grace aloud

Growing up…

We covered our limbs in daddy’s tube socks and went behind the sticker bushes in our front yard to explore.

I ran down the street in the middle of a storm because there was a Mary Kate & Ashley movie (the one on the cruise ship) that was showing when the power went out, and my best friend Katherine had a tv with bunny ears in her room that we finished watching it on.

My best friend in school in Kindergarten was named Carrie, and we were always together so my teacher called me “Gracie” so we would match… And it stuck for several years.

My family all knew me by my first and middle names, “Grace Ann…” My granny still calls me it.

I wanted to be a teacher or a pediatrician.

I was a pro at convincing my little brother to spend his money on things that I wanted.

I got in trouble for rolling my eyes at my mom, so I started closing them then rolling them with my eyes closed as one of my very few acts of defiance.  (She didn’t know this until I told her a couple of months ago.)

I asked Christ to be my Lord & Savior in our living room early one morning with my mom.

I woke up super early before anyone else in my family was awake and did Mouse-ercise (step aerobics with Mickey himself), using the couch cushions for my steps.

I was a clown, a pumpkin, and a princess for halloween (not all on the same year).

I only needed to feel that I had earned my parents’ disapproval or disappointment to be sufficiently punished and cry in my room.

I liked to scare myself with books like Goosebumps and later Fear Street—but hated scary movies.

I would take a book to church and read it in the car on the way home, even squinting as the last light faded away.

I always had a book in my hand.

I didn’t like recess because it meant being hot and being around other sweaty kids.

I called my little brother Tater Bug to get on his nerves.