Throwback Thursday
Today I cleaned my desk. I organized my shelves. I cleaned under my bed. Can you tell I have a revision to finish?
I was reminiscing on Facebook about when we drove cross-country to move here in 2006. Monday was the 9th anniversary of our arrival, which shocks me. We’ve lived here longer than anywhere else in our marriage. I never saw that coming—that my kids would grow up in Southern California.
The FB conversation brought up my old post about our scary encounter with junkyard dogs on that trip—one of the posts that makes me really happy I started blogging. 🙂 I shared the link and was mildly irked to see it come up with one of my sidebar buttons as the giant header image Facebook likes to add now. There were no photos in the original post. Images were optional in 2006. I wound up going back in and adding a picture from the trip. Oh, my younguns were so very YOUNG back then!
I miss blogging like that. So much of that kind of “here’s what happened today” anecdotal posting has shifted to Facebook—it unrolls so naturally on that platform. Blogging seemed to take on a more…hmm, formal, is that the word I’m looking for? Polished?…a more polished tone. I dash off quips and stories on FB, and there’s that happy dopamine burst of reaction. But always, always, I want to pull it all back here to our family archive. We have over ten and a half years of history here. “We,” my family—and we, you and me. Some of you have been with me since the very beginning in 2005. “I remember when you moved,” wrote one FB friend today. “I was reading your blog like a novel, and it was a great upheaval in the plot!”
No great upheavals in the story today. 🙂 Huck lost his other top front tooth. The Tooth Fairy brought him a buck per tooth, which vast fortune he had lost track of by lunchtime. I walked down the hall in time to hear him mutter, “I want my two dollars!” None of the kids knew why this reduced me to giggles.
Yesterday, hustling out the door to piano lessons, I heard Rilla say as I got into the car, “Mom gets a pass. She’s never the rotten egg.” A generous statement, considering I’m always the one hollering, “Is everyone ready?? We’re out the door in two minutes!”—while I’m still half dressed.
Wonderboy (who REALLY needs a more grown-up blog name, but would you allow it?) is giving a speech at school tomorrow about his family. He described me as a “homeschool teacher and an author” and Scott as “an author, a really good cook, and a good shopper.” True on all counts.
He loves his school, but we missed him (and Jane!!) at the park on Monday. Nine years. I still can’t believe it.
Melissa H says:
How is Rose so tall and how is Huck such a big boy? I’ve been reading since around the time of your cross country move and since I grew up in Escondido I’m always interested in your Southern CA related posts (weather, gardening, fires etc). In my mind you live in the house behind my elementary school because I think you mentioned Wonder(man?) goes to school right by your house 🙂
And thanks for keeping up the blog even in the days of FB. I have an on/off relationship with FB but having just read Dave Eggers’ The Circle I’m currently in an “off” mode. The book feels a bit….overdone maybe….but thought provoking.
On October 22, 2015 at 10:01 pm
Erin says:
Yes I’ve been reading your blog on and off for all those years, I remember your epic cross country trip and the junkyard dogs:)
Yes the reason I’ve resisted fb (except for family) as I just can’t write it all everywhere, and I admit I’m glad I’ve kept up blogging, kept it all together.
Do agree though it’s all more polished but then if we are to develop as writers, to have our voice then we can’t help but grow too.
Am enjoying reading your blog regularly again btw:)
On October 22, 2015 at 10:10 pm
Tabatha says:
Beautiful family! Very grown-up. You look like one of the kids.
On October 23, 2015 at 1:43 am
tanita says:
Oh, my word, your tallest I briefly mistook for …you.
It’s really been a privilege being an extended part of your family all these years… I have learned so much just from observing you. I appreciate that you have kept this as a historical journal of all of you, and am glad it’s here, because who knows where FB posts will go in ten years time!
On October 23, 2015 at 6:06 am
maria says:
How can it be nine years? I can’t believe it either! The photo proves it but wow, it has really been that long?! I do not recall when specifically I discovered your blog, or how, but I think it was when my oldest was reading the Little House prequels.(is that actually the correct way to refer to the books?) So that would be about eight years ago. You all had not been moved very long and we’re settling into life in CA. I do recall being so thrilled to discover a homeschool family that in many ways rolled like we do, just with a few more kids. 😉
Thank God for your blog! I too have learned so much over my years of reading it and have been encouraged beyond expression. Just today you made me gasp(nine years?!), laugh(the piano lesson paragraph, “Is everyone ready?” said half dressed…LOL! w/relatable laughter), want to cry with appreciation for you and your wonderful blog. So thank you for blogging!
And may Huck indeed get his two dollars back. 😀
On October 23, 2015 at 7:30 am
Sheila says:
Funnily enough, I was lying in bed the other night feeling sad about the state of my blogging life. Or lack thereof. I migrated to FB because all my other correspondents were already there, without me, and while it’s immediate and topical and mostly amusing it just doesn’t fill the wordiness quotient for me. I like stories that last a while.
It’s been 6 months since I last blogged. I sure miss those heady days of hilarious stories flying out of my fingertips, but I hit a drought when FB hit me. That said, I just started a NEW blog. My newly-widowed-and-drastically-changed mother discovered my blog and I feel inhibited by her reading my indiscrete musings about family, relatives, and homeschool trips. Nothing like having your mother tell you that using the word ‘sperm’ in a blog post is “weird,” and did I really HAVE to use that word?
On October 23, 2015 at 8:00 am
Ellie says:
I love how Rose and Rilla have the same legs, and you and Huck have the same face — genetics! I don’t post photos of my kids’ faces on my blog, **but** if I did, you could see that my 13yo son looks so shockingly like me now that it’s bemusing.
Also, “a good shopper” that’s wonderful. My mother actually just said that yesterday about the aforementioned 13yo! She enjoys taking him shopping because he’s the perfect shopper’s companion apparently.
On October 24, 2015 at 7:34 am