Three Year old Tanker

This photo tells several stories:
1. The first thing you, who do not already know me, will understand coherently about me is that I am genetically inclined to be a clutz...You really would be astonished at what bruises my sisters and I can accomplish in a 24 hour period staying in the same general area. The second is that I am not much of a traditional "lady". I am a lady, but in a way that most women don't identify with....I will still sit cross-legged in a dress or skirt, but am definitely more aware of what I'm presenting!

2.Supposedly this was after a day at a lake with my parent's bestfriends, The Gibsons. I was apparently being my usual self all day...that means, running around in every direction blowing things over as I went by them. Cecil dubbed me M3 by the end of the day. By M3 he was referring to the army tank, which also goes about in every direction blowing things down.

3. About a year and a half ago I filled out some silly survey whilst lounging on my parent's couch, and decided officially what my life really was to me. A playground. I had been spending alot of time with a three year old at the time I wrote this little paragraph. Her name is Maddy, she is no longer but is now 5. But when she was three, she was on the 5-8 year old playgrounds, sometimes falling down and getting right back up to show her worth to the other children on the playground. Needless to say I would sit and watch as she would say "Allison, watch me climb!" or "Allison, help me do the monkey bars!" (although she never really needed my help, just that I was there in case she needed me.)

This picture is of Madison from Oct '08, on a playground as her brother played football practice and we had some time to ourselves.

So the following came to me:

"When it comes to the future, I think of myself as a three year old and the world as my playground, all I want to do run and fall all over it and play with the other three year olds along my way."




My sister reminded me of my tank nickname once I posted this quote on my facebook, and I felt compelled to share the tale. I think that at the end of the day, if I'm so worn out from running, falling, and enjoying the day to the limit to the point where I pass out in the midst of eating; it was most definitely a day well spent.

GOAL: spend everyday using up all of my energy so that I WILL fall asleep mid-bite.


ps. I'm also a huge fan of lists.

Introduction to Allison, "The Nifty Drifter"

Allisonwonderland is back! Its been five years since I made a "blog" (before it was an online journal, the link to which I will NEVER give out again! All the teenage angst that permits itself inside of an adolescent, not so comforting.) I was once into online networking and the like. But from confusion with circumstances came an intellectual mind-block. It has taken me almost four years to understand the path I am making my way to, the very one I am overly anxious to step foot upon. I have many ambitions, plans, and goals that WILL be apart of the rest of my life. I've only been awaiting the time when the path would show itself on my conscious horizon. Finally deciding to create an Etsy account was only the beginning. The adventures I intend to partake in come the next several years, will be more than worthy of documenting and spreading. (where my interest in anthropological research meets the need for a secure form of advocacy.)

I used to be teased in elementary school by kids saying "allisonwonderland" instead of "alice in wonderland", I still do not understand why, but I think of it more as a preface to my future. I decided to make the name allisonwonderland as a journal name when I was sixteen and embarking upon the adventure of my lifetime- falling through a rabbit hole, to Asia, where I found the feet that carry me about this wonderland of a world. (Did you know that butterflies taste with their feet?)

The name "The Nifty Drifter" comes from a number of places:
1. My best friend, Mallory on her stomach at the Cape Canaveral National Seashore, spitting out different versions the words "crafty" and "drifter" brainstorming on a name for a shop I am beginning to open on Etsy. Figures that all I would need to kickstart my journey was a day on a beach immersed in an unshaken friendship, for since that day the possibilities have been popping out of this brain of mine.
2. My knack for being creatively imaginative and problem solving paralleling each other until I was old enough to join them into a single hobby: jewelry making. (Yes, problem solving is a HUGE part in making jewelry that begins in my mind as a design and the problem is figuring out how to make it.)
3. A string of lyrics in a Modest Mouse song: "I like songs about drifters, books about the same, they both make me feel a little less insane.." & the young men and books that were spoken about so often in the time of my life where drifting was all I really could do.
4. The need for drifting in all senses: Amongst mind sets, societal perspectives, geographical locations, but preferably along with the breeze in which a freed caterpillar spreads it's wings to become a butterfly.
5.Although the literal meanings of "nifty" and "drifter" can be seen in several ways, I prefer to combine them in my figurative definition. For instance, in my Encarta dictionary has nifty described as "very good or effective" and drifter as "someone who never settles in one place for long". However, dictionary.com refers to "drifter" as one that drifts, especially a person who moves aimlessly from place to place or from job to job and "nifty" as being derived from magnificent, as an adjective meaning fine, substantial, or smart, and as a noun being a clever remark. To explain: everything I stand for is legit, possibly on a cleverly different beat, and most definitely substantial, I do not ever see myself settling in one place (exclude the last four years I've been in FL for schooling purposes, gotta keep that promise to my daddy!), however I will always have an aim to my wandering.
6. My mother has always called her daughters free spirits, whats the saying, "like mother, like daughter[s]" But being a free spirit is something that we never tried to become, I for one am constantly feeling the ropes with which I am tied to the wet soil of Florida, but my mother has graced me with the optimism which guides me through the struggles and creates my soaring view. She has also instilled in me her gift of craftiness. (I can remember being in elementary school and sitting next to my mom as she sprayed paint through an angel stencil to create our christmas cards, anxiously awaiting her permission to blow on them so they could dry.) Her gift for teaching, all walks and subjects, and her love for flowers, especially hydrangeas and yellow roses.
7. My father the drifter of all drifters in this heart of mine. I see my life as a circumstance, created by the longing for adventure my father had when he was young. (it only grew as he became older) You see to put it shortly(kind of), had my father not decided to ride his bike to Alaska after graduating University, he would not have run out of money on his way back, and would not have had a need to finish his trip. Since he did feel the need to revisit the area he had to leave, he was picked up whilst hitchhiking, and put in a police car with two options: the police station or the bus station. He would not have ended up in a seat on a bus, next to a supervisor of an oil company offering him a job as a driller. Where he eventually rose through the ranks of the company, the same company that, a few years later would employ my mother as an executive assistant. Where they would then spend Fridays simply relaying information for the business' sake. Everything from there on is what I view as fate. And I am but a byproduct.

I could write a book on my parents. In fact that is one of my goals in life. But I'll touch on that with my next post. Ta ta for now.