Shelly at This Eclectic Life tagged me to participate in The Face Behind The Blog meme. Shelly has a great collection of old photographs from her childhood days – now I don’t have that many in my possession, but I’ll do my best.

Here’s how it goes, in the words of the originator, David:

“Post a short blog article that includes a photograph (or a series of photos) showing the face behind your blog. If you already show a photo somewhere on your site (such as in your about page), then make your post more interesting and choose a photo that’s not currently online. Include links to other people that have displayed a photo, or include their photos in your post, adding a reference. A link back to David’s post is much appreciated, to help create a more personal community! Then tag as many others as you like in your post to spread the meme. Each person tagged should create their own post and repeat the process.”

Alrightie then. Lemme see here. It all started out when I was a wee munchkin in a suit with a.. mom? What did you put on me? Is that a TIE? Ohhh the 70’s. It’s not my fault, my mommy made me do it. At least I’m wearing a skirt, I think? I don’t really know. But I’m cute, eh? I had those grandma-pinchy cheeks. Yep, the grandma’s loved me. The dad? Not so much. He bailed not long after this photo was taken. Can you believe it? I’m so stinkin’ cute, how could he leave? ::resisting urge to pinch my own baby cheeks::

Completely skipping those awkward years of my youth because thankfully, those photos are in mom’s house, somewhere, and I am really fine with that. They can be lost, or found and burned – whatever works. I’m good. You know what I looked like at my Senior Prom – and that’s all that really matters, right?

Skipping right on up to my late teens – early twenties (just saying that makes me feel old), when I lived in the beautiful sunny San Diego area. Aaah, those were the days. See how happy I am with my Super Big Hair? I loved living in California. I met one of my dearest friends there, after having worked with her for several months thinking she was a snotty valley girl – and here all along she thought I was a big B-word. Funny how first impressions can be so wrong! She and I hung out on Oceanside beach and Carlsbad.

I can’t even begin to describe how much I loved living in California. I can still hear the sound of the waves crashing up onto those rocks, and I can smell the Pacific like it’s embedded in my sinuses. I miss living on the West Coast very much!

At the time, I worked in Accounting. Can you believe it? I can’t. I’m horrible with numbers. I always say “that’s why God made calculators!” I worked hard, though, even though my brain hurt and recovery did require lots of cheap grocery store wine at the end of the day. Just kidding. I wasn’t a lush, but I did have a much more relaxed and carefree lifestyle while we were living there.

All of these photos were taken by my friend Erin. Our men were both in the Marine Corps so we had a lot of fun getting gussied up and taking photos for them while they were on duty. I was even wearing her clothes at the time, which was cool because I always wanted to wear something smaller than a size 10. That only happened for like 6 months out of my whole entire life, and only because I sucked my gut in really really hard. She took the photos in black and white so you couldn’t see how my face was turning blue from holding my breath in.

And then. I should just have you caption this photo for me. The winner would be something like “And then she moved back to the midwest.” or “Illinois. Takes the Cali right out of a girl.” You know, something gloomy and snowy that makes you want to grow your hair out long and wear college sweatshirts and put static guard on your hair in the fall and winter. Why am I showing you this? Just to show you folks on the West Coast what will happen if you move to the Midwest. You’ll completely forget how laid back and sensible life can be, and you’ll become one of those corn growers who doesn’t know how to put an infinitive in front of a verb. You’ll start saying things like “My hair needs cut.” instead of “My hair needs TO BE cut.” I swear, “to be” or not “to be” is never a question around here.

Aaah getting settled in, chopping the hair off, adding a dog and then a kid to the brood, life is good. Chloe came first in 1993, then Catybug was born in 1996. The two of them got along famously as you can tell, Chloe guarded us even from that scary clickity thing that daddy was pointing at us. Then she smiled pretty because she realized she was on candid camera, and she was a smart girl. We’re coming up on the one year mark of having lost our first baby girl, so expect another mushy gushy kleenex getter of a post.

Like I mentioned, we live on the Mighty Muddy Mississippi. We’re not allowed to feed those ducks anymore – can you believe that? Apparently a goose scared the crap out of a person, instead of the other way around, so now they’ve prohibited any of the good old traditions of going down to the river to feed the ducks. Catybug and I giggled a lot that day.

This is one of my favorite photos, but mom would have a meltdown if she saw her winky smiley face on the internet, so I blurred up her face some just to make her feel better. She’s really cute (go see her here, she actually doesn’t mind that one being on the web!) – I would have cut and pasted her head but boy that would have looked wierd. I got this great upright piano from a gal I worked with who was going to lose it to the burn pile if she didn’t find a home for it. I love having mom and my sisters over, we all sit around and play chopsticks and songs from when we were kids – and my mom also plays Grandma teacher with Catybug now, too. It’s a wonderful thing, those memories of playing the piano when I was a kid. I still know one or two songs from my childhood, too.

I don’t think anyone who visits my blog has seen me pregnant. So TA-DA, here I am, pregnant with our little Chickeymonkey. Yes I gained like three hundred pounds and we had to install that backing up beeper on my rear end so I wouldn’t crash into people when I moved around. Sheesh. Yeah, pregnancy is beautiful – when it’s over and you’re reminiscing about it. This is me and my hubby on our second wedding day. The second marriage, I mean. And boy am I pregnant. Woah. Where’s the beach? Maybe you should just cover your eyes and scroll down now? That would be good. Thanks.

The Chickster wouldn’t let me get a photo of the two of us together, making things all even between sisters and all that – so I leave you with my most current photo from a couple of weeks ago. This is me, folks, in my studio. After all these years, I’m doing what I love to do. I’m creative every day, I get to be with my kids, I get to enjoy my home and my life and I get to savor it at a slower pace.

And that concludes my “short blog article that includes a photograph (or a series of photos)”. What is short, anyway? I don’t even want to know the word count on this entry. It’s probably longer than a whole month worth of entries all put together.

Who to tag?! Now I’m supposed to choose some people to do this. I can tell you who I’d like to see doing this – people who haven’t shared pics of themselves very often, if ever. I’m not going to tag anyone, though. I’m going to ask that if you’ve made it this far, and if this is something you’d like to do, please let me know and I’ll link to you.

Char at Essential Keystrokes
Paul at Reflections
Rob at 2Dolphins

Zep at The In-Sect
Ingo at Stixster

Stevie at Lost In Cyberspace
The Paper Bull at (oddly enough) The Paper Bull
Lisa Sabin-Wilson at Just A Girl In The World

Dawud Miracle at dmiracle.com
Wendy Piersall at eMoms at Home

Dennis Bjørn Petersen at The Beta News
Randa Clay at Randa Clay Design
Drew McLellan at The Marketing Minute

Becky McCray at Small Biz Survival
Phil Gerbyshak at Make it Great!

Steve Woodruff at StickyFigure
Dave Olson at Live the GREAT life that you desire
Greg at Become a Remote Control SEO

Ariane Benefit at Neat & Simple Living Blog

Genesis at the At Home Mom Blog
Armen at iFFECT.NET
Mihaela Lica at Online Public Relations
Tara at Graphic Design Blog

Doris Chua at Home Office Women

Edward Mills at Evolving Times
Tony D. Clark at Success from the Nest
Jonathan-C Phillips at SmartWealthyRich
Karen at A Deaf Mom Shares Her World

Lisa Gates at intrinsic life design

Rammel Firdaus at rammelfirdaus.com
Carol at Pentimento
Adam Kayce at Monk at Work
Thomas at Technical Blogger

Tammy Lenski at I Can’t Say That!

Chris Brown at Branding & Marketing
Rory Sullivan at Hamelife
Derek Wong at Going The Wong Way
Embuck at embuck.com

Ms. Q at QMusings
Shelly Tucker at This Eclectic Life
Steve at Ramblings from the Marginalized
Troy Worman at on!blog
Lilith at Lilith’s Owl Nest

Revov at REVO-OVER
Karin at Stop/Start
Sha at Sha Money Maker dot com
Derrick Sorles at Life By Design
Ken Xu at Mysites Advisor dot com

Roberta at Roberta Ferguson
Donovan at Blog That Outside
Leanne Wildermuth at Artist by Nature
Ingrid at Through My Eyes
Don Lawson at Affiliate Watcher

The Giddy Tiger at Giddy Tigers
Mike Busson at Twenty Steps
Rosemarie at Miscellaneous Matters
Charity at Design Adaptations
Nancy at Erik Quinn: The Heart of a Family

Robyn McMaster at Brain Based Biz
Chris at Chris Hoyt
Faddy at Girl Next Door
Thess at In Nederland
Jean at A Great Pleasure

Suzie at 1Day@ATime
Jason at Blisslogs
Johnny at Really Smart Guy
Bob at BobMeetsWorld.com
Chin Nee at De ‘moments

Skipper at My Life Starts At Forty-Two
Seiche at Seiche
Leah at Leah’s Cafe
iRonnie at I Set No Corner

Andrew Boyd at Facibus on Blogging

Josie at Josie Two Shoes
Dr Ellen Webber at Brain Based Business
Mika at Text Unlimited
Nell at Tales of a Melodramatic Moron

Pen at the pen is mightier than the sword

Jamie at Terinea Weblog
Orlanes at Wanderlust
Cheh at Moderately confused Pinay in Deutschland
Mrs Pektus at Borrowed Heaven

K at K, speaking!

Chase at Queer Chef
Hanne at Lucid Unreality
Jill at Gelb9
Tish at The Kat House

Jessica at Life is RANTastic!

Logtar at Logtar’s Blog
Julie at TeacherJulie.com
Wilson at Get it Funk

Sue at Life in the Urban Zoo
Isabelle at Tricotine

Alternati at Sarcasm Aside
Mousey at Sasha Says
Diana at Nazarene Family Services

Jen at Expat Travels
Meeyauw at meeyauw

Tammi at Drawing on Words
Jams at The Poor Mouth
Mar at maremagnum

Karen Delaney at A Strange Life
Lynnette at The Fun Times Guide

Trish at Incoherent-ish
Lisa at Lisa C Writes
Becky at Becky’s Nook

Dora at Peppylady
Renny at RennyBA’s Terella

Autumn at Autumn’s Meadow
Jen at Jen’s Horde

Sandy Carlson at Writing in Faith
Captain Lifecruiser at Sea Lifecruiser
Trinity at Rooms of My Heart