Once Upon a Time....

I regularly blogged.
I kept a current record of my life and my interpretation of the lives of my growing little family.
It was fun!
It was an outlet, a creative space to write and post my photographs.

This lady with super strong stems used to blog regularly... and take pictures! What happened?  

Then I had a third child.
I strived to keep up, to record her monthly development.

I must admit that when we finally hit the 12 month mark I felt a sigh of relief.
One less thing to do.

Not that I am so terribly busy.
If I can fit in naps and stay up way too late watching TV then I am not all that busy.
I have a friend who has three equally demanding children, a kind husband who is frequently gone for his medical residency, leaving her to single handedly run her household.  Somehow she still blogs regularly, often warming my heart with her posts.
I think it is possible to blog and do the things I need to do.
I just think I'm kind of lazy.

I've turned to the lazy woman's blog... Facebook.
It's so easy to post a picture, throw a few sentences out into cyber space.
People "like" your status, occasionally even comment.
Instant gratification, not commonly found on a blog.

My mother once applauded my consistency in posting on my blog.
When I stopped blogging regularly I actually had friends ask me if everything was okay.
Honestly I was surprised that anyone had really noticed.

I recognize that my reasoning behind blogging wasn't necessarily for the comments or praise, though these things always make you feel good.  The point of it all is to keep a record for myself and my children.

That being said, there is a balance to be found between recording life and living life.
For a time I felt like my efforts to record were hindering my ability to join in and really LIVE.
My response was to stop recording, stop writing, stop photographing... which doesn't seem quite right either.
Occasionally a burst of five, ten, twenty posts would be supplied in a single day, relieving my non-record keeping guilt-ridden mind.

So where do I go from here?
I have three busy (highly photographed by others) months worth of blogging to post.
Do I furiously use my free time over the next few weeks to catch up?
Then there is the matter of turning my blog into an actual hardcopy record.
I love the first two Blurb books that I made, but they are extremely time consuming and I am currently 3 1/2 years behind.  Yikes!

Everything in it's own time I guess.
Just like I have had to come up with a routine to fit exercise into my life, maybe it's time to catch up and then find a way to fit record keeping in my life too.
Those hardcopy books may just have to wait a few years, though I can't imagine that I will really have any MORE free time then compared to now.


The kids love to look back at the blog books I did publish.
I like to think that someday my children will look back at these records of events and stories with happy memories and a better appreciation and understanding for their mother.
If I can achieve that goal it will all be worth it.