Two Hundred and Fifty.

Normal day, let me be aware of the treasure you are. Let me learn from you, love you, bless you before you depart. Let me not pass you by in quest of some rare and perfect tomorrow. Let me hold you while I may, for it may not always be so. One day I shall dig my nails into the earth, or bury my face in the pillow, or stretch myself taut, or raise my hands to the sky and want, more than all the world, your return.
-Mary Jean Iron

Found this scruffy picture of moi on Emily's camera :) which makes it a special kind of cool.

This is my 250th blog post. I did notice the hundredth and the two hundredth but forgot to celebrate my bloggy milestones until many posts later. Now, here is one I can actually mention because I just noticed that my little blog editor page said that I had already 249 posts behind me! How about that?

Background: This blog is unlisted, which means that it's not supposed to be search engine material. You only get here [so she says] if I gave you a link, or if you linked from someone else [who I know] who linked to me, or you're a Facebook friend, or one in a million will find it from a comment I left on someones blog.

I created it accidentally one day.

I was reading my cousin's blog, at the time it was the Jer & Kris blog, and I curiously clicked on a Blogger button to make my own blog. I didn't really know what a blog was until about that time. Anyway, I was playing around with it and created a few posts and some links just for fun. I had never shared it with anyone and one day I got a comment from Kris who noticed that I had linked to her blog. It took my breath away. She outed me just like that, and made my little blog official.

Why do I do it? I don't really know why I do it, it's mostly a lonely enterprise and lots of times I think eeeeew, what the heck am I doing this for? I have to admit, I do like to write and I do like to read what I have written, sometimes I look back and think, oooh, I wrote that, and, um, hey it’s not really that bad! I am not dilusional though and am frequently humbled by the writers on blogs that I read regularly and I am in perpetual awe of them [yes, I am referring to you, Jerry, Kris, Kal, and Brenda].

It could be because I am too much in love with the computer and deep down inside I miss those long days at the office crunching numbers and writing accounting programs...or not. This blog also takes a lot of my time. I spend way too much time on this when I should be cooking dinner or playing with my kids or cleaning my house and I have to reckon with that too.

This may be the reason: With the exception of photos, I am not a very good memory recorder. My kids’ baby books are empty except for the first couple of pages, I apologize to you if you are among the ones who gave me those books as a gift, I had good intentions, I’m just not good at writing things down on paper [which makes no sense because I love pencils and I also love paper]. My poor recording talent sucks more because I have a bad memory. Tony is constantly reminding me of things and I think he must be making them up because I am often completely blank about the whatever it is. Sometimes, I even pretend to remember so he will let me off the hook and stop trying to help me remember. Oh yeah honey...that time.

For the last few years, I have pretty much recorded every major outing, every trip taken, countless occasions, birthdays, holidays and more miscellaneous matter than you probably wanted to see. And look at that, I have records! Two hundred and fifty attempts at records since I'm counting. Sure, I get in my funny moods and some of my posts have been purely fun fluff and clutter. But mostly, I think, I have created something good and meaningful.

This is also an excellent reason: personally speaking, I have never been a good share-er. I think I may have made my mom proud on the playground a few times, but with personal info, no. Giving you a window into my life was scary at first, I was afraid. I was also afraid of the internet and I am still wrangling with that fear, hence the eternally unlisted blog. But somehow, slowly, giving this little window to you has brought me out of my shell somewhat and I am so proud of my new sharing abilities, I have come a long way. This blog also gives me a fun little creative outlet and that is always good and necessary for me.

I’m thinking, hey, I’m alive, I’ll be here for a while and then I won’t. Why not live a little, let my armor slip and let a few people in, what could happen? Life is short, but my life is big, and my world is really small. That makes sense to me, or maybe it's just my kind of crazy.

The part I don't like: for me blogging can be a lonely business, I never actually know who I am reaching or who is out there reading, do you think I know you are reading this right now? Unless you have told me, or have left me a comment recently, I don't have a clue. It’s not always easy to write when your audience is a mystery, so I just try to write for myself and I don’t edit much so my thoughts just trickle out and get published. For the first year or so I wanted to find a way to tell people to leave comments without begging. I gave up trying and just kept sharing; savoring up each little treasure of encouragement and love in every comment you left me. I have recently discovered one way to get around all the blog isolation and its called Facebook! It is a magical place where your nice little ego can ask for, and pretty much receive on demand, all the social validation your sweet heart desires.

So I guess the real answer to why do I keep this blog going is, I do it for myself, because I am creating a record; memories and mostly regular life everyday things that I think are worth remembering and sharing. I even enjoy it. And you’re kind of nice to let me rattle on and on to you about how much fun I had here and there, how awesome my kids are, and how much I love Fridays and strawberries and coffee. Just so you know, every time you leave me a comment, I print it up and put it in a wall hanging frame and cherish it for three whole days. Not really, but I do archive them right along with my blog posts and they mean a lot to me.

The best compliment I received was when, a few months into it I decided to share it with my friend Nena. She told me she really liked it and that I was the hippest person she knew. No kidding, she used those exact words. After these two + years of writing this blog, I would not dare ask how hip she thinks I am now!

Just for fun: My favorite post and my tied for favorite post, oh how much I enjoyed that one! Read the comments, they are simply delicious.

Gonna go play with Eva now. After that, I will finish cleaning the house, then pick up kids from school, then soccer practices, then dinner, then...just a normal day.