Weekly Winners, 8/29-9/4

I have been off the radar for a while... been visiting with my sister. She came in town with my niece for a weekend visit. It's so nice to see her. She's my only sister and although we are 13 years apart in age, we're very close.

Anyway, here's my photos this week:

At the Stockyards in Downtown Fort Worth:

Consignment sale (I finally got everything hung and tagged and sorted. Now, I pray that I actually make some money.)

Out to lunch with Mom & Dad

At the park on a sunny, windy day

"Tree Hugger" - LOL!

Check out the other Weekly Winners over at Sarcastic Mom! And see the rest of my photos from this week on my Flickr Photo Stream.

Telling My Story

My blog is semi-anonymous. Plenty of bloggy peeps have met me in real life (and if you come to the SITS Bloggy Boot Camp in Austin you can meet me too!) but I generally keep my blogging life separate from my "human" life. Therefore, I often spew my unedited thoughts and feelings on the pages of my blog, readily available for consumption. I (usually) don't have to face the people who read my blog, so I can tell you about how I lost my virginity. I can share with you how I alienated my best friend in high school. I can share everything from the embarassing to the disgusting.

But that's me. That's how I roll. I feel like self-deprication is very entertaining, almost as much as philosophical self-reflection. Readers, I believe, like to dig deeper into the author's psyche. They want to know more than what I feed my kids and where I went on vacation. They want to hear about my struggles, my joy, my anger, my sorrow, and my accomplishments. Anyway, that's what I'm hoping.

Every person has to have some predetermined boundaries when starting a blog. What will I talk about? What won't I talk about? And, will those boundaries hinder my writing or will it make me accountable to myself, forcing me to keep my thoughts/emotions in check? If there is one thing or one subject I won't talk about, will a part of my personal story be limited because of it? Is it better to face my demons head-on and use my blogging as a form of therapy? Or would it be better to just face those demons within the safe confines of a therapist's office?

For me, the boundaries are like a fence around my world, the part that I can call my own and no one elses. I am okay sharing just about anything about myself. Acceptable topics include: my parenting struggles, my opinions about politics or religion or Miracle Whip, my personal grooming habits, my thoughts on current events, etc. I don't worry too much about perception (although I do wish I could be more upbeat like her or more sophisticated like her). But I try to draw the line at writing something that would intentionally hurt the feelings of someone I love and care about. And NO that doesn't include my kids' school or rude drivers. Those people are just fair game. But, let's say my mom was a recovering alcoholic - WHICH SHE ISN'T, I'm just using it for an illustration - I wouldn't share that because although I certainly would have been affected by that experience, it wasn't really MY struggle. I feel like that would be HER story to tell - WHICH IT ISN'T BECAUSE SHE ISN'T AN ALCOHOLIC ... JUST USING IT FOR ILLUSTRATION PURPOSES - and I want to give her the love and forgiveness that I'd hope to get from her, if the shoe was on the other foot.

I learned a hard lesson about the power of words when I blogged about my frustrations with my Mother-In-Law. Little did I know she was reading my blog. She never told me, and so I felt free to speak my mind. And, speak it, I did. I don't think I said anything that was really mean, per se, but obviously I was too much of a coward to speak my mind to her face. If I had known she was reading my blog, I probably wouldn't have blogged about that particular subject. But then I ask myself: am I being polite, or am I wussing out?

From time to time, I wonder if I'm being totally authentic if I censor myself like that. Am I putting out one image of myself when, in reality, I'm something (or someone) totally different? How can I tell my story if I leave out some parts? How can readers really get to know me if I'm only showing part of myself?


What kind of boundaries do you put on yourself when you write a blog post?

This post was part of MamaKat's Writers Workshop. It's in response to Prompt 5: What is your Story?

Do as I say, Not as I Do

As I was coming home from Wal-Mart on Saturday night at 11pm - WOOT Let's just call it a Girl's Night Out, mmkay? - a Journey song came on the radio and I was immediately taken back to the night I kissed my childhood innocence goodbye.

The room was hot and dark. Journey's Greatest Hits was playing on a continuous loop on the tape deck. I didn't know what I was doing but I knew I wanted to do it and get it over with. Then I wouldn't be the only one of my friends who wasn't "in the know". I would be accepted at thre lunch table. I could laugh at all the right parts of the conversation. I would feel smarter. I would be more mature.

I do remember, the next day, crying and squeezing my teddy bear. I was 17 but I could picture in my mind a bridge, and me walking over it, and never being able to cross back ever again. I felt like I'd so carelessly thrown something away that I had no idea how valuable, how precious, how irreplacable it was.

Last week my friend Jen over at Momma Made it Look Easy wrote a wonderful post about talking to her daughter about sex, and what it means both as a physical commitment as well as an emotional commitment. Jen was blessed to have a Momma who gave her the whole truth and nuthin but the truth. My mom, on the other hand, was from the camp of, "If you have a question, ask me and I'll tell you. But if you don't ask, I won't tell." AKA DON'T ASK DON'T TELL. I remember sitting on my brother's bed, surrounded by ugly brown and beige painted walls, while he filled me in on the birds & the bees. I never did ask my mom anything.

Now that I have a daughter, one who's getting older and whose body is changing, she needs to know about the birds & the bees. Texan Papa and I have always told all the Peanuts the scary truth about where babies come from (out of a mommy's privates!) and we've explained ... basically... how the baby grows in the mommy's belly. We use gardening lingo, which makes a lot of sense to them because about the time we started talking about this with them, 3 years ago, we were tending a huge garden at the time. We told them, "A mommy has a garden. A daddy has a seed. The daddy gives a seed to the mommy and it grows in her tummy. It takes a long time to grow until it's ready to be done growing. Just like a garden can't grow something by itself, and a seed can't grow unless it gets planted, that's the same for a baby. A baby comes from a mommy and a daddy, both giving a part to make the baby grow." So, our kids get the gist of it but not much more. They know that the "thing" to make babies is called sex. But, we haven't discussed anything about body parts or what goes where. I've asked my daughter - repeatedly - do you hear your friends talk about it? Do you want me to tell you about it now? DO YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS???

Ugh. Does that sound familiar to you?

I know I need to get on this soon. I'm hoping that my daughter's school would at least notify us first if they are going to talk to the kids about sex. I know they probably will, but it would be nice to get a head's up. Not that I want the school to "educate" her on the finer points of reproduction, but I am scared to death about how to have this conversation with her. Plus, I'm anticipating the question that makes us all squirm in our chairs: "So, Mom, did YOU AND DAD wait until you were married to have sex?"

cough. squirm. rapid change of subject. "Look at that pretty bird outside!"

So, I have a few options: 1) look her straight in the face and tell her a bald-faced lie; 2) look her straight in the face and tell her the truth and lose credibility; 3) Tell her that this conversation is not about me, it's about her. (She's so mature in many ways and yet so trusting and naive, so if I go with #3, I seriously doubt she would make the jump to, well obviously I know what THAT means. Not like I would do if my mom told me that. Because, you know, I'm old and cynical and everything.)

She's my little girl. I want her to sleep in my bed and snuggle with me and sleep in and watch cartoons. I want us to paint our toenails together and learn how to knit (yes, she just did that 2 weeks ago, because SHE wanted to. She is too damn cute and innocent). I don't want to talk to her about periods and penises and prophylactics. I seriously hope that having this talk with her will help her to look at sex differently than I did. I only know my own experience and that my LACK of knowledge contributed greatly to an early sex life. I've rolled it around in my head hundreds of times, asking "How could I have done things differently? What could have happened earlier on that would have made a difference in how I view sex and relationships and acceptance?" Because whatever that is, I want to do that for Peppermint Patty. I want to give her information without freaking her out or making her want to vomit. I've been telling her that we'll be having this talk soon, and she keeps asking me, "Uh-oh. Is it gross Mom?"

Okay, I have to quit typing now. I'm about to hyperventilate.