In Repose Blog

8 Things in the Back of my Closet

I got tagged for a meme by Lauren of  Can you be a Part of My Life? . I'm not going to tag anyone else, but I'll play along.

1. Ironing board. I hate to iron. It can stay there.
2. A few stuffed animals of my children's that I can't bear to part with.
3. A beautiful velvet riding helmet I bought in Germany but don't use. I bought it before the slim, light helmets were out and I look like a bobblehead if I put it on.
4. A basket of scarves and little evening bags. Neither of which get much use anymore.
5. Some vintage dresses that were vintage to ME when I bought them 20 years ago.
6. Some vintage shoes that I saved for my daughter whose feet ended up a size larger than mine.
7. A box of old letters. A real treasure since so few people actually put pen to paper anymore.
8. But the most important thing in my closet is a box of my brother Randy's last effects. I have his wallet, his eyeglasses, some letters and other items that I am only brave enough to hold and touch and smell a few times a year.

One item in that box that remains so special, so sweet, and so my brother Randy is this envelope I found in his desk when I was cleaning out his apartment after his death:

That's his handwriting and inside are four beautiful white whiskers from his cat "BC".

My brother would have turned 45 years old this coming Wednesday had he not been mowed over by a reckless one-eyed teenage maniac 19 years ago.

Grief does soften a bit over time. It has to, so that people can keep living. But it does not ever, ever go away.

I miss you Randy.

Eight Things About Me

I have been tagged! Honestly, I am so new to blogging, I had to ask the tagger (Kuanyin at The Art of Living and Dying ) what it meant. Maybe you don't know what it means either? In that case, it is much like the game of tag and is often called a meme. Now I am "it".

The rules for this meme are:

"Each player posts eight random facts/habits about him/herself and then tags eight other bloggers to participate. In turn, the folks who are tagged write a post listing their own eight facts/habits, along with these rules, and then tag eight more people . . . and so on.

Each blogger must list the eight people they are tagging, and visit their sites, leaving a comment notifying them that they have been tagged and inviting them to read your entry."

OK! So lets play. Kuanyin focussed her eight things on the subject of death.
Interestingly enough, even considering the focus of In Repose and this blog, I will revert back to the original meme of Eight Things About Me, and give death a break today.

1. I am 45 years old, a wife and mother of two brilliant and beautiful teenage children.  My elderly mother just moved back into our home last weekend, my dad is still alive and kicking too and I am happy about that. My in-laws are GREAT, really I love them very much. My husband is still the love of my life and just about the smartest person I have ever met and one of my favorite things in the world is to see him driving a tractor around our ranch.

2. I have lived in New Mexico, Japan, Kansas, Florida, Germany, Oklahoma, North Carolina, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and Texas. (Some of those states two or even three different times!) I don't have this bumper sticker on my pickup truck but I certainly could: "I wasn't born in Texas but I got here as fast as I could."

3. I adore animals and we live on a little ranch. I have three horses, a mini donkey, two chickens, two rabbits, a dog, five cats and four fancy rats. Yes, I said rats. They make for smart, friendly and extremely loving pets. I didn't know this fact until fairly recently myself. (All of the animals but the horses are rescues...even the rats!)

4. I have been utterly horse crazy from the time of my birth. I think my very first recorded memory was the vision of an old grey pony pulling a cart on the island of Okinawa. I was about two years old and the vision is as vivid as can be and I fell in love instantly with all things equine. For 44 years my goal was to live my life as a horsewoman and I have pretty much done exactly that since I was a small child. When my dad bought me my first pony when I was 8, I thought I had been waiting forever for a horse of my very own.

This photograph was taken of me two springs ago by Jennifer Wensel.

5. My other personal passion is art. I am a painter by training and have my Masters Degree. I have been shooting photography professionally for about 4 years, mostly portraits and horses, and I do all sorts of design work as well.

6. I have struggled with my health most of my life and found out about 7 years ago that I have fibromyalgia. Every day and each of my activities is affected by this condition but I still do almost everything I want to do, which includes riding my horses. It is because of FMS that I began to learn about REIKI and became a third degree certified REIKI master.

7. I am a gourmet cook, a real foodie, and some would say a food snob. I won't eat mammals or reptiles or insects but nearly anything and everything else (assuming it is fresh) is an option for my plate. I love trying new sauces, flavors and especially vegetable combinations. Spicy is GOOD. I bring my own coffee beans with me when I travel. I will NOT eat fake food or anything that comes out of a machine. Fast food is for me a punishment.

8. My favorite word or concept is resourceful, and I try to approach life and all of my projects with resourcefulness in mind.

I now tag the following blogs: Final Taxi, Unconventional Beauty, Holistichic, Final Embrace, Time Goes By, Sassy & Sweet Notes, One Last Time and Angel Valley Farm (the last one listed not yet an official blog, but a fun newsletter and maybe a blog someday!)