Quick: What were you doing ten, twenty, and thirty years ago?

Ten years ago: I had a two-year-old daughter. I released my first book, When Empty Arms Become a Heavy Burden and finished my last semester of Greek at seminary. Yipee! (That meant I could move on to Hebrew. Oy!)

Twenty years ago: I was working full-time as an employee publications editor at Southland Life Insurance Company in Plano, Texas, in what was at the time the EDS office park. My window looked out over cows grazing in the field. (Today it's, like, practically downtown Plano!) My husband had been a grad-school grad for one year and we were enjoying a "no tuition" year while we worked with college students at church. My former boss's birthday was October 13, and because he was a huge University of Texas football fan, we'd decorate his office in OU colors. Or hang a picture of the OU head coach on his wall. Or fill his office with red balloons. Or hang his little glass longhorn by the neck from a rubber band hanging off his desk pen. Ah, those were the days!

Thirty years ago: I was a senior in high school, and I landed a solo part in West Albany High's production of "Fiddler on the Roof." My boyfriend, Gary Glahn, was 3,000 miles away and we talked about once every two weeks. No e-mail. No text-messaging. Can you imagine? Yeah, that was totally the olden days.

****Mary DeMuth started this little game to see how many degrees we can separate (kind of like Kevin Bacon, only in the blogosphere). So feel free to take the baton and run with it. Either leave your comment here answering the 10-20-30 question or, if you have a blog, post your 10-20-30s there (if you're too young to do 30, skip it rather than making vague reference to primordial ooze) and then link back to the Mother Ship (http://www.relevantblog.blogspot.com/). This isn't to build her blog empire; it's to find out how far one blog can reach.

Many people I'd normally tag are already sponsoring my book on its upcoming blog tour (I'm already taking up their blog space in the near future), so I'll leave it to everyone to consider him- or herself invited. Let the linking and socializing begin!