100+ things about Redheadeditor
In Honor of my 1st blogiversary, I am creating the 100 things about me list:
1. I am a real redhead.
2. It caused distressed when growing up because no one else I knew had red hair.
3. It took a long time for me to learn to love it because it was so rare.
4. I have freckles.
5. I have brown eyes, not blue.
6. I hate it when people say, "If all of your freckles blended together, you'd have a tan."
7. I look much younger than I am because I stopped going out in the sun after I burned once or twice. It was no fun.
8. Now I'm glad I never tanned. It is to my advantage.
9. I love lima beans.
10. I was not allowed to play with Barbie dolls when I was growing up.
11. I did not allow my own daughters to have Barbie dolls for different reasons than my mother had.
12. I am the youngest of 4 sisters. They were 11 1/2, 10 1/2, and 5 1/2 when I was born.
13. My father wanted sons, and I felt very proud and powerful because he left after I was born.
14. If I had been a boy, my father would have named me Truman Iba Baker.
15. My father was an asshole and a horrible man who screwed anything that moved and beat my mother.
16. My sisters and I joked that we better not date for fear we might be related.
17. My mother, thank God, had a job back when most women didn't work, but that meant my sisters raised me.
18. My mother was high on legal prescriptions most of the time I knew her.
19. Things would not have been good if she were a stay-at-home-mother.
20. I was totally embarrassed by her the whole time I was growing up. She was an absolute nutcase.
21. But I thought everyone was mortified by their mothers so I didn't know it was because she was (a) on pills or (b) depressed or (c) lonely or (d) certifiably nuts.
22. No friends were allowed to come over when we were growing up because their parents thought divorce was contagious.
23. I was not allowed to go to their houses either for the same reason.
24. When my mother wasn't embarrassing me, she was catatonic.
25. Now that I am an adult and a parent, I don't know how she did it.
26. As the youngest, I was the only one who had my own room. One of my sisters resented me for years because of that.
27. I was the flower girl for my sister when I was 5 (going on 6) and she was 17. I lost my front teeth before the wedding ceremony, swallowed one the morning of the wedding, and took all the pictures with the biggest smile. With this red hair, that white dress, and that smile, I was so incredibly cute that it's hard to describe.
28. My second sister went off to college the next year, and that's the life I desired while growing up.
29. She dressed up to take me to see Yellow Submarine (the movie) because the movie house in my hometown required women wear dresses. But I don't think they meant a silver, magenta, and chartruese taffeta evening gown.
30. I was an aunt at 7. But my sister and her husband moved to Las Vegas to start their family so they really had nothing to do with us.
31. They are also born-again Southern Baptist and would have had nothing to do with us anyway because we're Episcoplian.
32. We are Episcopalians because it was the closest church, and we had no car.
33. My mother never went to church, but I never missed a Sunday till I went off to college. It was my way of getting away from her. At least for 2 hours.
34. My mother never made it to a parent/teacher conference or a concert because we had no car and schools didn't send cabs for parents like my mother back in the 60s.
35. I can't imagine not going to my kids' things at school.
36. My mother worked so we were left alone during the summer which was probably not a good thing. My mother would call us at 12:30 during her lunch, but otherwise, we were pretty much left alone.
37. I kissed a boy when I was in 4th grade. His name was Darryl Gilpin.
38. I ate a lot of M&Ms and bowls of confectioners' sugar while watching a lot of tv.
39. I should have been reading books like my sisters, but I rarely, if ever, read while growing up.
40. I was a non-reader until junior year in college when I took a class requiring I read 50 adolescent books.
41. The 4 of us made sure we never got into trouble because "they" would have blamed being raised by a single mother.
42. People in our small town sometimes thought my mother was running a whore house and she was the madam. And you know what that made us.
43. And although my mother was high, she never drank, never entertained men, and neither did any of her kids.
44. We were quite musical even though we never had lessons. We all sang different parts in choir and sang in perfect harmony.
45. Many of our teachers watched over us because we came from a single parent family.
46. 3 of the 4 of us became teachers, probably because of that. (The oldest sister would have become one, but she was busy raising children and never went to college.)
47. I had a 19-year-old boyfriend when I was 13. He was from Bermuda and, therefore, black. He came in his pants once when we were making out.
48. I had absolutely NO IDEA what that was until years later. I was precocious but naive.
49. My mother got me drunk on whiskey sours when I was 13. She believed that if you're going to drink, do it right. (Don't mix drinks.)
51. My oldest sister (the Baptist) gave me a speech about being a virgin on your wedding night. She said it's the best gift you can give your husband (esp when you're poor), and I bought it.
52. My 2 best girlfriends and I made a vow to be virgins through high school.
53. I'm the only one who made it. Sort of.
54. I was sexually molested by a family friend from the age of 8 and can't remember everything.
55. I was, however, known as "the anything but" girl in high school.
56. I loved high school and was very active, much more so than my sisters.
57. That's probably because they had me as their responsibility, and I didn't.
58. I played the "lead" in Cheaper By the Dozen my junior year in high school.
59. Sisters #2 and 3 came to opening night and pretended to be the papparozzi, taking pictures and acting like I was so important.
60. I would stand in front of a speeding train for my sisters (even the one who thinks we're all heathens because we're not Baptist).
61. I dated a boy who was in a high school seminary when I was a senior.
62. As weird as that was, it probably prevented a lot of problems from happening had I not been dating someone who went to school out of town.
63. I was on the high school newspaper my senior year and loved my journalism teacher the most.
64. When she died, I started a scholarship in her name and raised over $8000 from former students who loved her as much as I did.
65. I wish I had had the guts to major in journalism in college.
66. I started out as a psych major and then a pyschology education major (which didn't really exist without the combination of sociology and anthropology attached to it).
67. I had no idea what sociology and anthropology were.
68. I had wanted to be a doctor, an adolescent psychologist, until I got Cs in math or science.
69. I ended up as an English education major, just like my two other sisters, after years of trying not to be like them.
70. I had so many English credits that I graduated early.
71. My third sister was teaching in Australia when I was a freshman in college and came home for Christmas and told me, "Go to summer school. Don't ever come home."
71. I didn't ask any questions. I did what she said. She knew our mother was nuts.
72. I have absolutely no memory of how I got to college. We had a car by then, but I know my mother didn't move me up.
73. I met my boyfriend/husband the first night I moved to Columbia for college. He was my roommate's friend.
74. He drove me absolutely nuts and knew how to push my buttons.
75. I learned what a "nice guy" he was because he would drop everything and walk anyone to the library in the dark, and we didn't start dating until March of '76.
76. I moved from the dorm to the apartments down the street that summer and never came back home
77. I was the only one of my friends who had a job in college. I was lucky enough to be a poor work-study student who was given a job.
78. I still stay in touch with the people I worked with when in college 30 years later. My former boss is 92 and e-mails me dirty jokes all the time!
79. I had 9 roommates in 7 semesters and lived alone 2 semesters.
80. I had the worst student teaching experience ever and got a teaching job in St. Louis the week I was applying for grad school in January.
81. I taught English and sponsored the yearbook for 6 1/2 years and loved it.
82. I still stay in touch with several of my former yearbook students.
83. I was an editor at a medical textbook publishing company for 18 years until I got laid off 2 1/2 years ago.
84. I got married at Christmas time because I had time off and the decorations were already in place.
85. My old boyfriend, the former seminarian, sang at my wedding. I figured out he must have been high when he sang a Beatles' medley (including "Let It Be") before the service instead of the requested "You've Got a Friend."
86. Tomorrow is my 26th wedding anniversary.
87. My husband and I separated in 1999 and got back together for our 20th anniversary.
88. I had a nervous breakdown in 1999. It wasn't a good year.
89. I delivered two children by natural childbirth. I am very proud of that achievement.
90. I never meant to be a mother. I hated my mother and never wanted my kids to hate me the same way I hated her. I announced at graduation rehearsal that I was getting my tubes tied for my 18th birthday.
91. I am the person I am today because of my daughters.
92. I am head of the welcome committee at my church.
93. I was once in the church choir and loved it till I got kicked out (for being too negative).
94. If you know me, you'd know how laughable that is.
95. I send cards and letter to about 70 college kids from church.
96. I went to church the day after my 40th birthday party wearing a garter belt with a tiny gun in it because I was a "pistol packing mama."
97. My mother, my sister, my husband, both my daughters, and I all attended (or will attend) the same university.
98. I am practically blind without my contacts/glasses.
99. I had my gall bladder taken out in January of '90... the old fashioned way.
100. I have only lived in Jefferson City, Columbia, and St. Louis.
1. I am a real redhead.
2. It caused distressed when growing up because no one else I knew had red hair.
3. It took a long time for me to learn to love it because it was so rare.
4. I have freckles.
5. I have brown eyes, not blue.
6. I hate it when people say, "If all of your freckles blended together, you'd have a tan."
7. I look much younger than I am because I stopped going out in the sun after I burned once or twice. It was no fun.
8. Now I'm glad I never tanned. It is to my advantage.
9. I love lima beans.
10. I was not allowed to play with Barbie dolls when I was growing up.
11. I did not allow my own daughters to have Barbie dolls for different reasons than my mother had.
12. I am the youngest of 4 sisters. They were 11 1/2, 10 1/2, and 5 1/2 when I was born.
13. My father wanted sons, and I felt very proud and powerful because he left after I was born.
14. If I had been a boy, my father would have named me Truman Iba Baker.
15. My father was an asshole and a horrible man who screwed anything that moved and beat my mother.
16. My sisters and I joked that we better not date for fear we might be related.
17. My mother, thank God, had a job back when most women didn't work, but that meant my sisters raised me.
18. My mother was high on legal prescriptions most of the time I knew her.
19. Things would not have been good if she were a stay-at-home-mother.
20. I was totally embarrassed by her the whole time I was growing up. She was an absolute nutcase.
21. But I thought everyone was mortified by their mothers so I didn't know it was because she was (a) on pills or (b) depressed or (c) lonely or (d) certifiably nuts.
22. No friends were allowed to come over when we were growing up because their parents thought divorce was contagious.
23. I was not allowed to go to their houses either for the same reason.
24. When my mother wasn't embarrassing me, she was catatonic.
25. Now that I am an adult and a parent, I don't know how she did it.
26. As the youngest, I was the only one who had my own room. One of my sisters resented me for years because of that.
27. I was the flower girl for my sister when I was 5 (going on 6) and she was 17. I lost my front teeth before the wedding ceremony, swallowed one the morning of the wedding, and took all the pictures with the biggest smile. With this red hair, that white dress, and that smile, I was so incredibly cute that it's hard to describe.
28. My second sister went off to college the next year, and that's the life I desired while growing up.
29. She dressed up to take me to see Yellow Submarine (the movie) because the movie house in my hometown required women wear dresses. But I don't think they meant a silver, magenta, and chartruese taffeta evening gown.
30. I was an aunt at 7. But my sister and her husband moved to Las Vegas to start their family so they really had nothing to do with us.
31. They are also born-again Southern Baptist and would have had nothing to do with us anyway because we're Episcoplian.
32. We are Episcopalians because it was the closest church, and we had no car.
33. My mother never went to church, but I never missed a Sunday till I went off to college. It was my way of getting away from her. At least for 2 hours.
34. My mother never made it to a parent/teacher conference or a concert because we had no car and schools didn't send cabs for parents like my mother back in the 60s.
35. I can't imagine not going to my kids' things at school.
36. My mother worked so we were left alone during the summer which was probably not a good thing. My mother would call us at 12:30 during her lunch, but otherwise, we were pretty much left alone.
37. I kissed a boy when I was in 4th grade. His name was Darryl Gilpin.
38. I ate a lot of M&Ms and bowls of confectioners' sugar while watching a lot of tv.
39. I should have been reading books like my sisters, but I rarely, if ever, read while growing up.
40. I was a non-reader until junior year in college when I took a class requiring I read 50 adolescent books.
41. The 4 of us made sure we never got into trouble because "they" would have blamed being raised by a single mother.
42. People in our small town sometimes thought my mother was running a whore house and she was the madam. And you know what that made us.
43. And although my mother was high, she never drank, never entertained men, and neither did any of her kids.
44. We were quite musical even though we never had lessons. We all sang different parts in choir and sang in perfect harmony.
45. Many of our teachers watched over us because we came from a single parent family.
46. 3 of the 4 of us became teachers, probably because of that. (The oldest sister would have become one, but she was busy raising children and never went to college.)
47. I had a 19-year-old boyfriend when I was 13. He was from Bermuda and, therefore, black. He came in his pants once when we were making out.
48. I had absolutely NO IDEA what that was until years later. I was precocious but naive.
49. My mother got me drunk on whiskey sours when I was 13. She believed that if you're going to drink, do it right. (Don't mix drinks.)
51. My oldest sister (the Baptist) gave me a speech about being a virgin on your wedding night. She said it's the best gift you can give your husband (esp when you're poor), and I bought it.
52. My 2 best girlfriends and I made a vow to be virgins through high school.
53. I'm the only one who made it. Sort of.
54. I was sexually molested by a family friend from the age of 8 and can't remember everything.
55. I was, however, known as "the anything but" girl in high school.
56. I loved high school and was very active, much more so than my sisters.
57. That's probably because they had me as their responsibility, and I didn't.
58. I played the "lead" in Cheaper By the Dozen my junior year in high school.
59. Sisters #2 and 3 came to opening night and pretended to be the papparozzi, taking pictures and acting like I was so important.
60. I would stand in front of a speeding train for my sisters (even the one who thinks we're all heathens because we're not Baptist).
61. I dated a boy who was in a high school seminary when I was a senior.
62. As weird as that was, it probably prevented a lot of problems from happening had I not been dating someone who went to school out of town.
63. I was on the high school newspaper my senior year and loved my journalism teacher the most.
64. When she died, I started a scholarship in her name and raised over $8000 from former students who loved her as much as I did.
65. I wish I had had the guts to major in journalism in college.
66. I started out as a psych major and then a pyschology education major (which didn't really exist without the combination of sociology and anthropology attached to it).
67. I had no idea what sociology and anthropology were.
68. I had wanted to be a doctor, an adolescent psychologist, until I got Cs in math or science.
69. I ended up as an English education major, just like my two other sisters, after years of trying not to be like them.
70. I had so many English credits that I graduated early.
71. My third sister was teaching in Australia when I was a freshman in college and came home for Christmas and told me, "Go to summer school. Don't ever come home."
71. I didn't ask any questions. I did what she said. She knew our mother was nuts.
72. I have absolutely no memory of how I got to college. We had a car by then, but I know my mother didn't move me up.
73. I met my boyfriend/husband the first night I moved to Columbia for college. He was my roommate's friend.
74. He drove me absolutely nuts and knew how to push my buttons.
75. I learned what a "nice guy" he was because he would drop everything and walk anyone to the library in the dark, and we didn't start dating until March of '76.
76. I moved from the dorm to the apartments down the street that summer and never came back home
77. I was the only one of my friends who had a job in college. I was lucky enough to be a poor work-study student who was given a job.
78. I still stay in touch with the people I worked with when in college 30 years later. My former boss is 92 and e-mails me dirty jokes all the time!
79. I had 9 roommates in 7 semesters and lived alone 2 semesters.
80. I had the worst student teaching experience ever and got a teaching job in St. Louis the week I was applying for grad school in January.
81. I taught English and sponsored the yearbook for 6 1/2 years and loved it.
82. I still stay in touch with several of my former yearbook students.
83. I was an editor at a medical textbook publishing company for 18 years until I got laid off 2 1/2 years ago.
84. I got married at Christmas time because I had time off and the decorations were already in place.
85. My old boyfriend, the former seminarian, sang at my wedding. I figured out he must have been high when he sang a Beatles' medley (including "Let It Be") before the service instead of the requested "You've Got a Friend."
86. Tomorrow is my 26th wedding anniversary.
87. My husband and I separated in 1999 and got back together for our 20th anniversary.
88. I had a nervous breakdown in 1999. It wasn't a good year.
89. I delivered two children by natural childbirth. I am very proud of that achievement.
90. I never meant to be a mother. I hated my mother and never wanted my kids to hate me the same way I hated her. I announced at graduation rehearsal that I was getting my tubes tied for my 18th birthday.
91. I am the person I am today because of my daughters.
92. I am head of the welcome committee at my church.
93. I was once in the church choir and loved it till I got kicked out (for being too negative).
94. If you know me, you'd know how laughable that is.
95. I send cards and letter to about 70 college kids from church.
96. I went to church the day after my 40th birthday party wearing a garter belt with a tiny gun in it because I was a "pistol packing mama."
97. My mother, my sister, my husband, both my daughters, and I all attended (or will attend) the same university.
98. I am practically blind without my contacts/glasses.
99. I had my gall bladder taken out in January of '90... the old fashioned way.
100. I have only lived in Jefferson City, Columbia, and St. Louis.
posted by Redhead Editor at 4:10 PM
3 Comments:
Wow. We have so much in common it's scary. Scary.
Very interesting list!
What a cool thing to make up!! I love it! ( Do you mind if I copy you once again??lol) You ought to print that down twice, and save a copy each for your daughters. You sound like quite a remarkable woman.
Enjoyed your 100 Things List. :) You really seem like a balanced and strong person to have gone thru so much with so much positive outlook and outcome. :)
~S
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