Neat stories. I am reading over them. There are a couple of standouts.

So, I'm declaring the contest closed. I'll announce the winner later today.

Thank you for playing!

Well, it was a tough choice... sort of like playing bocci and you have to measure several times to decide whose ball fell the furthest from the mark.

I'm going with dol.

Congratulations. Thanks to everyone who submitted.

Thanks! It’s been a while since I’ve decorated. Off to choose a picture!

PJ this was a truly inspired DOM theme. I loved reading all the detailed stories of everyone's lives - the perigrinations from your childhood selves (and whence your dreams came from) to your adult morphs (and still evolving).

Thanks to you and everyone who participated. You are all winners, as told in your tales and as you told them. Made me really feel a new depth of connection with you. Clearly, PJ's brilliant choice evoked your own need to share too. The best topic ever, IMO.

I'd have participated if only (alas) my own story had not been aborted by having encountered the great challenge and responsibility of raising a severely disabled child worse than alone. (His younger brother was hell on wheels too, but as an extension of having had that disturbed sibling.)

Bang! went all my childhood dreams and ambitions (professionally, Art and acting, primarily - the latter sounding much like PK).

I guess if I had to choose, I'd be forced to identify my final profession as Jewish Mother (hopefully, in the best sense). Ongoing, though
less so now, although the reprieve comes too late for financial and health reasons (QUITE a ripple effect!). Not AT ALL my intention! When I visited the sweet lady who looked after my brothers and me in childhood (nursing home) said seeing me much later - shocked, to all appearances - "But, Mandy, you never even played with dolls!"

In my decisions, maybe I was most inspired by Jackie Kennedy of all people - a quote in which she said (paraphrase) that responsibility to one's kids comes first, no matter what. That "if you mess up your kids, nothing else matters."

Fair or not fair (NOT! ), that's what replaced everything else, however hard I tried to include my primordial early dreams. OTOH I think of someone like Louise Nevelson's son, Mike (with whom I almost apprenticed at one time) who was a sad mess psychologically, poor guy. Later, I'd also flash back on his description of his childhood with Louise, as well as interview snippets of her own expressed shame and regret at "the one great regret of her life."

So that's my story, in a way. Some epitaph! Thanks again, PJ! A GREAT choice.

I knew right away that this contest was not for me.

I think I became interested in electricity when I got a shock as a small child trying to unplug a table lamp. A little later, I became acquainted with a friend of my father who did radio/TV repair in a shop on his farm. I hung out in the shop once in awhile and learned some things about electronics. Before long, I learned about engineers and decided that I should be an electrical engineer. I majored in EE in college and graduate school, went to work in the field, and now, 48 years later, still work part time as an electrical engineer. That's why I knew that I couldn't be DOM this month.

Big Al

Big Al, so cool that you knew what you wanted so early! I used to envy my husband, who lives and breathes sales and marketing. Work makes him happy. Me? Works was for money so I could play with things that made me happy. Different mindset, but as long as everyone’s happy, right?

Amanda: I know you think you gave up art and acting to be a mom, but I found that my best art, singing, music, acting was for my kids. They didn’t know how good/bad I was at it (at least not for a long time), and it was a big influence on them. Being a mom let me be a dilettante in all those things, and a star (for a little while) in their eyes. I still love to sing! I appreciate the opportunity.