I NEVER THOUGHT I'D DO THIS.

Blog, that is. At the risk of opening myself up to scathing comments (assuming anyone even happens by this little spot in the bigger picture) I have to confess that I have always thought of "blogs" as nothing more than platforms for self-indulgent whiners to showcase their drivel.

There, I said it.

Another thing...I love words. When Soren, who's in fifth grade, brings home his weekly spelling list I have a grand time helping him memorize not only the spelling of such words as "euphemism" and "magnanimous," but I also thrill to the idea that he's learning them. On evenings when he's particularly focused and interested, I share other personal favorites with him: onomatopoeia...fractious (a word commonly applied to 20 month-old Graysen)...bombardier...reticent... somnambulate....and my all-time favorite ever: floccinaucinihilipilification. Running through spelling lists and musing about the language allows me to live vicariously and forget my childhood humiliation when my quest for spelling superiority fell apart on the word "leasable" in sixth grade. Following on the heels of that debacle my spelling brain in middle school must have been playing tag with my math brain (which is always AWOL) and I was eliminated because I couldn't spell "spaghetti." For shame. I recently watched the National Spelling Bee on cable at a local Mexican seafood eatery (the other televised choice: a Spanish variety show featuring something in drag--I think--a mute person in a wrestling mask, and lots of frenetic dancing) and was glad, for the first time in my life, that I hadn't taken my knack for the arrangement of letters further than I did back then. Watching those skinny kids with huge pieces of cardboard strung around their necks trying to speak coherently into the mic about words the likes of which I'd never even heard...no love lost there. Really.

But I digress.... considering my interest in words I must say that the other reason I've never "blogged" before (no, Themestream doesn't count. REALLY!) is that the very word BLOG sounds like something you'd extract from a kid's nose. MY kid's nose, in fact. It sounds...yukky.

But then I started reading blogs. Not everyday, mind you, but here and there. Following webboard links, I'd find blogs at the end of profiles, people I didn't know from Adam, or Eve for that matter, sharing their lives with whomever happens to surf on by.

Stories....

As a writer, I love to read stories.
As a writer, I love to write stories.

So I was tempted to write a blog of my own, but kept thinking "nah...I don't blog...." Then, when I got over my reservation about joining ranks with the blogging for reasons previously stated I ran into the seemingly logical excuse that my life simply isn't interesting enough. With four kids I don't travel much...I don't engage in high-risk activities aside from sometimes driving a smidgen too fast...nobody I know has a terminal illness...nobody is being born (all done, thanks!).... I am also aware that there are people out there, fellow bloggers some of them, who would rather chew on roadkill than read about another Jane Doe's passel of sproglets. So, I figured that until I was faced with something fabulously compelling, I'd just keep a lid on things and go about my days.

But then I realized something. I crave peak experiences but it's really pretty rare that such events define the overall course of life. Life is that ebb and flow that is as interesting as one makes it. And honestly, there's never a dull, boring moment around these parts.

If you're sick of reading motherly dispatches, I can grok that. But if you, like me, wake up every morning to find smallish feet in your face...if you, like me, find that your days are all about other people's mundane details (particularly if those details involve such things as the placement of Hello Kitty hair ornaments, appropriate application of sparkly lip gloss, and toothpaste-tube-squeezing lessons)...if you, like me, have anything whatsoever to do with other people's butt hygiene (or if you ever used to be concerned with this), if you, like me, decided on a passionate whim (or four) to create something so precious that someone once likened this act of creation to choosing to allow your heart to walk around outside of your body for the rest of your life...then I hope you stop by frequently. This is one crazy, fabulous planet!