When I was taking Japanese in college, my teacher asked us to draw a family tree because we were learning the words for family members. I always take these types of assignments to heart and usually over achieve. I ended up drawing stick figures of my entire immediate family.  My immediate family doesn’t just consist of my parents, my siblings, and me. I’ve always thought of my immediate family as my parents, my siblings and their spouses, my nieces and nephews, and me. (I usually include the pets as well.)

The best part of my family tree wasn’t my family, even though I did get a few “Whoas” from the other students in the class because of how large my family is.  The best part was the detail I put into the stick figures. I gave each person the right color of hair, eyes, and colored their outfits their favorite color.

The reason I’m talking about this is something I drew at work. We have a team whiteboard that we usually use to keep track of seminar registration numbers. But, every now and then, one of us uses it to draw fun pictures, or to keep track of countdowns. (I’m usually the one who keeps track of the countdowns.) My co-worker Lauren got some new markers for the whiteboard because we only had a couple that worked. When I came in on Thursday and noticed the smörgåsbord of colors, I had to try them out.

I drew everyone with the right color of hair and eyes. I also drew everyone according to their height, except Guy. He’s really not shorter than Erin or Lauren. I’m wearing a blue skirt because I try to wear jeans in defiance of our “No Jeans” policy on the third floor. Erin and Becky are wearing heels because they wear heels more often than not.

I gave all the guys that have facial hair, facial hair. Gentry is the only one without. Guy shouldn’t have a mustache, but in my drawing he does. (I just made all kinds of mistakes with him.) You’ll also notice that Jeff has a thinner goatee than the other guys because we always tease him that he can’t grow facial hair.

Alan always wears a cowboy hat when he’s outside, so that’s why he has a hat in the picture. He also has no hair because he’s balding. Dave and Matt are balding, but not as badly as Alan, so they have hair, but it’s thinner.

The colors of the guys’ ties and the gals’ shirts have nothing to do with their favorite color, except me. I just drew a color that I remember seeing them wear, especially Jeff since he’s really the only guy I know that wears purple or pink.

I think the drawing is awesome and I’m very proud of it! It makes me want to draw another family tree.