a possible return to blogging... maybe...

Happy New Years, friends!

a unicorn for your viewing pleasure

I usually stay away from new-years-ish resolving simply because I know myself.  For one thing, I know that any resolution I would normally make would be something I know I should do and not necessarily anything I would want to do.  And if I'm trying to do something that I don't really want to do, I'm going to get tired of it and spend a few days absolutely making myself do whatever it is.  Which means I'm going to hate some portion of every day of my life for a few days until I just stop doing it altogether.  Which means I'm going to be disappointed with myself and spend some amount of time hating myself and wallowing in self-loathing.

No bueno.

New Years is such a dangerous time for people like me.  I love the idea of having a plan.  I'm just not always so great at executing the plan.  I love a good to-do list.  I'm just a little too tormented by the un-checked things.

So, all of these peeks into a few of my psychoses brings me to the point of this first-in-a-long-time blog post.

I made a resolution.  Against all my better judgment.  And I may hate myself in the morning, but I'm gonna blog about it tonight.

I wish I could let you blog-reading people have a peek into our photo folder.  I've always been a picture taker.  I used to take a lot of pictures of my feet.  I think I have a folder dedicated to feet pictures.  I took selfies before they were called selfies.  I was taking pictures of my breakfast when nary a tag had been hashed.  Ok, that last one isn't true, but I do have a lot of pictures in my picture folder and that was the original point.

My favorite photo subjects nowadays, obviously, are the kids.  And I could basically make a flipbook of Scotty growing from birth to 1 year.  And then Marlie was born.  And I had a newborn and a not-yet 2 year old.  I might have continued to take so many pictures if I could have grown a go-go-gadget camera arm or something, but alas, I had no spontaneous limb generation and so the pictures slowed down.  The first few months of Marlie's life, there was a decent number of pictures, but for the past 2 or 3 years, the pictures have been pitifully few.  The same goes for memory keeping in general.  I don't scrapbook.  I don't journal often... and when I do it's usually whiny stuff that I probably won't want to remember anyway.

So, I've resolved to be a better memory keeper.  Which sounds dumb.  Aren't you glad to be a part of it?

I'm trying to take more pictures of our family because I want tangible memories for the time that's quickly approaching when memories will be all I'll have.  I want to be able to torture myself with pictures and videos of my kids after they're grown.  And I want them to be able to show their kids pictures of themselves and of the things we did when they were little.

I'm trying to allow myself to be photographed more (and trying to convince David to do the same) and learning to laugh at my chins and pores and my yes-I'm-approaching-30-and-it's-still-there acne because I know that someday my children will want pictures of me from when they were little even if I do look like a character from Gunsmoke in most pictures.

And... scary! I'm going to try to start blogging again.  I need a place to keep a record of our lives.  I don't want to forget these days.  They're too precious and too fleeting to not be able to revisit.  And I enjoy writing.  So, my writing is mainly for me and for our family, but I didn't want to just type into a blank Word document and squirrel away pages and pages where I'd probably just turn all angsty teenager and slip into some puddle of despair and quit writing when it became too pathetic to stand anymore.  Writing in a public forum will force me to make it entertaining (I hope).  I have no hopes of becoming known, no expectations of a book deal.  These are things I wanted at one time.  That ship sailed and I'm perfectly happy to blog for fun.

And I'd love for my friends and family or whoever, no matter how few, to come along for the ride if you're so inclined.

So, dear readers (yes, you... and you... cricket... cricket...), I'm sharing this blog post and plan to share future blog posts via links on Facebook and Instagram.  I'm still skittish about the Twitter.  Maybe someday.  There is an app for iPhone (maybe Android?) called Bloglovin you can use to follow if you wish.  I promise I will not be obnoxious and clog your feed with endless stuff.  I don't even want to try to predict the frequency of my writing habits or the possible subject matter.  That will all be quite varied, I imagine.  So, if ever you get tired of hearing from me, block or unfriend me.  My feelings will remain intact, I promise.  Otherwise, look for somewhat more frequent blogging in the future.

Unless I don't follow through.  Which is possible.  And in which case you can look for me in the aforementioned puddle of despair.

Adios.