4.) Share a photo that represents how you see yourself.

I’ve always wanted to get this done as a tattoo.

On a related note, if there are any tattoo artists in the Atlanta area who would like to donate their time or add to their portfolio, I have a picture I’d like to get as a tattoo but have no monies.  I make a mean chili, though.

The original drawing was the woman on the right.  One day, on a whim, I copied her and mirrored her to the other side.

And fell in love with it.

To me, this picture says volumes about how I see myself.

quiet

silent

mirrored

In so many ways.

Each morning, when I look into the mirror, I ask myself who I am today.  I am so many things all roiled up in one body.

Wife

Mother

Daughter

Cousin

Aunt

Sister

Friend

Sometimes I can be all at once.  Sometimes one wins out over another.  Sometimes I can master that person in the mirror.  Sometimes I can’t.  Sometimes I worry about what someone else sees in that mirror.  Sometimes I don’t care.

Stephanie over at Adventures in Babywearing wrote a post on Identity the other day.  She had a wonderfully soft hidden meaning.  I picked up on it [after a bit] but then started to apply pieces of her post to me and my mirror.

When I was in college, I took a Virgina Woolf course.

[I know]

The Waves spoke to me on a level that I’ll never forget.  It has stayed with me through the years and I think of its story often, especially when I look in the mirror.

In the book, the entire story is told from the first-person point of view of 6 individuals.  Their soliloquies also introduce you and shape your perception of the book’s seventh character.  Your entire knowledge of Percival is through the six pairs of eyes of the book’s narrators.  If but one person perceived him differently, Percival would be a completely different person.

perception

identity

mirror

Who am I today?

How are you perceived in a crowd?  How do you perceive yourself in the mirror?  How many others in that same crowd look in the mirror in the morning and wonder the same things I do?

Writer’s Workshop

Write a list of 100 things you want to do before you turn 100. Otherwise known as a “bucket list”.

1. Write a novel.
2. Publish a novel.
3. Be on the New York Bestselling Authors List
4. Provide a way for neither Stephen and I to have to work.
5. Finance the renovation of my mom’s house and the full clear of her 23 acres of cedar trees.
6. Assist in the birth of a horse.
7. Get all dressed up for the Opera.
8. Travel to Germany and visit the places I went to as a baby.
9. Buy a cabin for Stephen’s parents.
10. Send my brother-in-law to Japan and go with him for a long visit.
11. Buy a cabin for Stephen and I.
12. Send my brother and his wife on a nice vacation sans children.
13. Have a day of shopping with no budget.
14. Adopt a German Shepherd.
15. Adopt a Great Dane.
16. Plant a vegetable garden.
17. Buy a home big enough to grow a family and have a workshop for Stephen.
18. Get my Masters Degree.
19. Achieve Master Sommelier.
20. Learn to sew.
21. Learn to knit.
22. Learn to crochet.
23. Make all sorts of fantastic items using the above methods and sell them to clamoring buyers.
24. Adopt a child.
25. Raise respectful and fantastic children.
26. Own a cupcake bakery.
27. Build a home.
28. Lose 15 pounds.
29. Get a tan.
30. Eat pasta with Mario Batali.
31. Yell at other drivers from a cab in New York.
32. Swing in a hammock on the beach with some ice cold Coronas nearby.
33. Cure migraines.
34. Achieve 100,000+ blog views a month.
35. Have another baby….or three.
36. Invent something super cool that no one can live without.
37. Be listed in the Guiness Book of World Records for something ridiculously awesome.
38. Surf.
39. Go diving in Belize.
40. Own a villa in Spain.
41. Own a swanky treehouse in South America.
42. Visit a space station.
43. Ride a camel in the desert.
44. Wear my baby in a really beautiful wrap while sitting on a cliff overlooking the ocean.
45. Make it so none of our parents have to work so they can spend time visiting grandchildren and going on trips.
46. Spend a day at the spa with no budget.
47. Drink a glass of ’92 Screaming Eagle ($80K a bottle).
48. Have an amazingly romantic dinner at Altitude in Sydney, Australia. http://www.36levelsabove.com.au/
49. Have a beach picnic with Ina Garten.
50. Be a judge on Iron Chef America.
51. Shop for wedding dresses with my daughter without a budget.
52. Learn photography.
53. Paint something beautiful.
54. Spend the afternoon with my kids, a bare driveway, and a bucket of chalk.
55. Get dressed up for opening night on Broadway.
56. Protect my children from all harm.
57. See all my grandchildren born.
58. Hold my great grandchildren.
59. Grow old with Stephen.
60. Sell my own produce at a neighborhood Farmer’s Market.
61. Read 100 books every year.
62. Go on a cruise.
63. Watch the sun set while laying on the hood of a Jeep in the plains of Africa.
64. Go on an archeology dig.
65. Find dinosaur bones.
66. See the pyramids.
67. Teach my kids to read.
68. Cuddle with my husband in front of a fireplace.
69. Have drinks with Liam Neeson.
70. Be the voice of a Pixar character.
71. Attend the Oscars wearing a designer dress.
72. Go clothes shopping with my mom sans budget.
73. Eat at Pinks and Street in Hollywood.
74. Visit a diner with Guy Fieri.
75. Own a restaurant.
76. Spend a year in Europe.
77. Eat sushi with Morimoto.
78. Send my kids to any college they want.
79. Get Lasik.
80. Bake cookies with my kids.
81. Eat breakfast in bed served to me by my husband.
82. Own a horse.
83. Go on a wine country tour in Napa.
84. Be an amazing mom.
85. Live closer to my family.
86. Be debt free.
87. Have dual citizenship with England.
88. Send my parents on an all-expense paid trip to England to visit family.
89. Own an island.
90. Name a star.
91. Have a maid.
92. Attend an outdoor concert.
93. Throw an opening pitch.
94. Get 8 hours of sleep in a row.
95. Read a book sitting in a window seat, drinking a glass of wine while my kids nap.
96. Drive on the Autobahn with Stephen.
97. Attend PAX in Seattle.
98. Be a bridesmaid.
99. Plan a friend or family member’s wedding.
100. Swim with dolphins.

Right, so the fifth prompt on Mama Kat’s Writer’s Workshop this week was my idea and I was so utterly happy she picked mine because she’s not only super pretty but super cool and has super cute children.

I want to be Mama Kat when I grow up–

What?  She might read this?

Oh, right.  *clears throat*

Anyway.

The normal rules are to write for one of the prompts and then submit it to her site on Thursday.  I had every intention of doing so yesterday but, as we all know, the day can get away from you.

I went out on a truly awesome girl’s afternoon with my mother-in-law, her mom and one of our cousins.  We had Thai food then Grandma bought everyone a mani/pedi and I got to sit in a massage chair.

Yes.

And, to top it all off, Olivia was extremely well-behaved the whole time.  She slept mostly and only got a little fussy in the salon when she got hungry, but she timed it to where my pedi was done when she was ready so it was all good.  Plus everyone really loved seeing her and holding her and taking lots of pictures of her.

By the time I got home, it was late and I was exhausted from my whopping four hours of sleep total the night before and just being out and about and “on” for a whole afternoon.  I crashed for about three hours and then parked myself on the couch and didn’t move.

But I wanted to still put up my response to my prompt and have a little fun.  So here goes, a day late.

5.) The ultimate honey-do list. If your spouse agreed to do any ten things you asked, what would they be?

Top Ten Honey-Do

1. Using whatever method you deem necessary (as long as you get away with it), procure a rather large suitcase full of cash.
2. Back rub.  It’s taxing carrying that baby around all the time and the muscles could use some lovin’.
3. Fix or replace the towel rod in the master bath.  That thing has been broken for months and I’d like to use it sometime before our lease is up on this house.
4. If you go out to lunch during work to a place you know I would love and will be extremely jealous you went, then bring me home something…..and a Krispy Kreme.
5. Back rub.  No, really.  This is important to me.
6. Using aforementioned suitcase full of cash, hire Mike Holmes to build us a kickass house on a plot of land that has a lake.
7. Until the house is built, use more of the suitcase full of cash to hire a yard guy because, face it, we aren’t going to keep up with the yard while we have a newborn.
8. Hire me a maid to come in here once a month and scrub this place.  That would be the bestest present in the whole wide world.
9. Clean up all the spider and bug guts on the walls where you’ve massacred the little creepy crawlies.  I’m eternally grateful for your bugicidal tendencies but I would rather the smeared reminders be gone as well.
10. Mmmm….back rub….

There.  I don’t think any of that is outlandish.

Not at all.

Now to go deliver the list…

I love Mama Kat’s Writer’s workshop.  If you haven’t yet participated in this, it’s fantastic and easy to do.  It’s a fun writing exercise and highly recommend it to anyone whether or not you’re a “writer.”

Today, I picked a slightly harder prompt.  Hard because I haven’t written a haiku since grade school.  Sitting here counting syllables on my fingers made me laugh.

Write a Haiku that describes what you love about an ordinary day.

Ready?  Here goes:

Big mug of hot tea
Feeling Olivia kick
Bliss and motherhood

Ta-da!!

*accepts the accolades and applause with a slight bashfulness*

Oh toothbrush-helmed little martian,

Your adventures, or should I say, misadventures in destroying the earth sustained me many an afternoon when I was growing up.  I would await eagerly for your 15 minutes of fame where you would try to thwart Duck Dodgers or Bugs Bunny with the help of your trusty Martian Dog.

I always wanted to ask you about your dog.  You see, my dog hates to wear any type of clothing, yet you managed to train your dog to wear a toothbrush-helm and sneakers!  Not only does he wear sneakers but you managed to train him to use them in such things as delivering bad news on a piece of paper or saluting you as you stalk away very angry.

I wanted to know what method you went about training your dog to perform such amazing behavior.  Did you use a reward system?  Crate?  Force?  Did you accomplish this by yourself or did you have to pay a school extra to teach him to wear shoes?  Is the training ingrained or do you have to practice positive reinforcement at times to keep up with it?

It’s just that I do so worry about my dog’s feet sometimes when he’s outdoors.  You never know what he’ll step on that may cut his foot and then that could get infected and it would mean costly vet bills and a huge hassle.  But if I could get him to wear some spiffy sneakers then my worries in that arena could be alleviated immensely!

Any advice you have, my dear angsty childhood friend, on properly training my dog to wear shoes, deliver news and salute would be greatly appreciated.  I realize this request is probably low on the list when compared to blowing up the Earth but if you find five minutes while your ACME brand disintegrator gun is warming up to shoot me a few tips, that would be incredibly cool of you.

Much Affection,
Tristina
Planet Earth