really love seafood of all kinds, but I cannot eat lobster. I watched my father in law prepare them once, and I couldn’t get anywhere near them after I watched them try to escape being stuffed. UGH.

44. I never carry cash with me. Anyone who robbed me would be sincerely disappointed, because they would get no cash and no credit cards. Just a debit with a likely-small amount attached.

43. I was a cheerleader in high school. There are many days where I miss being that silly and shrieky. Certain cheerleader skills still come in handy, however, as evidenced the day I did a high kick at random in the kitchen (what?) and elicited delicious belly laughs from my daughter.

42. My favorite time of day is whatever hour I am in Madeline’s room, cuddling her warm sleepy body to mine and smelling her hair. She embodies peace.

41. I am profoundly grateful for the opportunity to not only be a mother, but to be Madeline’s mom. I can’t fathom how I was chosen for this task.

40. Our wedding day was ridiculously hot. Literally, the paper’s headline on the day we were married was: “It’s Just Too Hot.” The church we were married in had no air conditioning. I hardly noticed – I was so, so happy that day that it seemed only a minor inconvenience.

39. I still haven’t ordered enlargements from our wedding pictures. I have my album and proofs and that’s it.

38. Jimmy and I agreed on our daughter’s name just after we were engaged. I’d thought of the name one day out of the blue – Madeline Grace - and told him that it was a condition of our marriage that we would use it someday. Five years later, I got my chance.

37. We struggle with boy names, and I worry that it means we’ll never have a son. I’d like a son, I think.

36. I hate diet soda. I can’t understand it – if you’re going to drink it, just drink the real thing and be done with it.

35. One of my life goals is to spend time in Australia.

34. I love to get flowers, but I hate it when Jimmy spends too much money on them. He knows this, so at random I’ll receive one rose from the grocery store, tulips from the yard or a tiger lily from the side of the road.

33. I love hydrangea most of all. I used them in my wedding, and have been trying to get a bush to bloom at my house since we moved there in 2007. Nothing yet, but I’m still working on it.

32. My husband introduced me to air-popped popcorn and now I’m pretty sure I can never go back to the microwave type.

31. I love taking photographs. I took a class in college where I got to develop my own. I loved the mystery and work of it – causing images to rise to the surface. For a long time after that class, I was a snob about digital, shunning it for what was “classic”…

30. … but then I got a digital camera and now I take pictures with it daily. I have over 2,000 on my hard drive right now that I really need to transfer to a CD.

29. On my list of Things to Buy in My Lifetime? A beautiful, wonderful Nikon with all sorts of lenses so that I can embrace the blend of digital and what was “classic.”

28. Jon & Kate + 8 kind of makes me cringe. I watch it anyway. This is true for me with a lot of reality programming.

27. I wish that my house would paint itself. I am an exceedingly crappy painter, so while I have colors picked out for each room they somehow haven’t applied themselves yet.

26. I was born right on the Capricorn/Aquarius borderline, so I like to read both horoscopes and apply whichever one I like better.

25. I wish I’d started this blog earlier so that I’d have a better record of pregnancy and Madeline’s early days. They are already beginning to fuzz around the edges, and she’s only a year old.

24. I was the editor of my high school paper, and it was my favorite job ever. I loved those long afternoons after school, editing copy and pasting it into the long columns of the mock sheet. I wish that was my job every day, hanging out in that classroom alone, puzzling over the pages until everything fit.

23. I love sending and receiving cards and notes. I have a box from Hallmark that I fill with the necessary cards for each month, and I love using them. It makes me happy to think of people smiling as they open them.

22. My engagement and wedding rings are my favorite jewelry. My husband wants to replace them with something bigger, but I really can’t stand the thought. Those rings symbolize the leap of faith that we took when we were 21 and 22 years old… I don’t want them replaced because I love remembering that time in my life.

21. I love to camp. My family camped every summer while I was growing up, and some of my best memories take place in campgrounds, on lakes or around a campfire.

20. I am afraid of birds. Really, really afraid.

19. I don’t know what color my hair really is anymore.

18. Icy, snowy roads don’t usually scare me. I have been driving long enough and was taught well enough to handle myself in those conditions. What scares me are the other drivers who seemingly forget how to drive in snow in every.single.lapse between flakes.

17. I was totally unprepared for the sight of my parents holding my child in their arms. I was completely blown away by it, and I continue to be whenever they’re with her. The love they hold for her takes my breath away.

16. Summertime bike rides and ball games will always make me think of my grandparents.

17. When I am scared or in need of comfort, I read the Bible or say the rosary, which is always in my purse. In really tough times I’ve learned that my fingers will do to count.

16. Madeline’s smile is the most beautiful thing. It has the power to turn my whole day around, as does the sound of her voice saying “MaMa.”

15. I love to wrap presents, but I’m generally quite terrible at it. I try, though, which is what is supposed to count.

14. I LOVE gift registries. LOVE THEM. The moment I hear someone is engaged or expecting I am stalking them online, just to see the things they’ve selected.

13. I love clean smells: fresh-cut grass; laundry on the line; burning leaves; baby powder; large bodies of water; new snow; and Woods by Abercrombie (which they don’t make any more, forever ending my high school memory-by-smell association).

12. I really dislike odd numbers. So much so that I got married on a Friday to avoid my anniversary falling on one. I was also somewhat grateful that Madeline’s birth took so long, because I’m not sure how I feel about a child with an odd-numbered birthday (KIDDING. I think).

11. I love having business cards. I feel grown up and professional when I hand them out.

10. I have something of an Issue with lotion. I seem to collect it in all types and varieties, and never seem to think I have enough.

9. I have a bit of OCD with Madeline’s diaper bag. I am the only one who can pack it; if I do allow Jimmy to pack it I have to search it before we leave the house and ensure I have everything. The thought of being without something I *might* need leaves me in a panic.

8. My husband has OCD with the linen closet. All the towels must be folded *just so* with all the ends lining up neatly. It used to irritate me when he’d point out that they were folded “wrong” until I realized how many of my little quirks he’d adopted… now I fold them his way without thinking.

7. Jimmy and I have made many decisions based on the call of paper/rock/scissors. This is evidenced in our wedding video when the Pastor asked who would say their vows first. We played paper/rock/scissors to determine… I won, like always.

6. Receipts annoy me. I wish that all stores had the option of “no receipt” like at the gas pump.

5. I love that moment when I’ve just grocery shopped and the bags are spread out across the kitchen: it’s a moment with so much organizational potential I can hardly stand it.

4. I love home inprovement stores like Home Depot, Menard’s and Lowe’s. The smell of all that wood and the sight of all those supplies present endless opportunities.

3. I cannot STAND the sight of men’s tighty-whities. They really gross me out for reasons I can’t explain.

2. As much as I love Christmas, I love Easter more… it’s a time of renewal and forgiveness, and both those things are very poignant to me at this time in my life.

1. Having my daughter changed my life in more ways than I could have imagined… for the better, for the worse, for the neutral. Still, even knowing all these things, I wouldn’t change a moment of it. Jimmy and I agree: she is the best decision we ever made.