I've Missed this Good Old Blog

It's hard to imagine now—because of Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook—what anyone would ever use a blog for. But this is a good old blog. I've been here since 2004, so when I say (brag) that I'm the grandmother of blogging I am not kidding. Ask anyone. You can even ask Cjane. She'll say the same.

When I started writing hardly anyone but my sisters read it. That was kind of the point. I could talk about all the people I hate. Oh, those were heady times. Then the people I hate (not you) started reading it, which limited what I could say. Then I had Ellen and didn't blog for a year because blogging made me nauseous. Then I started blogging again and then I started blogging as a job for Babble. What a great job! I wrote lots of Babble blogs that I love. I wrote some dumb ones too.

As a "parenting" blogger and as the aforementioned grandmother of blogging, I am (was) one of the first to deal with a certain kind of radio silence that happens in blogging when your kids start middle school. It sort of becomes questionable to blog about them. I mean, would YOU have wanted YOUR MOM to BLOG about YOU in middle school?

That's me in 1985 thinking about how glad I am my mom doesn't have a blog. Sweet straw hat, though.

There are people blogging about their experiences raising older kids in a non-exploitive way and I think it's really valuable. It takes a bit more discretion and it doesn't have the same "tell-all" quality of poo and potty days with babies and toddlers, but there's plenty to talk about without betraying your kids' privacy.

So here I am with an update because this is a good old blog and when I neglect it for too long I start getting a LOT of spam comments about love spells that work.

We sold the food trucks and Christian works at BYU now. I am in Heaven. The upside to being an entrepreneur is how good it feels when you return to a normal job. (At least that's how it is for me.) Christian works in Student Life as a technology architect and he LOVES it. He is doing really interesting things, such as reworking the application process, and hears all sorts of juicy BYU gossip that he can't talk about. He's also really into biking now and even wears a plastic rain suit over his clothes so he can bike to work in a storm. 2004-blogging-me would not have predicted that.

I've got a new gig that I love. I am teaching Management Communications for the BYU Business School. 2004-blogging-me would not have predicted that, either. Close your eyes. Picture the most professional person you know. Open them. Surprise! It's me. I teach people how to be businesslike and we work on having appropriate and professional Linked In profiles. I love teaching writing. I didn't feel like doing it for a long time because I was not operating at full capacity. If you are raising little kids you aren't either. It's OK because you won't notice until they are in grade school and you start to feel like yourself again, which is good because at about this time parenting will begin to exact a heavy emotional toll and you will need your strength. I teach two days a week and it has been really fun so far. Consequently, I've cut back as a Babble contributor. Consequently, I can blog here more. I've noticed some differences in the students since I last taught: More boys are named Jordan (4 in one class) and more students are very into fitness—very, very into fitness. So that's good.

Sam got into BYU, deferred, and is going to the Birmingham England Mission October 28. J.R.R. Tolkien wrote LOTR in Birmingham so my son Sam[wise] will be serving in the literal Shire/Mordor. 2004-blogging-me would have loved this, but would have had no idea how profoundly difficult it is going to be to send him on a mission. Gird up your loins, parents of mission-bound children. I am proud of Sam. He is wonderful. . . and precious and priceless and fascinating and winsome.

Will I start a mission blog? No. I will blog about his mission here on this good old blog.

Maggie is taking Drivers Ed and running on the cross country team. Ben's new thing is football. Football is a really involved subculture I knew nothing about before Ben started playing. I'm learning. Sam baptized Ellen. She's in third grade but I still think of her as 4. I know now why youngest children are spoiled, because I'm spoiling Ellen.

My favorite show is Hannibal.  It's hard to recommend it because it is incredibly graphic and gruesome, but also smart, compelling, beautiful, and great. Bob's Burgers is my favorite funny show.