Becoming an Accomplished Lady

On a visit to Knott's Berry Farm, I bought a 10 cent fortune from the animatronic grandmother machine. The machine reminded me of the movie Big, she was that creepy. In the first part of the day, I received this awful fortune:

The rest of my family with me received these amazing fortunes about how awesome they are.


When my mom arrived at Knott's I showed her my awful fortune to which she responded with laughter. I knew I had to brave getting another fortune from Grandmother's Prediction. She seemed even more creepy this time around moving her hand back and forth over her tarot cards. Out popped my card, and just when I thought Grandmother couldn't be any more insulting to me, she slaps me with the prediction below:

I must learn to prepare myself socially?! I lack accomplishments, refinement and adequate polish, and I must assimilate them before I can win! What have been doing these past 29 years?! I felt like Elizabeth Bennet in the scene with Lady Catherine. I’m not good enough for Mr. Darcy. Damn you, Grandmother’s Prediction!

I went back to Knott’s 2 weeks ago, and I decided once again to redeem my pride at Grandmother’s Prediction. I had my dime ready in my hand and my eyes were prepared to meet Grandmother’s. Only the machine conveniently had an out of order sign on it. Now this got the wheels in my head turning. Was I having some weird Tom Hanks' Big moment? I do know that I am not a 13 year old that wakes up a grown up, however, would it kill me to learn to become an accomplished lady? Is there a certain lack of refinement about me. Maybe the Grandmother’s Prediction machine will miraculously be back in order when I can be referred to as accomplished.

So how does one even become an accomplished lady? I decided I had go to the source, if I felt like Elizabeth Bennet after reading that prediction, then I had to direct my attention to none other than Jane Austen. I must admit that I have actually never read a Jane Austen book, so I will begin reading Pride and Prejudice as my inspiration for this challenge I have bestowed upon myself.

Jane Austen wrote, "A woman must have a thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing, and the modern languages, to deserve the word; and besides all this, she must possess a certain something in her air and manner of walking, the tone of her voice, her address and expressions, or the word will be but half deserved……’All this she must possess’ added Darcy, ‘ and to all this she must yet add something more substantial, in the improvement of her mind by extensive reading."

I’m not going to lie, that’s kind of a lot….on second thought, CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!

Welcome to My Dollhouse

As a child, I loved visiting the dollhouse aisle at Michaels. I would stare at the different dollhouses and dream that I would have one someday. When I was 8 my wish came true, and Santa brought me a dollhouse kit with the bay house windows I wanted. I can’t even begin to tell you how much I wanted a bay window in my room. If I couldn’t have it in my real life, my dollhouse would have it. Unfortunately, my dad never started with me the project of building my dollhouse. Over time, the poor kit got pushed back deeper in storage and pieces fell out and broke.

One day I was at lunch with a writer friend of mine and she started telling me about her latest project. Something she had said struck a chord in me and I shared the story of the dollhouse I always wanted. I got to thinking about not just the dollhouse, but other things that I wanted that never took off the ground. One of my biggest pet peeves is waiting on others, yet, here I am waiting on myself to do things.

At this time, in my life it’s just me. I’m learning that I need to go after the things I want to do and see. This is going to be about my journey building and checking off the things that I want. I’m sick of this emphasis outside of my career as I grow up being on love, dating, marriage, and children. I’d rather spend my time doing the things I can because I’m not tied down. It’s time I start living life instead of waiting for things to happen.