Posted by Ethne~
Unbelievably a year has passed since Lori and I stopped giving lip-service to our pipe dream of writing a blog together and we actually took the plunge. It’s been a lot of fun. I get to talk to her almost every day, and when we don’t talk to each other, we text. And sometimes we send some old-fashioned emails.
We dream of living in big city, MN, together one day, preferably on a compound where we’d only have to walk next door to each other’s houses. We wouldn’t work. We’d blog full-time. Our days would start with meeting up for coffee (Lori) & tea (me) at one of our houses and planning what craft we’d be doing for the day.
Not that the blog has been easy. There have been some days where I just didn’t feel like writing up a post. Or I didn’t feel like hooking my camera up to the computer to download pictures. And I know that the blog has been something of an annoyance, on occasion, to Shaun, Steve and our kids. Then there were the days that I felt we were in a blogging slump because we didn’t have very many visits to the blog that day or we hadn’t gotten any new followers in a while.
But then I’d text Lori and she’d slap down a ‘DECISION DONE’ and we’d plug away again. Really, it’s a fun way to keep my creative juices flowing when sometimes I feel boxed in with the day-to-day of my work life and the evening-to-evening tasks of being a parent. [The girls’ pediatrician told me yesterday that sometimes, parenting is about knowing your own limits as a parent. She said I shouldn’t feel bad about telling the girls to go to their room before I say something I’ll feel sorry about later.]
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| CAFFEINE also helps keep me going |
The blog keeps me doing things that are fun: activities I can do with or for the girls, our home and as gifts. And honestly, I really like writing for an audience of my peers, like I did as an English and American Studies double major back in college. That seems like ages ago, and my grasp of the language in all its glory gets rusty. But when I’m writing posts, I feel the writer in me bubbling back to the surface. Sometimes I make myself laugh out loud while I write. It feels good. I almost always laugh out loud when I read Lori’s posts. I couldn’t do this, nor would I really want to, with anyone but Lori. She’s my girl soulmate.
Do I need to find a little more balance? Of course. I can’t forget that each evening spent with Shaun and the girls is a day I won’t get back, ever. So I can’t bury my face in the computer all night long. I have to actively remind myself of this. But looking back at all of the projects, crafts and activities I’ve done with Lori, Shaun, the girls and my family and friends, the blog will be my online scrapbook of it all. I put up pictures of the girls constantly, so there is that record as I go along, detailing our extraordinary ordinary lives.
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| Finding balance - like on this Omaha suspension footbridge |
I searched through the posts I’ve done (Lori is going to do the same) that have had the most meaning, were the most fun to do/write and which made me laugh the most. It was actually a fairly long list. Pared down a bit, these are my very favorite ‘Ethne’ posts:
2) Adventures in Sunless Tan, Parts 1 and 2.
3) Bombshell Bra. These posts here and here and here got us a lot of feedback.
5) Crime Editions and Tuesdays at Noon: Here, here and here.
6) Together Again, Hometown Meals here and here.
15) Though it wasn’t my post, I laughed until I was wiping away the tears at Lori’s double chin post.
Friends, I really hope you’ll follow Lori and me into our 2nd year of blogging – and spread the word to your friends and friends of friends and moms of friends of friends. We will surely laugh a whole bunch and probably cry a little. With any luck, we will get baby steps closer to living in the same city and maybe even lose a few pounds. Hard to say what it all will be, but I’m in.
