We had been very, very careful for the last couple of weeks. We had eaten in and only from safe, whole foods. I couldn't imagine why I was feeling more and more achy and sore, weaker, and less and less focused and sharp. I was beginning to be afraid that I had an allergy to some else, too. Ick!
Then, a few days ago, I complained to Rod as I got ready for work, and expressed my fear that there might be something else I had to avoid. A few hours later, he called me at work and told me that a second examination of the ingredients had revealed that the new vitamin D we bought a couple of weeks ago has not one but two potentially corny ingredients. Not the usual suspects, but still...that could be the problem. He bought a bottle of our usual vitamins yesterday and now hopefully I can start to feel more human (and blogging regularly) again.
Now, on to the post I have been struggling to write for a week...
A couple of friends of mine (who don't know each other), both of whom I thought knew better, remarked within a few days of each other about our "glamorous" life.
Maybe it comes down to the fact that I blog? Maybe they assume that blogging means you have an exciting life to blog about?
I agree that we have a photogenic house. And we do have a pretty good life, but I don't think it's any more glamorous than anyone else's.
Blogging is storytelling. It's based on life, but it isn't a rote listing of facts like a ships log. It is detail embroidered with meaning and placed in an interesting context. Blogging is less about what is happening and more about how you tell the story. I do post bald facts sometimes. Most bloggers do. Usually it means that we're tired, busy, and feeling uninspired. But the bloggers who develop a large following don't usually have a life so exciting that you'd notice the difference from the outside. What really good bloggers have is an exciting internal life. They see patterns in what happens, they infuse the everyday with meaning. They paint a word picture that, if only for a moment, changes our way of looking at the world. Other excellent bloggers share their journey in the form of information they have collected. They make the new idea seem accessible. I am not a great blogger with a huge following, but I do try to learn from the great bloggers I follow.
When I post here at Chez Smiffy, I am posting my word pictures, my own impression based on our real life. But this blog isn't all of our life. I rarely post about the humdrum, and then only if I have something interesting to say about it. Notice how you rarely hear about the unwashed dishes, the perpetually in need of a wash floors, the chaos that regularly descends in the parlour, or my job? I like my job and I enjoy the people there, but the nature of my job is such that it is interesting only within its own context. There just isn't that much insight to be had in endless rounds of audits, ITAILS, and process documentation that would be interesting to anyone who isn't living it. The perpetually in need of a good cleaning aspects of our home are well known to our closest friends, but they're neither terribly unusual nor very interesting.
But canning, gardening, photography, homeschooling and other things that are interesting to us are much better fodder for interesting insights. They won't interest everyone, of course. Our regular 15 readers are our friends from other other aspects of life, a couple of bloggers with similar interest, and a few visitors looking for information about Disney movies based (or not based) on books, information about writing a homeschool curriculum, or information about tuning and maintaining a Hardman Peck mini-piano. I doubt that I will ever develop a big following and that's perfectly fine. Blogging is fun. Fame comes with way too many hassles. :p
Now then, excuse me while I go try and find a photo for my 365 project. We were out late last night and I discovered that my camera batteries were dead when I tried to take some street scenes. I'll catch up today.
