Happy Birthday, Blog!

My infant blog has made it to birthday number one. See the confetti fly! Hear the noise makers squawk, rattle and ffffttt! What began as a creative outlet doubling as a means for collecting memories has transformed into a minor obsession.

Now that I have completed the requisite festival description, I'll get down to reality. I don't actually hear noise makers; I only hear a distant train under a quiet rain shower's tapping against the leaves and sidewalk outside. Carl has taken Hannah to help the Knights of Columbus prepare a breakfast for the town's city-wide garage salers and the house is blessedly silent...and orange. In spite of the clouds caused by the shower, the sunrise is casting a beautifully odd orange glow into my living room. It's magical.


These real-life sights and sounds are better than any meditative CD and have made me introspective. This past year I've learned that this blog has similarities to my own children. When I give it lots of attention, it thrives. When I tire of it and avoid it, I feel guilty. Consistency provides better long-term results than hyperattentiveness followed by a major crash-and-burn. As with everything in life, balance is the key.

Last year marked the beginning of my girls' public school career as well as my own entrance into the public school system as a mom and volunteer. I felt as green as I was. Now, sensing my own seasoning, I'm experiencing a little discontent, a mild sensation of Now What? For the first time in twelve years I have free, uninterrupted time. How shall I spend it? What do I want to be when I grow up?

When I mentioned this to Carl he said, "I thought you'd want to be a housewife." Nothing against housewives, but YUCK! My immediate, uncensored thought was what a waste. Not only that, but I stink at it. My dislike of cleaning is magnified by the extra effort and arthritic pain required to accomplish it. I enjoy cooking...when I feel like it. I have excellent decorating ideas, but my abilities stop there.

Before you judge me a spoiled brat, realize that the previous, succinct paragraph summarizes twelve years. That's 624 weeks--4380 days (not calculating leap years)--of meal planning, laundry completing (only to begin again), toilet scrubbing, bed-making (OK, I don't actually make beds), and cleaning, on top of the more-than-part-time job of bookkeeping for our family business. Those years include the planning of twelve Christmases and forty birthdays for my husband and children. In the summer those same years incorporated mowing, planting, weeding, spraying and whatever-else my yard has needed. My point is NOT look at everything I've done. My point IS: I've done those things and I've done them mostly sometimes occasionally??? happily. Now I'm ready to consider something different.

But what?

I've considered completing my degree. I have more than 125 hours of college credits under my belt in music and accounting, but I have no degree to show for them. I started to explain my limitations in finishing those fields, but realized I was merely making excuses. The truth is, they don't appeal to me any more.

What does appeal to me? Writing. I like to write. LOVE to write. If I could complete the college degree of my choice, it would be a creative writing degree. How impractical is that? Nevertheless, I've downloaded the forms necessary to transfer my college transcripts to a local university, just for kicks.

One serendipity of arthritis is that my "someday" is as limited as my body. You know, someday I'm going to ____________. If I don't do things today, I may not get to do them at all. I don't have the luxury of waiting until I'm eighty to finish a useless degree. I need to waste that time NOW.

So, happy birthday, blog. And happy BIRTHday future.