Blogger Guilt

I signed in to Grover's blog today, and was irked to see that he just posted yesterday, but was somewhat consoled by the fact that, prior to today, he hadn't posted since the 8th, which was Thursday, which means he isn't posting every day, which means he isn't entirely wiping the floor with me in terms of the "attention-paid-to-one's-blog" measurement of success, which is almost as important a measure of one's writerly success as, for instance, the "length-of-run-on-sentences-used-in-ones-blog" measurement, which I also like to pay attention to. But still it definitely gets me that the November 8th post on his blog was made with pictures from my own camera and somehow, I sent them to him without posting them on here.

But this blog, as much fun as it is to keep the pictures updated and occasionally sit down as I am doing right now to consider my life as it flops about in front of me like a hooked fish on the dock (Thin "lots going on, but not much control"), is actually just another item on the long list of to dos that I find myself feeling guilty about. Like exercising or saying morning prayers or saving money or reading more, blogging tends to maintain a high enough position on my list for me to notice, but rarely high enough for me to do anything about it. And its not that I don't feel like I've got things to write, because I do. Every day I notice little things of interest that I think ought to end up here--overheard conversations, fleeting thoughts, observations on parenting, and at the very least, the events of the day--but taking the time to actually do it is often the real problem.

For instance, yesterday was my birthday. It was an absolutely wonderful day ( and not just because of all the chocolate I got to eat, though that always helps). We had chocolate waffles for breakfast and then Melissa went to an activity at the church while the boys and I spent the morning together. We wrestled, colored, made paper airplanes, played at the baker center, ate lunch, read stories, and made Nolan's birthday cake. In the evening we had Dave, John, and Poulani (sp.?) over for the best Okonomiyaki we've ever made, and then had ice cream sandwiches. Callan climbed all over everyone, and Nolan made a terrific mess with his birthday cake, and it was by all measures, a good evening.

And as for Friday night, I ought to mention that after putting Callan to bed I sat down to the computer to look at Globalfreeloaders.com, the online accommodation/networking site we've used three times now to find free places to stay, and I was looking at places in NYC when Melissa came in and asked what I was doing. I told her I was looking for potential places to stay if we ever made it the AWP conference in January. She smiled at me and said, "I was going to wait until tomorrow, but I think I'll give you your birthday present now," and she pulled a gift bag from the closet and handed it to me. Inside was a map of NYC, a guide book, and a print out of a flight confirmation for all of us to go to New York for the AWP conference. A week ago she'd found 20$ round-trip tickets to New York on Skybus, so we're going. It was, as things usually are with Melissa, pleasant, and surprising.

In October, we posted a whopping seven posts, most of which were pictures, and some of them were catch up posts that should have been posted in September. Is it fair to use the busy parent excuse? No, not really. Blogging is at best another way to keep up with family, at worst a neurotic diversion, and maybe I should feel better about the amount of time it isn't consuming. In fact, I think I'll take advantage of the fact that everyone else is sleeping right now, and do the same.