I am proud of facing, head on, every obstacle presented to me. Some have been soul killing, or sanity breaking, but I stood my ground and dealt with them, best I could. They didn't break me or cause me to lose sight of my moral compass.

And I'm proud of my young'uns. They've surpassed all of my expectations and I'm so very happy to call myself their mother.

I'm proudest that I taught myself how to play bass by thinking about it.

In my high school days I borrowed a guitar, I had a poor acoustic briefly, and I played a borrowed bass for a few minutes. In college I didn't have any instruments, but in my heart I had settled on bass.

So I just thought about it. I remembered how the bass was tuned in fourths, even though I didn't know what a fourth was. I pictured the fretboard in my head, and I imagined how each fingerings and techniques would result in various notes and sounds. I'd isolate bass parts while listening to bands, and I'd remember the riffs and try to figure out how they were played.

By the time I actually bought a bass, it had been a few years of thinking about it. Within a week I could play it pretty competently.

That is really damn cool!

That is really cool, Toad.

I'm proud that I finished writing a memoir. Just under 110,000 words, tells a variety of stories about the kids within a larger arc, the whole thing's damn good if I do say so myself. Working on getting an agent and getting it published, but I'm proud of just doing it in the first place.

I love this thread. You people are all impressive.

WHS^