Dear diary...

When I was younger, I kept a diary. I wrote stuff in it. Depending on what age I was, I wrote things that were true and things that were not true. It's silly to think back on all that. In a way, I thought I was creating this persona for future readers of my diary. Weird to me now that I was dishonest in my own diaries. Was I that unhappy with my life? I wasn't all that introspective until later... I don't know. So diaries, or now electronic diaries in the form of blogs, are fascinating to me. It's an intimate form of communication open to the whole world. Why?

My personal reason for writing, and for trying to keep up with this blog, is to keep our families in the loop even though we live on different continents. And to share, directly and indirectly, what my family tries to live daily: our Catholic Faith. And to record the moments in our childrens' lives that are flying by so fast that I can't keep up. Truly, I forget even the things that I most want to remember sometimes. When I started this blog, I had five children. Now I have six children, a daughter-in-law, and two grandchildren. How does it all happen so fast?

Even though clearly the blog is not nearly as active as it used to be, and honestly, not as active as I would like it to be, those still my primary goals. Many days, I think of blog posts I'd like to write, but actually having the time to sit down and write, well.... I'm here now because one of the children finished school and I have a little hole in my day now in which to muse.

Sometimes I wonder about the way other people seem to be bugged by postings on blogs. I guess I don't expect people to share their bad days or messy rooms online. I know that I prefer to write about the happy things: the things that make my day; the holidays when I really love how the decorating or the meal turned out or who was able to make it home to be at the table. The other ones, the ones that feel rushed, or frantic, or unsettled somehow, I don't like to write about so much, and I find that often, I don't. Partly because they don't feel like things I want to remember sometimes. And at least partly because if the holiday was rushed, life is rushed at that moment, and I'm not likely to be sitting down at the computer to write something about it. Am I creating an honest picture of life in our family? I hope I am. Is it a bad thing not to care to dwell on or record many messy days? I don't think so. I do try to post honestly. But the blog is not a complete picture.

And I don't expect anyone else's blog to be a complete picture either. So I don't completely get it when people are intimidated or discouraged by what looks like the perfect life of another writer. I have heard people who say they dislike one blog or another because it is "too perfect". Hmm. I guess I recognize that the posts that are present are usually, if the blogger is a good-intentioned person, and I don't think I read (m?)any blogs where that is not the case, they are usually meant to be of help to the reader in some way. To present positive ideas, to share joy and wonder about the world, to impart little bits of wisdom that have been gained along the way. So they are good, happy, funny posts about real life. And sometimes they are thoughtful posts about the challenges of life that the writer is grappling with, or is processing, or has had an epiphany about. Those things help others. They express real life.

With pretty photos on the side.

Who doesn't need more beauty in this world?