Thanks, Michelle, for tagging me. My rarely-updated blog appreciates it!

10 years ago: I was enjoying my best and worst year of high school. I was performing as Olivia Seraphim Light in Chris Cartmill’s Laws or The Light Before Darkness at school. My choir was a part of a huge community endeavor. While learning to sing The Creation by Haydn, we were fundraising for a spring trip to sing in Lincoln Center in New York City along with hundreds of other college and high school students. Like many other overachieving high school students, I was getting worn down with all the activity. Unlike most other 17 year olds, however, my islet cells were failing and within two months I would be diagnosed with type 1 diabetes and begin taking life-giving insulin. What a year!

5 years ago: Jeremy and I had just moved into a shotgun apartment across the street from the beautiful Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis. Though I was sometimes dreaming of quitting school in order to become a pastry chef, I continued to prepare for my senior year of college which included one semester of student teaching. Two of my closest friends from Covenant College had moved to St. Louis for the year, so I finally had coffeehouse friends nearby and didn’t have to work so hard at getting to know people anymore.

1 year ago: Apparently I was renting movies from Blockbuster and
cuddling with my darling four month old baby.

Yesterday: I was both busy relaxing (hm, can you be busily relaxing?!) with Jeremy and Livia, and celebrating Jeremy’s 35th birthday and Andrew’s 24th birthday. Happy birthday, boys!! The best part of the day included a lovely dinner at The Oven with the Tredway clan. Nothing beats naan, curry and cheesecake.

5 snacks I enjoy: Tortilla chips and cheese/bean dip, apples with cheese slices, chocolate bars with toffee bits, sweetened dry cereal (like Fruit Loops), and Wheat Thins.

5 songs I know all of the words to: All For Jesus, The Isty Bitsy Spider, many songs from Les Miserables, April Is In My Mistress’ Face (a madrigal), Jesus Loves Me

5 things I’d do with 100 million dollars: Pay off the student loans of my siblings (including the honorary Lawton named Charity), put money away for the educations of future Lawton grandbabies, give a sizable chunk to my home church, buy a second vehicle, TRAVEL THE WORLD.

5 places I’d run away to: Carmel, California; coastal Italy; France; Hawaii; anywhere my husband is.

5 things I’d never wear: Halter tops, gold caps on my front teeth, miniskirts; sneakers with long skirts, shoulder pads.

5 favorite TV shows: The Amazing Race, Firefly, Buffy, Angel, Survivor.

5 biggest joys: Being desired by God; being desired by my husband; watching my daughter grow; smelling salty sea air and hearing waves crash upon a shore; creating something lovely — a kind greeting card, a completed piece of writing, a framed photograph.

5 favorite toys: Does Livia count?; high speed internet access; our iMac; my new oven and my fairly new washer and dryer (to appreciate the new, you have to experience the old). [Update 9/26: Duh, my camera is probably my favorite toy. Another one that isn’t very toy-like, but that I do love, is our paper-cutter.]

5 people I want to pass this on to: Charity, Andy, Renae, Jason, Karen (aka: The Newlyweds of Summer 2005).