Monday, April 25, 2011

tiny tacky turtles

i have a confession: i love tacky sourvenir stores.

alvin's island and wings. chain or local. i love them all.

yes, i know they are filled with endless shelves of treasure crap. i just can't help myself.  from the horrible spring break t-shirts to coffee mugs shaped like boobies, and all the shell art in between.

rarely do i buy something. but if i do, it's for a reason.

case in point: turtles.

you know the ones: no bigger than half your thumb. usually a form of shell art. sometimes wearing a hat.  or glasses.  or both.

i had to buy that first one.

here's why.

the first trip david and i took together was down to gulf shores for a wedding of one of my sorority sisters.  this was only a few weeks after we had been seeing each other, but i was already smitten. (no secret there) and it was on the beach across the street from the awesomely bad hotel that we decided to dtr. yep, heavy discussion for sunbathing. 

seeing as how this conversation eventually led me to my soul mate, i've adopted a sort of fondness for lower alabama beaches.

on the way out of town, i made him visit alvin's island.

a few months later, i returned on business and decided to buy a gag sourvenir for david.

you guessed it: i had finally found a reason to buy one of those ugly funny turtles.

he laughed.

then, wouldn't you know it, the gift shop at our honeymoon resort had a wooden bobble head turtle. and once again, i had to have it.

2 weeks ago, in the busy, hot airport in jamaica, david remarked that "we haven't found a turtle yet!" the search was on. and, as luck would have it, even the jamaicans have a soft spot for tacky turtles.

so now, yes, the turtles are tacky, but they are no longer pointless.

they're memories.

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

umm, yeah...

i care.

about most things, i care too much. about most things, i wish i cared less. about some things, i feel like i should care more, but know i never will.

i care about my family, my friends, and yes, my pets (too much probably).

i care about our country, but  not enough to follow world news and politics (i'll admit it; it either: bores me, confuses me, saddens me, or a combination of some or all of the aforementioned).

i care about my work. i love my families. i've laughed with them at their stories, cried tears of sorrow with them over death, and tears of joy over interventions.

i care about what people think about me. too much. not as much as i used to, but more than i wished that i did.

it is this obsessing over what you think about what i may say here caring that has frozen this blog. i felt that the few posted i had written where actually worth saying, saying somewhat well, and saying from me. i got great feedback in person. many were touched and enjoyed it.

and then the juice ran dry.

nothing seemed to compare to the other posts. and i worried cared about what others would think when they read what i considered writing.

and then i remembered: no one reads this anyway. and if they did, they can choose not too.

bottom line: i'm letting go. i'm embracing the power to not care so much about the mundane.

and it feels good!