Friday Flashback

                After reading – technically ex-boss-lady’s Friday Flashback post we were chatting about how I’m hopeful that no one shows up later in life with surprise pictures of my childhood and some of the reasons why I might be concerned. 

                If you thought the Grinch photo was the worst of it – you might be wrong.  If you thought I was going to show you photos to prove your inaccuracies you are also wrong.  I will, however, admit my fashion shortcomings to you now.

                Three reasons why my childhood photos should be kept in a safe for eternity.  Or Burned.

1. I had a pair of khaki colored jeans – that I wore. All. The. Time. With a flannel zip up shirt by like Arizona Co. that was all zig-zag plaid-ish. So that wasn’t cute. Oh and I totally wore it zipped all the way up. :(
   
   
2. My bangs (gulp) were too short for curling. That didn’t stop me. I looked like I had a freaking curler in my hair or taped to my forehead. Totally not cute.
   
   
3. In grammar school I wore like 16 metal hair clips in my hair all the time. I found that if I did not a sibling would take my clips so I thought I would have none. So rather than putting them in a secret place for safe keeping – I put them in my hair for safe keeping. Probably could have picked up some satellite radio stations with all the metal on my head. Definitely not awesome.

All of these - on my head. At the same time.  Why did no one stop me?

So – as I said, hopefully no one has any photo documentation of these dark days.  And if you do, how about you do us all a favor and light them on fire.  Also, I’m pretty sure these things help Boyfriend confirm that I was so not a cool kid growing up, directly in contrast to how awesome he thinks he’s been since birth.  Don’t worry.  I tell him that I’m sure that he was not always the most awesome person in the world.

Writing Prompts

 

                Being the truly enthusiastic blogger I have been, of late, I Googled ‘writing prompts’ this afternoon, in hopes of coming up with something amusing to blog about. After a few random topic generators failed to inspire I came across a site that suggested this:

Find pictures of yourself as a child. Imagine your child self asking your present self to tell a story. What story to you make up?

           I instantly recalled a picture of myself that resurfaced this past Thanksgiving, much to the amusement of my younger sisters, and my friends, but not my boyfriend.  Boyfriend seems to think the fewer people who are aware of this picture the better the world will be.  I say.  Whatev.  I do, however, apologize for the poor picture quality - but it is a picture of a picture.  And a not well preserved original at that.

Circa 1985

                  

                   While I'm not going to tell my poor child self a story, I will tell you that my very beautiful younger sister nearly fell out of her chair laughing when I pulled this beauty out of the pile of pictures we were sorting.  I also asked my mother why she continued having babies after me.  I am confident I would have just thrown in the towel with a "well we tried."   She insisted, as all mothers must, that she thought I was beautiful and showed me off to anyone who would stand still long enough.  

 

                   Some of my friends, when they recover from their laughing fit resulting from this picture, have commented that it's not that bad.  Oh yes it is.  And it better not show up in some slide show years from now at a rehearsal dinner or at my funeral.  Some have confiscated the blackberry so they can send themselves personal copies.  And my friend Emily announced to our table that I look like the baby Grinch.  The iPhone confirmed it.  I do, in fact, look like the Grinch.  I mean even the hair is similar.

What do you think?

             

             I wish I could say the next baby pictures we found over Thanksgiving was a significant improvement but that one was probably from 1987.  My sister (who was a gorgeous baby per all her baby pictures) was dressed to match me and were both work lilac purple dresses with smocking and collars that made us look more like iguanas than anything else. And the picture was one of those classic eighties poses, edited to look like I was a floating head in the background.  I should tell you, I did grow into my cheeks as a toddler and those pictures are much less embarrassing.  Also, my bangs started at the back of my skull.  Ahh the 80's.  

                  I think we can all just agree on one thing - thankfully I didn't turn out looking like this: