Monday, October 22, 2007

Fun Monday - The Shirt Off My Back

This week's Fun Monday is being hosted by WT, he wants to see some clothing art. That's tee shirts, baseball caps, hoodies, sports uniforms or any bit of clothing that you or your kids own that has interesting, funny or artistic graphics. (Go visit WT for a list of participants)

In looking through our clothes, I realized that our favorite T-shirts reflect on good times during our marriage - events of note, things we were into. Having now been married for over 12 years, there are very few T-Shirts that have survived from pre-marriage times, but there is still one relic from the courtship days.

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Before we were married, we went to Hueco Tanks (outside El Paso, TX) for vacation with our friend Larry. We were all into the climbing thing. Larry had a wall in his back yard, the first venue for that sort of thing, and every Tuesday was "climbing night", which was open to all wanna-be climbers in our area. Once we became somewhat proficient, the wall just wasn't enough. So the vacation. Absolutely wonderful!!!! Camping, stampeding javalinas, warm walls and cold nights. We shared our campsite with some guy named Adam and it was almost like a throwback to the 60-70s - we shared food and space with someone we'd never met before, who lived in his little station wagon and gypsied around to the various climbing destinations around the country. You can't climb at Hueco Tanks anymore. Too many people and the rocks were starting to disintegrate - rocks that had been there since the Asteroid hit.

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After we got married, we moved to Wakulla. Our little piece of heaven in the woods and the sand. Mountain biking (without the mountains) became our thing. And kayaking. My husband still goes fishing in his kayak! As you can see, we'd led a very active life - always on the leading edge of the next craze. Once everyone was doing it, it wasn't quite as interesting anymore. One Christmas, I visited our local outfitter and discovered the "Life is Good" t-shirts. This one was perfect for Darling Man.

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About three years ago, my grandfather's wife was dying of cancer. After 24 years, I finally returned to England and North Wales to say goodbye to her. And as long as I was there, I visited as much family as possible within a 10 day span. While visiting my grandmother in Wales, she took me to Merionith Mills (a tourist trap according to her), which had some wonderful T-shirts, tea towels and lovely stuffed lambs. I brought home some of each, but my favorite shirt was one I brought for my son. He's too big for it now, so I'm thinking about making it into a pillow. I love the graphics on the front and no one else from around here would get it anyway, should I donate this to Goodwill.

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And now... we are into martial arts. The "Evolve" t-shirt was mine. It really spoke to me, not only regarding my progress in KenPo, but also my progress in my life. Darling Man coveted this shirt, so I finally gave in and let him have it. But he swapped me the Body/Mind Yin/Yan shirt, which is equally meaningful to me because it portrays balance and the forces of nature and spirit - which is what I am striving for these days.

So what could have been a very cut and dried assignment turned into an avenue of self-exploration - AGAIN! Am I reading too much into these Fun Mondays?????

29 comments:

kitten said...

My son would have a fit over the dragon shirt! Really awesome!

Anonymous said...

Great shirts. I totally dig the evolve one.

(like totally.)

Anonymous said...

I like the Life is Good one. Hubby would wear it every day. (Then maybe I could throw away the ratty old beer fest ones?!?!?!)

Junebug said...

I have some Hard Rock cafe tshirts from London & Paris. Not quite the same as rock climbing? We used to go dune buggying at Little Sahara in western Oklahoma. There are some pretty good dunes there. I will post some pictures sometime soon. I like the Life is Good t-shirt.

Jenni said...

Love the Hueco Tanks T-shirt! Our climbing equipment is sitting in the storage room neglected. We just don't have time for it any more. There aren't many places to climb in Kansas, anyway. We do have a climbing wall about 20 minutes from us, though.

I also like your "Life is good" and Body and Mind shirts.

katy said...

yes definately make the dragon shirt into a cushion, it is just great, i love your body and mind shirt too

Anonymous said...

Gosh, we really are learning alot about Fun Monday bloggers by their tee shirts! Yours are so telling, about the things you've done AND like to do :).

I like that whole "life is good" line; don't they all just make you smile? Especially when the picture is something you enjoy??

I find I have sentimental attachment to clothes, too..kind of like your climbing tees...:)

Sandy said...

Great shirts! My husband would LOVE the dragon one!

Katie McKenna said...

The dragon shirt is beautiful.


For myself I like the body/mind .. a reflection of where I am... or at least like you, striving to be.

Anonymous said...

Love the dragon design!

Tiggerlane said...

Hey! My husband has a "fishing" version of the "Life is Good" shirt - and I liked the grinning logo so much, that I saved the tag and have it thumbtacked on my kitchen wall.

Anonymous said...

What a fun collection of shirts you have.
The Dragon shirt is awesome, and I especially like the Body/Mind one.

Happy Fun Monday!

Emma in Canada said...

I love the life is good ones. And I'd so make a cushion with the dragon one. Or use it as the center of a quilt.

Robin M said...

Like the dragon design. My brother would love that - he and his wife are into everything dragons.

Thanks for sharing

Happy fun monday

Robin of mytwoblessings

Anonymous said...

Those are great, and I think to some extent lots of things that make us take a close look at our life is a good way of self-exploration. I enjoyed you exploration and evolution to where you are now with you involvement with martial arts. I also think it is a great idea to use the t-shirt as a cushion cover to have it around and showing.

Anonymous said...

Donate to Goodwill? Now way! LOVE the dragon! I'm with others on here, a pillow would be great.

Karina said...

Great shirts! I think what makes Fun Monday so much fun is what we get out of it...both for ourselves, and from visiting other posts...so, no, I don't think you are reading too much into them.

Love the Yin/Yan shirt!

Beckie said...

Ah, life is good! I love those...they are fun.

The Evolve T is good - I wish I could find one like that for my daughter.

Molly said...

Wow, I like all of your shirts. We are partial to the "Life Is Good" clothing...so postive. The balance of nature shirt is very cool. The Hard Rock Climbing shirt is priceless.

Unknown said...

Am I suppose to read more into the dragon than it is the symbol of Wales? Or, was I the only one to ask that, being the British History nut? I love it, by the way.

Pamela said...

We each had about 15 Raquetball T-shirts from our tournament years. --but I didn't even think about those.
Interesting how your T-shirts "evolve" with your life. (:

the planet of janet said...

i love the last one... body/mind yin/yan... that is VERY VERY cool!

Anonymous said...

Love the Life is Good t-shirt with the cabin, bike, and kayak.

Really like the dragon. And you are right...it would make a nice pillow.

karisma said...

I love the dragon and the last two shirts as well. Especially the last one. Self-exploration is a wonderful thing.

Great Post. Thanks

my4kids said...

My 10 year old would love the dragon shirt. He is all about dragons right now!
Love the "life is good" shirt we have a lot of those here and they are pretty popular.

Anonymous said...

I like the Life is good tee. The dragon is really cool, I've been known to mount tee shirt graphics in frames and hang them on the wall.

Kerith Collins said...

life really is so good.

Kaytabug said...

I love the body/mind one! I also love the Life is good ones!!

Yes, I like KS very very much..plus I am a big K-state Wildcat fan.

alisonwonderland said...

i love how you have memories attached to the shirts! i love the "life is good" ones!