Like my post on Thursday, today's post will be a bit adjacent to the daily prompt I have for my Hive Blog Posting Month prompt calendar, which is -

Name Yourself Day - if you could, what name would you pick for yourself?

When I first saw that on Holiday Insights, I had vague memories of maybe doing a similar post in the past, so I went searching my WordPress blog archives. Which led me to the sort of a repost but from a time before I was on the blockchain post below.

To preface - I think I might have mentioned once or two million times twice that I've been blogging on WordPress since September 2005 (HOLY CRAP THAT'S SEVENTEEN YEARS!). Even though I now devote a large majority of my blogging life to my crypto blog here on Hive, I'm still not ready to give up my web2 home. However, I know that day is approaching sooner rather than later, and in the meantime, I'd like to add some old pre-September 2017 posts here, so they don't get lost in the ether (as @fionasfavourites can attest, it's not pleasant, to say the least).

And this post was so much fun to do, back on June 26th, 2017 - it was one in a series of "Blogging Award" type posts that were making the rounds. Essentially the Award was that someone tagged you in a challenge and gave you an excuse to post something easy & fun. Better still, many bloggers would make the rounds of everyone's challenge posts, so it was an awesome way to form connections. In fact, there are still a number of those bloggers from back then that I follow & chat with here and there.

So last bit before I get started on my freshly-edited-with-updated-links challenge result - as I mention to my WordPress friends in the bottom of the post, if you'd like to do one of these yourself, please feel free to tag me so I can check it out!

 
 

Soundtrack Of My Life
9 Songs That Tell My Story So Far

 
 
Welcome to the soundtrack of my life! Ever since I saw this tag post done by the ever-lovely Em (be sure to check hers out HERE as her blog is sadly no longer active, here's the link instead to her Pinterest account), I've been meaning to give it a go. Then the also ever-lovely Hayley recently inspired me to create a playlist blog, but since that's still a work-in-progress, I figured I'd finally give this a shot today. It's a ton bit longer than my typical MicroblogMonday offering, so feel free to hit the Fast Forward button in between headings. 😁

Here's the blurb from Nicola, the blogger who (I believe) started this -

One constant throughout my life is a love of music, the genres may change depending on my mood- but music soothes, uplifts and amplifies rage! Not many things can evoke so many different emotions. Here are some of the songs, which have meant something to me throughout my life. I invite my friends to share the same, if they feel that they would like to. I feel we learn about a person through their taste in music (mine is bonkers, so take from that what you will).

 
 

Now for my choices -
 
 

The movie begins on July 29th, 1965

I remember listening to this over and over (and over) on my Close & Play (another dead link, but here's a commercial for one similar to the one I had, even though I was perpetually annoyed they misspelled my name.

 
The Cuff Links - Tracy

 
 

After many years, a musical discovery was made...

I will admit that there was a long period of time when this was the only song I knew named "Stairway To Heaven." Then, one fateful day (after a bowling excursion with my dad and younger sister), I picked what I thought was Neil Sedaka's classic from the tabletop jukebox at Papa Gino's, and heard the following instead. My musical tastes were never (thankfully!) the same again.

 
Led Zeppelin - Stairway To Heaven

 
 

Slow fade into the teen years...

So many choices! Given that one of my concerns about going to college was that there wouldn't be enough room to take all of my albums (and I created a dBase program to track which ones were where), there are far too many songs that could represent this segue. I decided to go with this sentimental favorite, from the one (and only) movie date I had with a boy in high school.

 
Olivia Newton-John & Gene Kelly - Xanadu

 
 

The love interest appears.

In July 1987, hubby (who was, at the time, my brand new boyfriend) took me to see "The Lost Boys" during (if memory serves) the second week of its release. Given that it's coming up on the 30 year anniversary of the movie and the date almost 35 years for both 😲 this choice seems appropriate on many levels.

 

Tim Cappello - I Still Believe (The Lost Boys)

 
 

New characters are introduced

Each of our kidlets (now adultlets) has a song associated with their name...

Caillean

I'd loved the name "Kayleigh" since college, but apparently so did many of my peers, given how pervasive the name was in the mid 90s. However, whilst I was preggers with the eldest, I was reading "The Forest House" by Marion Zimmer Bradley and hubby got the book on tape for his work commute to Boston. When we discovered it was pronounced "Kay-lee-an" (hate to say it, but it rhymes with "alien") not "Kay-leen" and realized we could call her "Cailli" for short, we had our girl name.

 

Marillion - Kayleigh

 
 

Tristan

Hubby bonded early on with my (now belated) father over their love of classical music, so my dad was rather pleased with our Wagnerian opera (in part) inspired potential boy's name choice for my first pregnancy. By the time Teebone arrived in 1997, my dad was too far down the Alzheimer's road to understand the significance, so I'm glad we came up with the name when we did.

 

Richard Wagner - "Tristan und Isolde" Prelude

 
 

Ciara

In 2000, Cailli was convinced from day one that she was going to have a baby sister, and told us she wanted to name her after the "angel" song. At that time, we had the Windham Hill Celtic Christmas CD in pretty heavy rotation as the bedtime music-of-choice, and when we saw how the name was spelled on the track listing, hubby & I agreed it was perfect.

 
Luka Bloom - Ciara

 
 

The bad guy makes a grand entrance.

Granted, there were many moments of foreshadowing over the years, but in 2001 I was diagnosed with double depression (long term dysthymia and postpartum depression), with a subplot of generalized anxiety disorder.

 

Matchbox 20 - Unwell

 
 

Now, "let's all go to the lobby..."

...while we wait to see how the second act unfolds. In the meantime, I'll let the words of Dave Draiman & Co. sum up how I'm feeling these days -

"Don't let hope become a memory.
Let the shadow permeate your mind and
reveal the thoughts that were tucked away,
so that the door can be opened again.
Within your darkest memories
lies the answer if you dare to find it...

Sometimes darkness can show you the light."

 

Disturbed - The Light

 
 

Tag, you're it!

Rather than specifically tagging people, I'd say if you're inspired to give this a go, consider yourself tagged! Be sure to shout out when you've posted your own, and I'll share your link below.

 
 

That does it for my old WordPress blog post from five years ago. I'm actually surprised how well it held up & I'm happy it's now here on the blockchain. Hope you enjoyed it as well!

But before I go, a question...

Would you like to see more old school WordPress blog challenges like this? Shout out in the comments and let me know!

 
 

Thanks for stopping by!

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