Shouldn't Be Ashamed

I am not ashamed to admit that I do like country music. At one point in time, I even went line dancing on a regular basis-and was pretty good at it. I don't like the twangy, tear in my beer type of country. Some folks tell me the country I like is actually alt-country-Wilco, Ryan Adams-or pop/country-Taylor Swift, Terri Clark, Tim McGraw, Toby Keith, et. al. I like having diverse taste.
One of my favorite bands of all though, is SheDaisy. They are not as popular as some of the other bands out there, but they are very talented and I like their harmonies. In fact, my ring back tone on my phone for the last several years has been their song, God Bless the American Housewife. I saw them in concert at Great Adventure about 7 years ago-and it was a great show, despite the princess & her friend deciding to ditch me (mind you, she was like 14 and wanted to exert her freedom). But I put those feelings aside, and I still had a great time.
I spent a lot of time for about 3 years at Great Adventure with the princess and her friends. Mind you, I don't really do amusement park rides so I spent a lot of time sitting on the bench and dealing with surly tweens and then teens. I was the bag holder, the drink holder and responsible for feeding and watering these kids. Not that I am whining, but sometimes I don't think that they were appreciative of my sacrifices. Basically, I gave up my time and my weekends to go with them-and I was glad to spend time with the princess, because that was the only chance I really got back then.
I also have a connection with SheDaisy in that they are from Utah, and I spent most of my teenage years there. In fact, those years have made me who I am on a lot of levels (and yes, I can make green jello salad). In fact, some of my closest friends are from that time in my life, and I am blessed to know some of these people for nearly 30 years. I am one lucky gal. It also influenced how I look at life. I appreciate family more, because seeing the closeness my friends had with their families gave me the desire to want that in my own family. It drew me closer to God, because I had to understand my own faith in order to be a defender. It taught me that it was ok to want to be a homemaker and all, that there wasn't anything wrong with that. I also learned an appreciation for the outdoors, and loved to ski and hike.
I went through a definate rebellion phase living there, and part of it was a cry for attention (duh!). I went through a whole punk thing, and it was rather magical, because at that point in time Salt Lake City had a vibrant music and underground club scene. I got to know some of the local bands-and met bands when they came through on tour. I hung out at the local mall downtown (Crossroads Plaza)with the local group of kids-who later became the core of a high school acquaintance's movie SLC Punk! (and yes, the car in the Great Salt Lake story is real)
I never looked the part, but it was about acceptance. I didn't fit in with my Mormon friends really, because I wasn't Mormon. I didn't fit in with a lot of kids at the Catholic high school I went to, because I questioned a lot of things and beliefs and I didn't play the right sports or whatever. It was your typical teenage angst, and for some reason those "punks" were willing to accept you at face value. A lot of them were my sounding board and listened to the really bad poetry I wrote, and the really bad stories I wrote and thought I was brilliant. Most of them were punks on Saturday night and future missionaries on Sunday morning-it wasn't like the punk scene in other cities.
But, living in Salt Lake also provided me with some really great, magical experiences and it made me who I am. I learned from some of my friend's moms how to sew, how to can, how to clean the house (I didn't say I practiced any of it) how to cook and how to bake. I learned about managing a home, because if you had 10 kids, it required a lot of managing. As time has gone on, I am bringing back some of this stuff that I learned years ago and practicing it. I learned to quilt, and got introduced to the concept of family history and journaling living there. I didn't realize how much my teenage years impacted me until I became a mom myself. I am grateful for the experiences I had living there, and how much it made me ME.