TAGGED! (does this mean i am cool now?)

so it finally happened.
and right at the perfect time - i have 15 minutes between clients and what a better way to spend that time than to post meaningless, random information about myself?

that's right - i got tagged by this cool girl
a while back, this beauty threatened to tag me . . . but it never happened.

here we go . . .
ten random things about cara harjes . . .

1. in the 8th grade, i won a greek myth writing contest.

2. i can hold a penny in my right dimple.

3. even though i am the oldest, i am not the typical first born kid.

4. i stopped watching chic flicks during my engagement so the idea of "fantasy guy" wouldn't get up in my head and freak me out.

5. i dressed up as an artist on career day in the third grade.

6. also in the third grade, i had a surgery to correct a condition in my eyes that had been presenting as dyslexia.
this experience provided me with two important things:
a) i didn't have to be enrolled in Special School District and i was actually on the honor roll by the end of 4th grade!
b) i received a stuffed monkey from my teacher, whom i named after my anesthesiologhist, Doctor Scheker.

7. i sleep with socks on.
even if that is all i have on.
i must have socks.
and then half way through the night, i wake up long enough to take them off.
i have a perpetual pile of socks in the bottom of the bed.

8. i have blond streak of hair that is a birth mark.

9. after 9/11, i coped by learning how to Lindy Hop.
for about three years i went swing dancing at LEAST once a week.
sometimes two or three times.
i even have the cute 40's wedge, open-toed suede bottom dance shoes to show for it!

10. my mom and all of her siblings were adopted.
maybe someday we will adopt.

*** If you relate to any of these RANDOM things . . . give me a shout out! (i stole that from rachel's blog too!)

TAG: you are it:

herb!.)
kelly!.)
dave!.)

from the girl who should not be allow to blog after 7:30 pm

it woke up.
right now.
well, a few minutes ago.
around 10:45.
after a bath and taking my evening pills.
after snuggeling with herb.
after the light went out . . . for the third time.
as my tall and broad and always warm husband drifted off,
i felt another presense with me.

next to me.

not snuggled up like herb, but rather tugging and prodding.
a presense much stronger and much warmer.
it breaths the hot yummy-stink of creativity . . .
you know what i mean?
it is kind of like "sexy-ugly" or the smell of grass or gasoline.

anyway, it hummed this tune under it's intoxicating breath . . .
the hope of possibility.

full of ability dying to burst through the seams of your neatly croched socks.
ripping out of the bounds of something created to keep me warm and safe.
it is uncaring.
unwilling to take excuses.
it doesn't even have to seduce me before i am slinking out of my bed and following the heat within my own heart into the office to discover any number of endless possibilites.

books, talks at conferences, retreats, photography, a line of fun girly cards, a line of wedding invitations . . .

they all clang about in my head.
and then i see a book (not hard to do in our house) or a photo or a painting . . . .

and i stop.

because somebody already did it.
they don't need you.
the world doesn't need you to do what anyone else can do and what hundrads who are far more brave than you have already done.
and done well.

so i slink away.

but not this time.

you see, i have another pal.
even stronger than creativity.

so here i sit.
me and curiosity.
very interested in what god might possibly do through and in and around this girl.

Beauty

WOW! I have felt so inspired and fired up since I gave my talk about beauty and body image last weekend. Then I posted most of it here because I was so excited about it! Then I thought more and more about my long time goal of having an article or even a book published. And then I thought more about what I wrote about beauty and body image. And how I might like to use some of that in my pursuit of publication.

So, for now, I am taking it off of the World Wide Web. Just seems like a good idea. I would hate for somebody to like it, "borrow" it, publish it before I do, and then all of a sudden I am talking to Katie Couric's replacement on the Today Show about why on earth I published somebody else's work. (I do realize, of course that that girl from Harvard most likely did use somebody else's work. But wouldn't it be weird if I was accused of plagiarizing my own plagiarizer? Note to self: learn how to spell plagiarize before trying to get published). If you have any questions about what I wrote, let me know. It is an important topic and I feel very excited about women learning where their true beauty and value come from! We can chat. Otherwise, it is going into a safe place for now.

The good news is, I feel inspired to take writing off of my "someday" list and put it on the "today" list. I am going to do it. I am going to work on the essay I published here and see what it turns into. I have a magazine in mind that I might send it to for review. Special thanks to my friend Kelly who inspires me by keeping her five year goals on her fridge. I have mine up now (to my husban's chagrin, i am sure because he hates things hanging on fridges!) I have already crossed one thing off!
Here I go!