All I really need to know I learned at Jin Jins

I love me a good quote. I have several that have special significance for me. One, a stunner from Friedrich Nietzsche, follows me wherever I go… literally, and has an Irish accent.

“What does not kill me makes me stronger.”

While I identify with being a Christian, I would more accurately say it’s with ambivalent reluctance. This Gandhi quote says it better than I can:

“I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”

These speak to my philosophy of life, but don’t describe who I am, what I do.

I’m both a mom and a blogger, but don’t call me a “Mommy Blogger.” My children inspire me, but I don’t poach their lives for my content. I ask permission if I ever tell any part of their story… which usually involves unabashed bragging on my part.

Today, writing and photography fill my life. Here in my Thin spiral notebook is where I show off my Inklings. My tagline, my site slogan, up there under the title, describes this place, but again, not entirely me.

“My journal of big words and pretty pictures.”

What would a tagline about me need to say? What would it say about when I’m lost in my make-believe world of pen and paper, keyboards and computer monitors. When I’m traipsing through the woods or sifting through sugar-fine sand looking at the world through my camera lens? What would it say about how I approach my writing, and how also apply those attributes to my photography?

I found my muse in a take-out sack of General Tso’s Chicken, in a fortune cookie specifically. In keeping with the literary, arty vibe here, I wrote my personal tagline in haiku form:

Crucial writing skills
Learnt reading fortune cookie
Adages… in bed