And so, dear reader, here we go...

I have been writing blog posts in my head for several years now, but have always shied away from actually attempting a blog.  Not only do I have little confidence in my ability to maintain a running commentary on my life, but I've been completely intimidated by the idea of the Very First Post.  How exactly do you start something like this, anyway?  Most of the blogs that I love have several years of archives and each post seems to be a continuation of an ongoing visit with friends.  No preambles, no introductions needed.  Then, just today, it dawned on me that anyone who might chance to read a blog written by me would already be  thoroughly acquainted with me and would not require anything like an introduction.  So.  One problem solved.

The other, perhaps larger, issue that has kept me away from blogging has been the fear that blogging would make me even more self-absorbed than I already am, and that's hardly what we need right now.  However.  Last night, in a post on my most favorite blog, Like Mother, Like Daughter, it was proposed that blogging allowed the writer to be more content with her own life--taking pictures, albeit edited, of her world, kept her happier with what she had and with the efforts that she was making.  It occurred to me that perhaps this kind of perspective might be just the remedy for certain attitude issues I've been dealing with.  Maybe if I were to take more pictures of the domestic catastrophes around me, maybe if I were to consider my daughters' hijinks in the light of what great stories they would make...Maybe I would laugh more and holler less.  Maybe I would feel more prepared to take on this third baby that impends.  Maybe my phone bills would be a little less.

And so, in an effort to appreciate my own little pocket of the world more fully, here we go...

(And just for the record, I have absolutely No Idea of how to make this stuff work.  I hope that there will be pictures.  I hope that there will be links.  I hope that the entire blog is not always bright aqua.  Bear with me.)