Memory

I messed something up.

I didn't realize it, of course, until I sat down to do something else.

That's right, let's start peeling back the onion of everything I do inefficiently. First, I used to make a yearly scrapbook for myself, my in-laws, and my parents for Christmas. It had a year of pictures and then a few captions in it. To make my life easier -- this is basically my mantra as I'm in the action of making my life harder -- I would look back at my blog and refresh my memory with my own stories of what had happened in the past year. Let me tell you, the years run together after age 30.

Today of all days, Memorial Day, I was looking for a picture of my grandpa that I wanted to use here and to show my kids how amazingly young he was when he entered service. I sat down and after one project turned into another and an hour turned into 8 I drew a blank. Couldn't tell you when school started, who was on what team, what lessons we took, who visited us, if we went anywhere. True and legitimate debacle. Plus I can't find the picture of my grandpa which really chaps my hide!

After fiddling with the pictures for something like 27 days, I opened up my old blog. Only three months in 2013 had been captured -- and rather shabbily at that. But the stories I read made me cry. I wasn't emotional because of the quality of work. I was so sad that I would have otherwise forgotten some fairly precious moments with my babies.

So, now I'm in a pickle. I don't have babies anymore. In fact, they both have feet nearly as big as mine. And no, I'm not one of those pixie people with dainty feet. I'm trying to remember back to when they still wore zippy PJs and held my hand on the way to school. Damn it, I can't. It's not alzheimer's.  It's the speed of life.

The blog is a kindness to myself. I have enough critics, so I'm giving this to myself. Be it selfish desires, I still think it's a worthy cause. Now, if I can just get those kids to do April 2013-May 2014, again. And seriously where is that picture of my grandpa?

Feats of Strength

We had a fairly big weekend. In terms of living in the suburbs, you could say it was a heavy hardware weekend. The Coop played in the Lacrosse Championships of his league/division/small corner of the world and won. Then the following day he endured the chaos of a kid triathlon. Both adventures earned him a medal. He's kinda a big deal.

What we didn't expect, was to have our Mason recognized, too. Following the lacrosse game it was parent paparazzi everywhere. I got some amazing pictures of Cooper. But what I missed with my lens and must capture here is what Cooper's coach did for Mason. He gave him a medal for his support! Indeed Mason went to every practice and every game. He was Cooper's no. 1 fan. He has his own stick and was Coop's practice partner in the backyard. Coach will never know the significance of this to me. 

After the excitement of the day blew over and we were watching TV, Mason started nonchalantly doing sit ups. Then he moved on to push ups. Before we knew it he was working the tricep-dip on the stairs and holding a wall-sit for an eternity. We sat up, we noticed. Like it was nothing, he lunged past us on the couch and asked if we could think of any hard exercises for him. The night continued on with us thinking of truly difficult feats of strength for Mason. Anything and everything we invented, he tried. If you know Mason, you know this is a thing. I can't help but think he was boosted by his hard-earned hardware. 

Can't wait for high school track when I see that kick!

Reasons

We all have reasons.

But I've taken 425 days to review mine. This might seem like an exaggeration. But you clearly don't know me. Perhaps you would like to ask me how shopping for a new dishwasher went?

Anyways. 

The reasons for not writing a blog are pretty clear: 

People will think you are stupid. 

People will say you're not an expert.

People will make fun of blogs in general because in general blogs are about things no one really cares about.

People will say you are not a writer. 

A few reasons to write a blog:

People say that they read it -- and they have their reasons, who are you to argue.

People will say you are a writer. 

People don't matter. What you really need to accomplish is remembering what happened at the speed of life, once upon a time when your kids were little. 

I accidentally quit this blog. There was no profound moment when I threw up my hands and declared, "This is the end." It just happened. 

In fact the last time I thought, "Hmmm I should write a blog entry," I sat down and wrote a long list of all the topics I wanted to cover. The really important stuff like what my favorite mascara is. That's when I realized, actually, I shouldn't blog. 

In my mind there is a difference between writing and blogging. In the beginning, blogging was fun. It was a record. It was fairly personal. It gave my introvert brain a chance to mull over everything I'd seen in a day and chit chat with myself about it. 

Then it became a thing. Like an audience thing. And people around me had blogs. Fancy blogs that had relevant information. They tracked their visitors, and recruited sponsors, and became like an overnight sensation. Made books deals!

I never wanted that. Never had that. Never tried to have that. 

This is just a little group  of essays on daily life. Just me missing my craft. Wait, that's a little overstated. I'm not like a world-renowned basketweaver or anything. So I don't really have a craft per se. But I am never short on opinions. I listen to people -- particularly my kids -- and I write down what they say. I make a fair amount of grammatical errors much to the dismay of one of my favorite teachers. But even she  Facebook-liked (that's a verb, right?) the idea of a resurrection.  

And just like that, I'm back.