what is this blog anyway?

Recently in several of the blogs I follow the authors have pondered why they blog, or what direction they want to go. So, now it's my turn.

I've become self-conscious of my marathon-blogging as I try to catch up on time between my internet usage. I'm always thinking about you, my friends, who might be reading and skimming and even losing interest in my lengthy stories and repetitive pictures.

Of course blogs are a colored slice of life, we all know that, but Ben has had more than one conversation with me (ok, a lot of conversations) about how my life is perfectly adequate and if reading what my friends are doing is going to make me unsatisfied and feel unaccomplished then I'm going to have to stop reading. (I won't go into the problems facebook creates for me... there is absolutely no way I can keep up). On the flip side reading blogs also makes me feel less alone and more connected to myself through my friends.

I love living in Delta and have no interest in moving anytime soon, but I do feel isolated here with only a few moms whose parenting I can really identify with (thank you Corey and Kassia).

So, laying awake with Anna at night and considering the world of blogs, it occurred to me one of the things I like most about my blog is its scrapbook quality. I have aspirations for a physical scrapbook of sorts, yet alas, a book is far from reality, I barely even get pictures printed to send to the great-grandparents, let alone to hang on my wall or put in a book. Nonetheless, one thing I love to do is look through the 8 or so fat photo albums my grandmother is still adding to.

So, I realized as the mother of two I don't blog to spread my pithy thoughts, and obviously I'm not traveling so there're no adventures to share. I concluded it's just so I can see the story of my life unfold. I know Ben looks back on previous entries at work and Joachim always asks to see himself on the computer. I can even see how much I enjoy having my own story to read. After a few months some entries I cringe with emabarassment over, but boy, wouldn't I love to have a book like this of my own childhood to look over.

I don't know... my grandmother just has a few black and white pictures pre-WWII and maybe that's better, a way to live in the present unencumbered by the past. After all living lightly is supposed to be liberating and I regularly read about our societal need to simplify. I see it in Delta whenever busy big city friends visit and I realize just how beautifully slow-paced our lives are.

In fact, for 2 years my sister in law has not even had a phone in the house in which they live, it's 30 yards away in the house they're building and sometimes, much to my frustration, days will go by without someone checking messages. It's difficult if I'm trying to make plans, but it always gives me a great excuse to stop by and visit. She said she actually really likes not having phone interruptions. It's a foreign concept to me with my cell phone, that said my phone is 5 years old and based on the ads Verizon keeps sending I think they can't believe it still works :)

So, here it is, my scrapbook blog, although that doesn't change anything except how I see it.