One of my good friends recently tried out her Jedi Mind Tricks on me.
"I bet you can't close your eyes and randomly choose five pictures to post on your blog, and then figure out a way to make them mean something."
Oh, good try at reverse psychology, I thought. You obviously want me to try and prove you wrong.
What she was really thinking was, "You are too much of a control freak about your photographs. You would never post something that had a stray piece of lint or your eyes closed, unless that was your intention originally."
Fine, then. I see your Jedi and raise you five random photographs, picked with a spin of the scrolling mouse wheel and a click stop.
#1:
Number one, my friend who better be reading this, is Morocco. Morocco at Walt Disney World. Disney World that I took my children to visit last November, so they could learn more about diplomacy and world studies.
Take that. Random picture number one is about INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS. Ha.
#2:
Number two is a dorky picture of me, taken two years ago, in between shots for my Lookbook profile. Look, my sweater is wrinkled. There's a spot on my shirt. I look like I might stab you with my needles.
Have you seen the Lookbook? Oh, you haven't? You can click here to see my blood, sweat, and tears that was almost as painful to birth as Baby Shamrock. But even though the Lookbook is lovely, it's way less kissable than my sweet baby girl.
Random picture number two is about PREGNANCY AND CHILDBIRTH. Very important milestones in a human's life.
#3:
Picture three is a mock up of a blog redesign that I was very unhappy with. When I saw it, my heart sank. I could not even find a place to begin articulating what would need to be changed to make it presentable. The header seemed like someone took some free floral clip art off the web and pasted them on there. The colors... no. Needless to say, I went in a different direction.
Picture three is about LOVE AND LOSS. Mainly loss. Mainly the loss of money from hiring a designer whose portfolio looks nothing like their finished work.
#4:
Well, Queen Sonja of Norway never contacted me to gush ecstatically over the commemorative colorways I made just for her. Dang it.
But I'm sure no news is good news and that she happily knit several scarves and pairs of socks with what we gave her.
Were you aware that The Yarnista is actually a blog about INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS?
Me neither. But this post makes it obvious.
#5:
This is a ferocious grizzly bear**, ready to attack my young. I must defend my offspring from the attack of the deadly grizzly. No measures are too extreme.
I have encountered the grizzly before, and know how to ward against its predatory nature.
Boom. Picture five is about POST-APOCALYPTIC WILDERNESS SURVIVAL.
**By ferocious grizzly bear, I mean mild-mannered black bear. It's funny, I can deadpan about everything in the universe, but when it comes to ferocious grizzly bears, everyone wants to email me to say they're really not grizzly bears, they're black bears. In other words, they choose this precise moment in time to begin believing that I am being serious. Why is that?
Thank you, friend, for your Jedi mind tricks. You have helped me grow as a blogger.
I now see the importance of my writings on a much larger scale -- how did I not realize I was covering important topics like international relations and wilderness survival?
You win.