Once upon a time . . .

there was a woman.  And she started a blog.  And that woman liked her blog.  And that woman hated her blog.  But she blogged.  Not every day, but at least a couple of times a week.  And then every day for a little stretch.  And she even had pictures sometimes.

But then one day her hate for the blog overtook her love for it and she stopped writing so much.  And then she wrote less.  And still less.  Until finally she was left wondering what she ever used to write about.  Because suddenly it seemed as though she had run out of ideas.

She was sad.  Because she loved her blog.  When she wasn’t hating it.  She loved to write write write her thoughts and ideas.  To sit down at her laptop and type and type and type her streams of consciousness flowing straight from her brain and out her fingertips, never exactly sure that her stream would reach the destination she envisioned or take her somewhere else altogether.  But she hated sticking her ideas out into the vast nothingness of Blogland.  The nothingness of Blogland breathed life into her anxieties and self-doubt and pathologies of all kinds.  And the nothingness stomped out the love.  Mostly.

Still.  The love is there, lurking.  Can love lurk?  Lurk sounds too sinister for love.  The love is there, hovering, contemplating, thinking.  Yet staring out into the great nothingness and wondering if she should really take a chance.  And mostly she concludes, No.

Sigh.  Sad, sad blogger.

She would like to pull up her bootstraps, slouch on her plated armor, and get to work.  Blogging those ideas.  Thinking those thoughts.  Thinking that life.  Because it’s fun.  And she knows there are at least two people who enjoy reading it.  And writing it is fun.  And productive.

So she’s off to think some more about life and maybe even to write some thinks down.  But first she needs to sleep a bit.

So I Changed the Look.

Of my blog, that is.  Feel free to tell me what you think.  Whoever you are.

I’m not sure, myself.  Part of me was tired of things looking exactly the same around here.  After all, it has been a whole year.  Another part of me misses the stacks of old books that I can actually feel and smell when I look at the picture.  But I thought it was feeling a little flat lately, so I looked at some other options.  I went with this one because I think–I think–it makes my giant ramblings look shorter and less intimidating.  I think.  I also went with it because there’s a pen at the top of the page and I’m trying to remind myself that I used to write.  A lot.  Writing used to be . . . well . . . everything to me.  It was what I thought I’d do with the rest of my life, it’s what kept me alive–no hyperbole there–it was like breathing.  Anyway, the pen reminds me that writing was once a big part of me and it’s a skill I’d like to recover, to hone and develop.  It also reminds me that back in the olden days when I was doing all that writing, people actually did use pens.  It’s what we used to design the first wheel.

100 posts in 365 days.

I’m not sure what I expected when I started this blog. I don’t think I expected much of anything. I wanted to write and I wanted someone to read. I have written, and people have read.

But this blogging thing is a strange medium for writing. In all the other contexts in which I’ve written, I’ve known my audience. In fact, that’s Rule Number One in writing: know your audience. Write for your audience. I’ve written for professors of various stripes and beliefs–both in secular and religious settings. I write emails and letters to friends and message board posts to imaginary friends. I write quick little tidbits on Facebook. I write sermons. In each of these cases my first thought is: Who am I writing to? Who are they? What do they want to know? How will they best hear it? What do they need to hear? How can I best explain my thoughts to them?

But then there’s blogging. Despite my early-on inquiry, I have no idea who you people are. Well, I know who some of you are (though not all), but more generally, I don’t know who my audience is, intended or actual. So it tends to leave me feeling like I’m floating in space, trying to talk into a vacuum. I’m left feeling a little uncomfortable, a little unnerved, more than a little vulnerable. And I’m not sure I like it. Though I’m not sure it’s a bad thing, either.

Despite my ambivalence, I have continued to come here and spill my life’s thinkings. I’ve spoken about how if nothing else, writing a blog post gives me a sense of having accomplished something, a sense of productivity. And I really, truly appreciate that about blogging. After I write my thoughts, comb through them (sometimes more, sometimes less) for clarity and typos, pick my tags and categories, and then finally hit that “Publish” button . . . ahhhh. Satisfaction. Productivity. I have made something that is all my own.

But I think I’m looking for more, too. Maybe it’s the teacher in me, or the preacher, but the reception of my ideas is an important part of the product for me. I think I work better, write better, with an assignment. With a goal in mind, a problem to solve, a lesson to give. Instead I feel like I’ve been slogging through this blogging thing, with no direction, no goal.

I’ve read thoughts on blogging. Some say, “Be clear in your purpose and your goal. Decide who you are, what is the function of your blog, and stick to it.” That makes sense to me, that’s generally a step in any writing.

But I’ve also read recommendations to just let your blog be an extension of yourself; let it be an expression of yourself, of whatever interests you. Let it be whatever you want it to be as you go along. And I like that, because my life is all over the place. The title of my blog is Life as I Think It because I have these two parallel universes going on here: the day-to-day things I actually do, and all the thoughts I think simultaneously. And the latter don’t necessarily have anything at all to do with the former. You know that phrase, “Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans?” For me it is “Life is what happens when you’re busy thinking other thoughts.” So, if my blog is an extension of me, it’s bound to be all over the place, to be what it’s been: sometimes theologizing about the mundane, the life I’m actually living; sometimes theologizing about the big stuff, prompted by something real or imaginary; sometimes going on and on and on about laundry; sometimes cute little things my kids are doing.

And that’s fun.

But there’s still that vacuum factor . . . I still wonder about the reception. I still want feedback. I want to know what other people think about what I think about.

So what’s my point? I’m not sure. . . . This post started out being an attempt to sort out a definite purpose to this blog-thingie. It ended up taking me right back to where I was before. Writing my random thoughts and reflections, throwing them out into the vacuum of cyberspace, hoping for the occasional meteor throwing something back at me.

(I’m not sure that image works . . .)

Anyway, it’s been a fun year, having this blog. If you’ve read this convoluted post all the way through, you really are a friend, whether or not I’ve ever laid eyes on you. Is it wrong for me to tell you to say Hi more often? Is it blogging crazy to say, “Hey! Ask a question or two! Tell me what you want to hear!”? Maybe.

You know what? I think at the end of the day, this whole exercise teaches me that it’s not enough, this cyberworld. No matter the feedback and comments, I think I’m still going to long for more. More faces, more smiles, more head nods, more frowns, even more heads drooping in sleep (that’ll happen when you’re preaching). I think at the end of the day, even I, who spend most of my day wandering in my thoughts, even I need real people. Real people to see and touch (rarely, and only if necessary) and smell (only the freshest varieties) and hear. I wrote about that fact before. I think I’m learning that lesson again.

So, I’m off. I’m off to email my friend who moved away to the other side of the country and who’s coming back for a visit sometime soon. I’m off to find a time I can go see my curmudgeonly friend I had the nerve to move away from. I’m off to see if I can set up some visits with my used-to-be-imaginary-but-now-I’ve-actually-seen-them friends I haven’t seen in a while. I’m off to see if I can find some other imaginary friends to really meet. And maybe, just maybe, I’ll go off and make some new friends. Nearby. Ones I can see and touch (sparingly) and hear and smell (as long as they don’t stink. Or, maybe even if they do).

Yes. Friends. I definitely need those. . . .

Five more posts . . .

and I hit one hundred.  June 18th will mark a year since my first blog post and I’d like to hit a hundred posts by then.  So 100 posts in 365 days.  Don’t know what that means.  I think I’ve been working in fits and starts and trying to figure out what I want this blog to be and go back and forth between my kids and my theologizing and maybe that’s annoying or maybe that’s exactly where I am and what my brain does right now and how I think my life.

I’ve really been writing less these last several weeks, though.  And I’d like to change that.  My kids’ lives are flying right past me and I’d like to stop and ponder them more often.  At the same time, God’s been propelling me forward in new ways, and that’s exciting and daunting and it keeps those theological wheels a’ whirrin’.  So, writing more would be nice.

But, baby steps.  Little goals.  And my current goal is to write five more posts by June 18th, to hit one hundred.  And, after I labeled this post it occurred to me that this post counts.  Because it is post number 96.  So now, I only have four more to write.    Now . . . what to write about . . .

Please stand by . . .

I am experiencing life. Life with three small children, a beautiful husband with a demanding job I often share, and another little side project I’m working on, as well as a trip involving over a thousand miles of driving with three little kids, two of whom were sick, and visiting with a wonderful step-mother-in-law and an ailing father-in-law. phew!

Man oh manohmanohman. This whole “Thinking about death” thing is dragging on and on and on. I’ve started the next installment, but it’s stalled out on the part where I need some genuine time to gather my theological wits about me, to ground my musings in some genuine scholarship. I want to do it all justice. But I don’t want everyone (all seven of you!) to forget where I’ve been or what I’m doing. So I’m poking my head up out of my hole to say “Hold on! More is on the way! I had no intention of dragging this out for three years, or how ever long it’s been. It makes it seem much more important than it is. Much more self-important than I really am.

I’ll be back. Hopefully today or tomorrow. I miss using my brain.

Productivity

I have totally disappeared off the face of the earth lately. Well. Off my blog anyway. The reason? My beautiful, purple, lap-dwelling companion is inoperable. I’m not sure what happened and I have made very little attempt to fix it yet, but I’m hopeful it will be up and running some time soon. As a result, I’m back to life as I lived it before my very own laptop came into my life last April. I can only use a computer when my husband is home and not working. That has really hampered my creative rambling time. I’ve definitely lost momentum here, but I’d like to gain some back. When I look back I find I had that nice stretch where I had a post every day and some pics to go along with them. Then my pics stopped. I think I lost my camera battery charger for a while. Good grief! Pitiful excuses. Anyway . . . I would like to go back to that. It was fun. And it was a good discipline for me to sit down every day and make something. I guess that’s why this blog is good for me. For me it’s productivity. It’ s making something. Something lasting and tangible.

Lasting and tangible productivity . . . not really a whole lot of that around here in SAHM-land. I mean there is lasting productivity: I’m working my tail off with my kids, trying to guide them into productive, Godly adulthood. And their adulthood, Lord willing, will outlast my own, so that sure is lasting. But it ain’t tangible. It’s nowhere near tangible. At this point I’m in the can’t-see-the-forest-for-the-trees stage, attacking each little moment with my eyes set toward the future but no ability to see just how the way this moment is handled will affect the future. Just shots in the dark, hoping and praying for the best. Mist and clouds and doubts and confusion abound. Nothing tangible here.

But there are tangible components to the life of this stay-at-home mom. There’s food to be cooked, kitchen and living room and bedrooms and so on and on to be cleaned, laundry to be done, laundry to be done, did I mention laundry to be done? So productive, tangible stuff does get done. I can smell and see and taste the food. First there’s a mess, then there’s not. I can see that. The laundry . . . well I’ve said far more than enough about laundry. Tangible productivity. But it ain’t lasting. Approximately 8 seconds after lunch is cleaned up it’s time to pull out afternoon snacks. The living room might be straight before everyone goes to bed, but Isaac wakes up before everyone else and by the time we reach the living room . . . well . . . a six-year-old boy has been productive all over it for an hour. The laundry never. ends. As soon as the last load for the day gets put away, everyone has to get undressed and put that day’s dirty clothes in their hamper. Nothing lasting here.

So that brings me to my little ramblings. Productivity. Lasting, tangible productivity. My fingers flying effortlessly across the keyboard at the speed of thought laying down words, sentences, paragraphs for as long as I choose to save them, putting ideas into heads which, for better or for worse, once they’ve arrived, remain. Filed away in the original hard drive. Even if it’s quickly forgotten, it’s stored somewhere. Lasting. Some may question the tangibility of words and thoughts. But it’s me. I really don’t need much more than that. That is my world, my tangible. Everything else, everything outside my thoughts, is a stretch.

My husband likes to make things with his hands . . . out of wood, leather, various animal parts . . . not kidding. Animal parts. Bones. Hides. Horns. Not brains yet, but I think they’re on his to-do list. I don’t make much with my hands. Well, unless you count this typing thing. Because my hands are definitely involved. I make things with my brain. I don’t have to touch it, see it, taste it for it to be tangible. I just have to think it, know it, feel it. Tangible. Something I can wrap my brain around with certainty. Tangible. . . Flake? Perhaps.

So, onward and upward . . . Back to productivity. Here’s my written pledge to try to do this blogging thing more. Not cuz I think I have something worthwhile to say, just because when I take the time to think it and write it down I come to the end of my day knowing I’ve at least done one thing today.

Musical Beds, Part 2. Where the Musical Beds part comes in.

So I started the last blog by entitling it. Musical Beds. I had a particular trajectory in mind. And then I got to writing. You know, the whole stream-of-consciousness thing. I got to the end of a thought, hit publish and went on my merry way. It was a drive-by blogging. I didn’t have time to do any writing, but I was sneaking some in anyway. And that’s where it got me. A title that has almost nothing to do with the post. I say almost nothing because I do mention the word bed in the post. So I’m thinking I’m sacrificing quantity for quality. The Blog Stats beginning to look less like an EKG report is making me all frantic: must. write. another. post. must write another post, mustwriteanotherpost!! Mustn’t let that little blue line drop back to zero. Must. Not.

So, where does that get me? Posts like the last one where the title is irrelevant because my train changed directions unexpectedly and I never went back and revisited the travel itinerary. It hit me like, well, a freight train while I was on my way home from Ruth’s well-child visit. “I never talked about Musical Beds!!”

Now. Let’s try again . . .

So here’s how our nights have been going around here lately. Hannah’s been getting up again. I think Isaac’s been giving her ideas. Or, his getting up leaves her “all awone” up there, the gravest of tragedies in Hannah’s life. I already explained Isaac’s situation. And Ruthie is now working on acquiring her canine teeth, so she’s been waking up much more too.

This all makes for some interesting nights. Here we go: Ry and I start out in our bed alone. At some point, Ruthie wakes up, Ry goes in and changes her diaper because she will not tolerate my changing her diaper in the middle of the night. She knows The Daddy is not good for much else in the night, so she tolerates him. Screaming all the way, but not writhing and kicking as she does to me, knowing I’m holding out the good stuff on her. Ry gets back in bed as I take Ruth from him to nurse her. Most times she goes right back to sleep, sometimes it takes a little bit. Then I get back in our bed. Unless. Unless Isaac has joined us in our bed in the meantime. Then there’s no room left for me and I head up to Isaac’s bed. Then, occasionally, Hannah goes downstairs and joins Ry and Isaac there.

There are many variations on this. Isaac shows up before Ruthie wakes up, but then there’s no room to return to the bed. Isaac shows up after Ruthie wakes up, he stays with us, unless Ry gets to feeling squished and then he goes up to Isaac’s bed. Then sometimes Hannah has come down and joined Isaac and me and I end up as part of a cozy mommy sandwich, with a child squished up against either side of me. Neither Ry nor I seem very aware of what’s going on through all this. We try to piece it all together in the morning:

“How did I end up all alone upstairs in Isaac’s bed? I thought I went to Hannah’s bed?”

“Well, Hannah started crying, so you went up and lay down with her. A little while later Isaac came down and lay down with me. Then Ruthie woke up and I went upstairs and asked you to go change her, so you got out of Hannah’s bed, changed Ruthie, and then when you went back upstairs you must have lain down in Isaac’s bed. Sometime after that Hannah came downstairs and climbed in with me and made a mommy sandwich.”

“Oh. I just remember getting into Hannah’s bed.”

Musical beds. Last one sleeping when the sun comes up WINS!!

Did I really give birth to these people?

It occurs to me that I don’t really have a lot of pictures on this thing. I have noticed that all the really cool kids have lots of pictures on their blogs. Hmph. I want to be a cool kid. I need pictures.

Here’s the thing about me, though. A while ago I listed six surprising facts about myself. One of them was that I don’t do numbers. Well, my cognitive limitations go beyond just numbers. I don’t really do space either. Or sounds. Or visuals. Umm. See, it’s like this. I don’t take in too much, sensory-wise. Did I already mention somewhere that I’m an INFP, completely lacking in sensory intake? So, I generally don’t need pictures or picture things in my head. I learn best verbal-visually: that is, seeing words. I can take mental pictures of words on pages, but pictures of things mean little to me. I’m not saying all this as if it’s a good thing. It drives my former-engineering-student husband positively batty. Well, that’s how I’d put it. He’d just say it mystifies him.

So, that’s why I named this thing Life as I Think It. Cuz that’s about all I do. Think. I’m sedentary and sensory-dull, and we–that is, my husband, my sister and I–joke that I’d be perfectly happy existing as a brain in a jar wheeled around on a cart as necessary.

But I really do want to do this blogging thing. In a way that leaves my Blog Stats looking more like a plateau and less like an EKG report. And the first thing I want to do is add more pictures. Because, as I said, all the cool kids have ‘em. The second thing I want to do is actually write more often. Perhaps less of loooong, rambling, blatherings of the “profound,” more short, succinct, snapshots of the mundane. I’ll work on the latter. And start with the former. Pictures.

Here are the children of whom I speak. In their natural habitat, as opposed to August’s field trip. While the picture is quite rare in that it depicts all three of my children in a way that represents them fairly and accurately, still, each time I see it I can’t help but ask, “Did I really give birth to these people?”

Who are you people?

It’s so funny. I’ve almost never posted a comment to a blog. Like once. Or maybe twice. I can’t remember. I read them. Some regularly. Well, as I’ve posted before, maybe five, regularly. Some are of my established “imaginary friends” whom I somewhat know from my favorite message board. Some are of complete strangers. In either context, I haven’t felt comfortable commenting. Part of me feels like a voyeur, I think. So I’m a little uncomfortable in that position. But then I remind myself: Hey, they’re putting this out there. But then I think, yeah, they’re putting this out there for . . . I don’t exactly know who, but figure they do. I figure I don’t know them intimately enough to comment. Figure these other people who comment have actually laid eyes on these bloggers. I’m so 1990. Or 2000. I’m so out of it I don’t even know when all this cyber-stuff began.

At the end of the day, though, I suspect I’m just an introvert. IRL and in cyberspace. An I is an I is an I, wherever she goes. I’m just a born eavesdropper. The plight of the introvert. Probably especially an introverted N (of the Myers-Briggs type indicators). So I lurk. Ooo. That doesn’t sound good. I lurk. I don’t like that www-word. Sounds so . . . shady. Am I shady because I don’t comment? Are you shady, because you don’t comment? Hmm. Maybe. (can you hear the laughter in my voice? I hope so.)

I think I need to comment on other people’s blogs more. Because now I know that bloggers get stats. Who knew? Not I. So then bloggers are left with these stats. Like 18 people looked at your blog today, for instance. And you find yourself wondering . . . Who are these people? Can you even name 18 people? And are they not commenting because they read your stuff and they found it to be a complete waste of their perfectly good time? Or are they not commenting because they’re introverted. And they’re lurking. And they’re shady. . . . Hmmmm. Who are these shady people? Perhaps they’re imaginary.

The thoughts I think today.

I’m Back . . .

(originally I posted this as a new page. Page, post . . . who could keep track?! Now it’s a post. )

I was away longer than expected. Not really out of town longer, just took me a while to get back on the Blogging train. I had an interesting run-in with the world of blogging while away, and nearly decided to drop my own blog a mere three posts in. But I just decided–spur of the moment like–that there is a right way and a wrong way to blog. And I’m going to try the right way.

The purpose of this blog? To share my thoughts as I live my life. So there it is. I have lots of thoughts. Tonight’s thoughts revolve around sleepiness. Ahhhh I’m sleepy. Ahhhh I’m really sleepy.

I took The Boy out to see fireworks last night. His first encounter with a big display. He practically turned inside out and likely would have if it weren’t two hours past his bedtime by the time they got started. He loved them. Then he did a marker and paper rendition of them first thing this morning. The downside is he and I were exhausted today. We got home late after a big day yesterday.

Sweet sweet Boy was so sleepy after the fireworks. We got back into the car and his very first words were, “Mommy, I want my blankie now.” Smart mommy had it on the front seat. The Boy was asleep before we got home. Woke up enough in the driveway to ask me to have Daddy carry him up to bed, then promptly fell back to sleep while I went to get his Dad. On the way upstairs: “Mommy, no books, no singing, no nothing. I just want to go straight to sleep.” Ok, buddy. Sounds good. Sweet, sweet boy.

So, now I’m tired. But tomorrow . . . or the next day, as the case may be, I’ll share some thoughts on what parenting has taught me about God. Or, better put, what God has taught me about himself through my experience of parenting. I have lots of those thoughts. But I’ll just pick one to start.

Good to be back, I suppose. Still a little frightening. But good.