Living Out Loud volume 19: Tooting your own horn

Looking back on the other evening when I had hoped to do some writing, discovered my blogs were all trashed, spent an hour feeling sick to my stomach about it and wringing my hands, then buckled down, found the fix and managed to still post to both blogs, I realized I had created a bit of an emotional roller coaster. Poor Rich was dragged along for the ride as I lamented to him about my blog being broken and by the time he was starting to have sympathy pains and came over to my office to share some "yeah, screw those guys" over the bastards that hacked my sites, I had fixed it and was all giddy. He had some sympathy whiplash from it all. As angsty as I was about my blogs being brokenBrokenBROKEN, in the end, I was pretty pleased with myself.

That planted a seed of thought for what kinds of things give us a sense of accomplishment or make us happy. And it reminded me of the "ice-breaker" I'd heard of that asked everyone in the room to name something they were proud of.

So let's try this for our next Living Out Loud. Tell us something that you're proud of. Ideally, it would be something about yourself that you're proud of and not that you're proud of Alberto Contador's performance in the Tour de France. It could be a specific accomplishment or a particular character trait of yours. It could be one thing for a combination of events/factors that make up the magic of you. I recently read an article about someone saying he wasn't brave for writing about one of his shortcomings on the Internet because he got plenty of the expected sympathy and hugs but that it took more courage for him to brag about himself online. (Ironically, he took the bragging post down or I'd link to it.)

Details include:

• Write something personal about yourself using the previous paragraphs as a guideline. Do not feel that you have to address each prompt above. The spirit of this project is to share something about yourself; I'm just throwing out ideas.

• Once you have completed your entry and posted it, please email me the link at genie [at] inabottle [dot] org. Remember, if you don't email me, I'm likely to forget to include you in the recap!

• If you do not have a blog to host your story, you can email me the story directly and I will add it here as a guest post giving you credit. The more the merrier!

• The due date for entries is Sunday, August 1st (the first Sunday of the month) at 5pm Eastern.

• Once I have collected all the entries, I will post a wrap-up to list them all and announce a winner. The winner will receive some sort of prize to be determined but all participants will receive fame and glory and a link on our Living Out Loud blogroll.

So let's hear it. Pat yourself on the back. Toot your own horn and tell it like it is.

Recap of Living Out Loud volume 18: My brother's keeper

I'm woefully behind. We had house guests this weekend, which was lovely but left little time for writing by Sunday evening. And then yesterday I was all ready to compile our entries but work kicked my ass and then this head cold finished me off at 8pm when the boy and I both went to bed at the same time. Oh, and I have a squirmy baby that rarely naps and doesn't go to bed much before we do. But enough excuses, let's check out our entries!

Kimz' The only only child I'm always fascinated how some single children can grow up as "micro-adults" because they interact with so many adults. And one of my co-workers talks about the challenges of parenting siblings when you've never had to yourself (he and his wife are only children).

Ruth's He ain't heavy Love the squinty photo! Having the shared memories but from other perspectives is a rare treat.

Megan's Big brother I had two older brothers and I don't remember a lot of hair-ruffling. I have always wondered what it would be like to have a sister. :) I look forward to hearing how my kids feel about each other once they're adults (and more than one of them).

Peg's Family Matters Wow, you really were the middle child and then some.

SuziCate's I Am My Own Keeper Six kids over 12 years is a lot. I have a hard enough time relating with just my two brothers let alone all those others. Everyone's perspective is very different even on the same events.

Rachel's The little sister There are lots of things I didn't have to endure as the youngest baby. Part of that was being a girl and part of that was loosening standards by that time. :) But there's a chance to change that behavior as adults. We just have to work on it.

And my own Siblings

As I said earlier, I've been behind. I haven't reminded folks about the LOL deadlines and I'm barely able to get a topic out "on time" (with some leeway given to the on time part). But you all rallied for me. And then when I sit down to read the entries, I'm still just so pleased at the thought you put into them. It makes me proud.

This month I choose Rachel as our winner. Maybe it's because I feel some commiseration about that whole youngest child thing. But her entry struck me as the definition of writing something you wouldn't normally have for the world to see. Thank you so much for sharing!

Rachel will receive a $25 Amazon gift card as her prize but all participants earn my unending appreciation for your writing. I have picked a theme for this month but just have to figure out how to explain it, so hopefully I can do that this week.

Siblings

Whenever I describe my brother Perry, I always say "he looks just like me only 6 inches taller and much more bald." We are very similar in many ways but not quite identical. Perry is six and a half years older than I am. When Mom was pregnant with me, Perry took my ultrasound picture to show and tell to show everyone his little sister. When we were little, everyone said we should have been closer together so we could have played together. We still managed to play just fine.

When I was six months old and Perry was seven, we went to have our pictures taken at Thalhimers. Perry was in charge of making sure I stayed sitting up and getting me to smile for the camera. He would perform all these antics and when I would grin back he'd burst out, "that's my girl!" I'm not sure the photographer knew what to think of us.

I've always said that I know I won't have my father forever, but when he's gone I will always have Perry. In many ways he is our dad on a 30 year delay. This can be charming and frustrating, but at least we know where it comes from.

I have many other people in my life who act like siblings to me. Mr. Smith is one of my oldest and dearest friends and I feel like our families are intertwined on many levels. It was amusing to me when my co-workers commented on my sister at our wedding (last I checked I didn't have a sister). My "sister" was Laura, who had just finished a reading during the ceremony and was walking over the straighten my wedding gown before photos. Ah, right. Maybe I have a sister after all.

But they are not the same as my brothers. We share a sub-culture. We're roadies from the same circus. We know each other's history. We are all actors in the same play, though with our broad age differences it may be that some of us had larger parts in different acts.

That relationship can be difficult to explain to others at times. I'm grateful that Rich is so close to his brother Lee so he understands the importance of it.

In the last month I've sewn curtains for my brother, helped him order his new cell phone and edited several emails intended for a lady friend. He's delivered Pyrex dishes and a million fleece blankets he found on clearance.

We're six and a half years apart but we still manage to play just fine.