self portrait tuesday -- my life as a...

...cowgirl.

This is my first pair of cowboy boots and I love them! They're a 30th birthday present to myself (purchased with money given to me by my family...thanks family!). I've been wanting a pair of Lucchese boots since John bought his at Allens Boots in Austin, TX nearly a year and a half ago. It was our first time to Austin and we both fell in love with the town. When we lived in Lawrence, people would tell us all the time that if we loved Lawrence, then we would really love Austin. We couldn't resist the pull forever. Even though we were only there for two days and had a 6-month old with us (and thus did not get to experience any of the live music scene), we saw enough to fall in love with the town. Actually, we spent much of the time throwing around the idea of moving to Austin and opening a shoe store there (we knew at that time that we were definitely pursuing the shoe store, we just didn't know where yet). But, Austin has plenty of hip boutiques (shoe stores included) and Kansas City doesn't, so in the end we decided there was probably more of a need in KC.

I'm sure owning these cowboy boots is the closest thing I'll ever get to being a cowgirl (which I realize is not close at all), but one of my secret lifelong dreams has been to move to a ranch and own horses. I love horses. Or maybe I should say I like horses. Saying I love horses makes me feel like I should collect horse figurines, or subscribe to a magazine about horses, or at least have taken riding lessons when I was younger. None of that applies to me, so maybe I'm only allowed to say I like horses, but either way, I think one day I'd like to own one or two.

I haven't spent massive amounts of time around horses by any means. The extent of my experience with taking care of and riding horses is a handful of days spent with my friend Erin at her family's ranch. I'm sure those few days 15 years ago have provided me little to no concept of what is actually involved with owning and caring for horses, but who cares about that. It's a dream, and thus I don't feel the need to burden it with all those realities. Maybe one day in the distant future when Habitat is doing well and we've opened multiple stores and we can pay someone else to run the daily operations of the business, my husband, daughter, child #2 and I can move out of the "city" and experience those realities of country life firsthand. Right now, it sounds pretty appealing. Who knows if it will in ten years? I suppose I'll just have to wait and see.

Incidentally, although this is my first time participating in the self portrait challenge, I have wanted to for the better part of a year. When I first found out about it, I was intrigued by the concept, but not quite ready to post photos of myself every week. I really like photography, but I like being on this side of the camera...not in front of it. Then, when I'd actually be ready to try a shot, John would have the camera at the store taking photos for the all-consuming website. Or, I'd not resonate with the challenge for that month. Or, I'd think about it on Thursday, but not Tuesday. I suppose the stars just aligned rightly today...who knows if they ever will again.