"So I was thinking," my mom said one summer day while my sister was visiting, "we should all start a blog together. You could write about being a teacher and Chelsea could do the artwork and I could talk about being a mom and it would just be really fun to try!" She smiled like a girl who had just been given a free dessert. The excitement shone on her face as she told us her idea.
Now, I'd tried blogging before. I am one of the MySpace/Facebook generation where we came of age on the Internet. Publicly announcing every detail of my life to hundreds of online friends is commonplace to people in my age group. Blogs can do all that and more! I used to follow my friends' blogs and enjoy reading their posts about food, fitness, and those early college years. But eventually the posts got shorter and came less frequently. Eventually we all stopped trying.
But every now and then I still come across a blog that makes me think about getting back into it. But I had never expected that my own mom would want to start one herself!
But then why wouldn't she? She has been my writing inspiration since day one. I always loved finding her in the mornings, still tucked under the covers with either the Bible or a novel and a pad of paper close by, ready to write when inspiration struck. Later she got a laptop, and in the mornings she would send long and heartfelt emails to her sisters and friends. These emails did more than just convey information-- they were whole stories in themselves-- developed with characters and details and lovely language that made her words come to life. Sometimes she would sit down for long hours and type out a memoir of some moment that had inspired her lately, and when she read them to me I would be brought to fits of laughter or tears welling in my eyes.
And that's when I realized that with my mom as the instigator of this blog, we would be setting a standard that would keep me motivated. Our posts would be thoughtful and reflective and true. They would be carefully typed so that when you read them it felt as authentic as reading something handwritten. My sister is an amazing artist as well as writer and she would of course be a contributor as well through original art and her own posts. The whole idea felt right-- a way to connect us and keep us all creative. Because life does have a way of getting in the way of that.
This blog is the first time I've written anything longer than a lesson plan in almost two years. And even though I'm typing this right now instead of doing that stack of grading that I need to do, I don't care. Because writing again feels SO GOOD! Thanks for browsing our blog and we hope you enjoy these little glimpses into the lives of a mom and her two daughters, narrating the peaceful moments and the pebbles in our shoes.
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