Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Catching Up



This is my tattoo. My daughters' both have the same sunflower, but the sentiments are slightly different. Caitlin's tattoo has T.J.'s birthdate arching above the sunflower, and the date he died below the sunflower. Gabrielle's tattoo has a T on the left and a J on the right. Mine is a combination of both. We all have it on our left ankle.

Who is T.J.? He is my beautiful oldest child; he died tragically just over 6 years ago at the age of 19. I'll post about that at another time. I will say now that he is our hero. T.J. was an organ donor. 5 people who were dying are alive today, 2 people who were going blind can see, and countless others have been helped or saved because of his generous gift of organs and tissue. If you're not currently registered as an organ donor, won't you please consider it? Many states now offer online donor registration, Maine does. Donate Life America's website can give you information about registry in your state. Be a hero, donate life.

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

First Post: Happy Birthday To Me!

Hi! Welcome to my blog! It's certainly going to evolve over the next few weeks, months and hopefully years. I've been planning and plotting to blog for several years. Life keeps getting in the way. I've declared the Summer of 2010 as " The Summer of Lori". For the first time in 48 years (today is my birthday), I'm attempting to put myself first. It's a little bit scary and somewhat hard to do without feeling guilty, but I'm doing it. So, today seemed like a fitting day to begin the blog. I made a summer bucket list, for lack of a better term, to plan activities for myself for the summer - before the summer got away from me and I hadn't accomplished any me time.

I have signed up for a month-long photography course with Tracey Clark through www.bigpicturescrapbooking.com, I have REAL tan lines instead of a farmer's tan, and I got my first (and probably only) tattoo today. I'll post a picture later; my girls have similar tattoos in memory of our beautiful T.J. (more on T another day).

I'm enjoying getting to know myself better and exploring what interests me this summer. How are you spending yours?