I blog because there is blank space available in the cyberworld…at least that was my reason when I first became a blogger about seven years ago. I created the title for my blog because my life was in transition at the time and I am a verbal processor. It really did help to almost daily reflect on what was going on in my life: leaving my part-time job I’d loved, as a weekday religious education teacher; ending my season of life known as “homeschooling”, with the enrollment of our youngest son in a local public high school; learning to navigate the uncharted waters of being mother to married offspring; and eventually becoming a new member of the Grandma Club.
A year or two into my blogging adventure, forced by yet another transition–our first-ever season of unemployment due to the closing of the university where my husband had been a librarian for twenty-four years–I returned to the workforce after being a stay-at-home mom for twenty years. Specifically, I returned to the classroom, teaching remedial reading to college students. Then I hit a blogger slump: I found at the end of my workdays that I had used up my best words with students and didn’t have much left for even the smallest blog posts. Now, however, I’ve been at teaching for awhile, I don’t have to spend so much of my discretionary time working on lesson plans and grading papers, and I am at a different place in life, all leaving time–and desire– for a return to more consistent blogging.
When not in the classroom or putting words to computer screen, I focus on being wife to my husband of 33 years, come June; mom to three adult children ages almost 22, 29, and almost 31 (two are married to wonderful spouses); and grandma to our five grands who range in age from 10 months to 8 years of age. I wish I had more time for friends who are dear, who round out the circle of relationships that make life worth living. All of their lives–this life–my life–are what I choose to reflect upon in the posts that appear here.
I believe my mission in life is to connect people with truth that changes them and makes their lives better. Doing this through teaching has been my main avenue of fulfilling that calling. But, the older I get, the more ways I find to carry out my mission–and blogging is one of them. My goal in taking Blogging 101 is to be in a place for the ignition of a little spark to put me back on the path of regular writing. Let’s strike the flint and get this fire going!
Amy –
I LOVE reading what you have written this week. The fasting/Lenten entry was especially true to my soul. I hope you don’t mind I jumped on here. I saw it at the bottom of your email.