10 Things That Represent Me or My Life

I was tagged by Beast Mom on this one....

In no particular order, here are 10 things that represent me or my life:

1. BROWN. Somehow or other, brown has become significant enough in my life that others recognize it. My friend Claire, as a matter of fact, has named a particular shade "(my real name here) Brown." Because that's the color I seem to gravitate towards, this particular milk-chocolate brown color. I started liking brown way before the trend of "brown as the new black" happened. Now mind you, I don't wear a ton of brown (yes, I wear some), I don't decorate totally in brown (yes, there's some, but it's not like you walk into my house and say, WOW! BROWN!). Yet somehow, brown has become "my" color.

2. ANIMAL PRINT. I've loved animal prints since I was in junior high, particularly leopard. I've discovered moderation, however, and I currently do not own ANY animal-print clothes (well, underwear, but it's not like I'm parading that before the world). I have *something* of animal print in every room of my house except the bathroom. In the dining room it's just a scarf hanging on the coat tree. In my living room I have one animal-print pillow on the rocking chair, and my curtains, although you can't tell at first glance (and sometimes not even second), are a shimmery red/brown animal print pattern. Again, you don't walk into anyplace in my house and say HOLY JUNGLE ROOM, but it's there. (My purse has the most....I have a black wallet with a fake-fur leopard front, my "feminine needs" zipper bag is leopard print, and my glasses case is zebra print. Most people will see at most one of these at a time, but if you look in my purse, it's a little jungle-y.

3. MY WALL O' PICTURES. Going up the stairs in my house I have 10 picture frames with various pictures of my kids....some individual, some collages. All kinds of pictures of my kids. My computer wallpaper is a daily-changing picture of my kids. My screen saver is a random slideshow of my kids. Note: There are no pictures displayed of me *with* my kids. This is significant. I don't like being looked at.

4. MARKIRA. Sometime around the time of my daughter's arrival in the world, I realized that if you jam both my kids' names (Mark and Kira) together, they share the "K" and it makes a neat-sounding name...markira. [I later realized that you can do the same thing with their middle names, Allen and Nicole, but allenicole just doesn't have the same ring) I just love the sound of that word. markira. I've put it on my license plate. I use it as a logon name. If I ever create a company, it will be markira inc. When I make cards on my computer, I put "markira designs" on the back of them.Right now I'm involved in a (so far) three-month-long attempt to get a silver ring engraved with "markira" (they keep sending it capitalized). Love markira.

5. STRAGGLY, HALF-DEAD PLANTS. Every spring I am very ambitious and optimistic about my garden. I start a bazillion plants from seed, as soon as it's warm enough I turn over the soil in my gardens, usually expand a garden, and I have full intentions of making this year be the best garden yet. Then it gets hot. I don't do hot. And I get tired. And I forget, for long periods of time, that container plants need water pretty much daily or they become very unhappy. And I don't get around to weeding the gardens. So I have gardens full of waist-high weeds choking out the plants, the container plants are miserably and straggly. This said, I just spent four or so hours today mowing my lawn and weeding out all the gardens. They look pretty good (need mulch...sigh). The container plants are still not happy. I *do* have a bunch of cherry tomatoes that are ripe. Yum.

6. MY COMPUTER. I spend a LOT of time on my computer. Way too much. But I'm pretty good at computer-related things, and I've kinda gotten a reputation for it. That and being able to find things on the Internet (which I don't understand how that can be difficult. Hello, Google?).

7. BOOKS. I read a lot. And I'm a speed-reader. So I devour books. Usually have a few books going at a time. And I do re-read books, if I like them enough. I generally don't buy books, since I read them so quickly, I would be spending way more money than I can afford. I do purchase books if I am adding them to my permanent library. I am very, very glad that both of my kids are avid readers as well. I don't know what I would do with non-readers. ;)

OK, I'm gonna save this here and post more on it later. I'm afraid if I just leave it on my screen, somehow all this hard work will get deleted. This has taken a long time just to think of these things!!