This is my last week before I go back to school. Summer is almost over.
I started this blog 10 years ago on my 35th birthday. Nico was 9 months old and Mikey was 3. I was a stay at home mom. The boys and I kept mostly to ourselves. I felt out-of-place in “mom groups” and didn’t take part much in activities like Gymboree or similar toddler classes. Instead, we did a lot of activities at home. I cooked a lot from scratch and tried, without success, to like crafting. I watched a lot of dinosaur cartoons and documentaries. I read almost nonstop, mostly romance, but also a bit from the book list in The Western Canon. I also read a lot of John Irving. I adored A Prayer for Owen Meany. My weight yo-yo’d throughout.
I used to blog about family life without much fanfare until Nico marked up our living room with a red sharpie. That was my only experience going viral. Some guys invented Twitter and then another guy invented Facebook. I signed up for both. I continued to write about anything and everything until my friend’s parents became suddenly and gravely ill. That experience changed my life. I began The William Morris Project. Decluttering and organizing became the focus of my life until I started volunteering at the boys’ school as the librarian. One day I looked up and realized I had a job. It was getting harder to write regularly and the boys were getting old enough that writing about them didn’t feel as harmless. I felt the eyes of the parents at school and started censoring myself. Blogging was no longer a fun way to express myself creatively. I would stop and then miss it and then start again. I tried writing only about books, and then only about decluttering. I stopped trying to make blogging a thing and decided to write when I felt the urge. That turned into blogging my summer projects.
Mikey is now 14 and starts high school in a couple of days. Nico is 11 and going into 6th grade. I work as a school librarian, a career that just happened. I’m still married to a wonderful, quiet man who avoids the internet. He doesn’t even like to go on Amazon! He travels a lot.
I grew a spine during the last 10 years. I’m less tolerant and forgiving of selfish people with bad intentions. I find it easier to erase people like that from my life. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing. How I spend my time has changed as well. I no longer read romances. They’re all the same, and that drives me batty. Funny, because that familiar predictability is exactly what I loved about the genre 10 years ago. Young Adult books, now that I read them for work, are an absolute chore to read. I wish publishers would realize that teenagers are capable of enjoying well written, complex storytelling. Until then, I guess I’ll keep reading this book about a teenage girl who sets off to save the world from mean adults with a guy she can’t stand but is kinda cute and maybe she likes him? I wonder how it will end.
I was Catholic by culture, not really knowing more than the bare minimum about my faith, but now I am Catholic by study. Reading and studying Catholicism has given me a surprisingly fulfilling intellectual challenge. Reading more literature and classics has done the same for me. This is good and happened out of necessity. I felt bored with everything and unable to comment or participate in anything interesting. I love my job and the little ones at school, but that coupled with too much time in some corners of the internet had done a number on my brain cells. I still feel that way. I’m working on it.
I’m not where I was 10 years ago. In some ways I’ve grown, in some ways I haven’t. Time keeps marching on and I’m glad to have documented at least a bit of this journey along the way.
I am always to read your blog, no matter the topic!
Good luck on the start of HS. I also have an incoming freshman, but she is my youngest! Feels like it is crazy talk that she will be a freshman. My oldest though is a sophomore in college and my middle is starting her senior year. Time waits for no (wo)man as they say.
I have found the HS years to be both easier and harder than expected. The student stress level is much higher than I anticipated. The bullying/drama far less. My teenagers have been a pleasure about 85% of the time which is all one can ask for!
*always happy to read your blog*
I’m glad to hear the bullying/drama is less. Middle school is just something else when it comes to all the political jockeying. I am worried about the stress level, actually. I hear from the older kids that it can be a lot, and I don’t doubt it. There is so much a kid needs to do these days to get into a college. When exactly are they supposed to have a life?
I love this for so many reasons. I don’t even remember how I found you (I know it was during the WMP), but I’m so glad I did. Your blogging journey sounds about like mine, with the difference being I was a stay-at-home wife, didn’t fit into any circles whatsoever, and despite blogging for the last 10 years, I went nowhere with it and my consistency went down the tubes over time – and with the addition of a full-time job and then 5 kids. Now I blog occasionally, usually about books, but the audience and view rate is nil. And yet… I keep it. And I hope you keep yours, because I do love reading all of your posts, no matter what they are about. :) Happy Blogging!
My readership is close to zero, too. Every now and then I get the urge to scrap it all, but I can’t do it. There are so many memories here. :)
So happy to have gone on this journey with you. I’m still laughing about Nico and his harmonica.
Hahaha! The entire school heard that damn thing. :)
I love, love when you write. Your sense of humor refreshing. Keeping writing whatever and I’ll read it. You post about cleaning cabinets or even your purse are funny but also motivating. Thank you for taking the time to share.
Thank you, Lezlie!! Your encouragement means a lot to me. :)
I hope you don’t stop blogging any time soon. I found your blog right around the time you started the WMP (probably through a link to the post about your friend’s loss) and have tremendously appreciated your writing style and insights ever since, even as the topics varied according to whatever was at the forefront in your life at the time. Gosh, the summary was like taking a walk down memory lane. : ) If you write it, they (I) will come… Thanks for sharing these moments of your life with us.
P.S. My daughter just finished HS and it felt like only yesterday she was starting. But as wiser, older friends have told me, the parenting doesn’t end. Only the issues change with age.
The parenting never ends! I can see that with my mom and how she treats my brothers and I–and I’m not complaining. It’s nice to know you always have someone in your corner.
It’s amazing you’ve kept your blog throughout all those changes!! I think I started reading during the William Morris stage, although I also went back and read lots of your archives.
I realised recently that ten years ago I was so young, enthusiast, and newly dating my second boyfriend, twelve years older than me and telling me he loved me after only a few weeks. It is so strange to remember that was me. Ten years later and I have been divorced for five years and a mum for nearly eight years, and I’m only starting to feel like maybe one day in the future I will no longer be afraid of that boyfriend-turned-husband-turned-ex. Ten years seems short for all the change it has contained.
You have definitely experienced change and upheaval in that time, but also a tremendous amount of growth, I imagine. It’s amazing to think back on 10 years and how a decade can bring so much change. Even in terms of health! Ten years ago I didn’t have the aches and pains that are just now starting to creep in.
I am glad you write. You have talent. I LOVED A PRAYER FOR OWEN MEANEY. SOrry for all caps. But it sent me down rabbit hole of googling was Owen Jesus Christ? Can’t recall where that ended up In my mind but I loved that book and all the characters. And to be boldly honest, I have thought that as smart as you are, it sounded like your taste in books was pretty lame. I am glad to find out you have jettisoned the crap. Now what else have you loved to read on par with Owen?
I will have you know that I laughed out loud when I read your comment! Also, my friends saw it and sent me screenshots with a million laughing emojis. YOU ARE NOT WRONG! I did have crap taste. Not sure why that is, though I always defended it by saying I didn’t watch TV so… (?????????)
I read The Goldfinch earlier in the month and just this past weekend finished The Vegetarian by Han Kang. That book will stay with me for a very long time. After I finish a book for the library (ugh) I’m going to dust off my copy of Blindness by José Saramago. Finding really good books isn’t easy, but I think I have some good sources now. A lot of what is reviewed out there is pretty fluffy/commercial. What about you? Anything you love as much as Owen?
I LOVED that you laughed out loud and your friends sent you the screenshot. It must have hit a home run! There are so many books I loved in the past that I am tempted to read again. It would be interesting to see how the experience might be different after 20 plus yrs. Lonesome Dove was the only book that ever made me cry. Prince of tides I never wanted to end. And I love everything Pat Conroy wrote. You MUST read his book that is about what he read throughout life and how it shaped him. It is absolutely wonderful. Loved the last book he wrote, it was about his brutal father (the real Santini) and how they came to terms in the end. The Lovely Bones. My wimpy book club of moms can’t read about children dying. I loved that book and the vision of heaven, but not sure I can read it again. Is that because real life has become so awful and I live in the city where the three girls -Amanda Berry, et al—were hostage for over ten years and then finally escaped from that demon Ariel Castro? Maybe so. It’s like the terror is more of s reality now. Another great one is We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Fowler. Terrific. Love Nora Ephron, and you are now old enough to appreciate her last couple of books. Just read Kitchen Confidential in honor of AB. Loved it. Peace Like a River. Loved it 15 yrs ago and will read it again. On my list is learning more about St Paul, and maybe st Ignatius of Loyola since I am surrounded by Jesuits where I live. I need to bone up on the history of my faith. Joan Didion and the Year of Magical Thinking. I think I need to read more of her stuff. I have the Goldfinch and have adored everything Donna Tartt ever wrote so I should start that one. Love all Elizabeth Strout and Ann Patchett. That’s it for now. I could go on. I am not an intellectual or a snob, but I can’t read fluff or crap. It’s like eating a box of lucky charms. YUCK. Glad you have moved on. So much good stuff to read. But, I think Owen is pretty hard to beat. I might go back and read some other Irving but his stuff is not all created equal. Keep writing.
Oh, and Empire Falls. Loved it. Love Russo.
Funny. I was just thinking about you today. How I found you. You were one of the blogs I loved when I decided to stay home. I was lonely. I didn’t know if I wanted to be a stay at home mom. I struggled. I grew up thinking/hearing smart women work. Smart women do NOT put their career on hold to stay home and be mom. Knowing that there was this so so so smart woman (smarter than me by far) who gave up a career to be a mom and make a home made me feel less alone.
I hope you have a wonderful school year with your boys and your kids at school.
Thank you, Kate! I hope you have a great year as well. :)
I don’t comment often, but I can’t tell you how much I’ve enjoyed reading about your journey for the last eight years. (The mushroom brush is still my favorite story, by the way.) I am so grateful that you continue to share bits of your life with us. Thank you.
The mushroom brush!! I haven’t thought of that post in years. That was when my husband was out of a job (lay off) and had a big interview lined up.
oh my! I’ve been reading you for about that long then?! I started in law school, probably when I got a free couch off craigs list in Philly and came across the sharpie post (in trying to figure out if I could launder the covers to the free couch) and continued throughout the years! I’m 35 now, but no adorable little boys :)
I haven’t stopped by in ages. Some stages of life are just inherently busy and limit time to spend perusing the internet. Parenting a high schooler is a whole new chapter with its highs and lows. Overall I loved it though and I bet you will too. Best wishes on that adventure!
I think I found you on YHL’s blogroll a hundred (maybe ten) years ago. We have absolutely nothing in common, but because of the power of your authorial voice, I hang on your every word here. It’s heartbreaking that the funniest, wisest women writers worry that they have nothing to say that anybody wants to hear. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Also, “I wonder how it will end” filled me with unexpected delight, and I laughed without thinking and am now covered in little bits of macaroni and cheese, so that’s on you. (Well, technically it’s on me, but you know what I mean.)
I first heard about you when Apartment Therapy featured your sharpie post. Then when you started your WMP I came across you again and this time chose to follow. I’ve loved reading whatever you’ve had to say ever since! I love your voice, and the topics you cover are from a perspective unique from the rest of the blogosphere. I’ll keep following.
A book I’m in the middle of reading that you may enjoy is “Fat and Faithful: Learning to Love Our Bodies, Our Neighbors, and Ourselves” by J. Nicole Morgan. It’s written by a Protestant Christian, but I don’t think what she talks about clashes with the Catholic faith. It’s about learning to love people the way God loves them/us, vs as society pressures us to. Her biggest point is that you don’t need to be thin or beautiful for God to love you or to use you in ministry, because you are worthy of love. And you already reflect the image of God, just the way you are. I think her tag line is “you are enough, and you are not too much.” I remember you writing about struggling with your appearance and I could so relate. So when reading this book, you came to mind.
I’m glad you’re still writing, and that you’re still honest. It’s incredibly refreshing to see real life in your pictures and to hear real thoughts about your life. I’ve learned so much from you.
Ohhhh I had forgotten that sharpie incident, but that’s totally what drew me in. Funny!
I LOVED reading the WMP when we were in tight quarters (one bedroom apartment, with a baby) and I was a fanatic about simplifying and getting rid of anything I possibly could. It felt like a controllable aspect of being at home with one (then two, then three, then four) kids. They may be running amuck like feral children, but dammit this cabinet looks nice!
I understand the change in blogging. I still craft blog posts in my head. Or have an idea that I think is good, and think about blogging it. But then I talk myself out of it- everything’s been written about, who really wants to read about how I simplified our AirBnB process, or streamlined our laundry process? So I don’t write much anymore. It’s kind of a shame, because I truly enjoy (and hate, but mostly enjoy) it when I do it.
Anyway- I am glad you are blogging. Still blogging. Happy 10 years.
You’re in my feedly reader and I was thrilled to see a post from you! I really enjoy your writing and what you’ve had to share. I loved your WMP! I incorporated so much of it into my own life and thinking and quote WM all the time (still).
Writing blogs changed for me once sharing photos on Facebook became so easy. Suddenly, I didn’t have this need to document big bits when all the little bits that made up the big bits had already been shared. Suddenly, blog posts felt forced…manufactured. I still read, but writing remains hard. This became infinitely more so when I had twins in 2015 and a third hot on their heels in 2017.
If you write it, I’ll read it. I love that you’re librarian and ex-attorney. Have you read Shadow of the Wind? I loved it. Might reaffirm YA for you. x
I can’t believe Mikey’s starting high school! I have loved checking in on you from time to time, you seem to capture a lot of what is going on in my own mind that I am not able to get out on paper or screen. Funny how much we can grow and change in just 10 years. Good luck to you and your family this school year!
I feel like I am pretty much living in a parallel universe as yours but in Alabama. I’ve read your blog for the whole 10 years. Keep up the good work!
I thought this recap of the last decade was ending in a goodbye – Whew!! Glad to see it didn’t. I started following around the WMP and have always loved your wit and honesty. For what it’s worth, your voice has value; I hope you stick around this space. Also, HOW is Mikey in HS? Geez, I’m old.
Hi. I too have enjoyed what you have documented, regardless of topic. I’ve been reading, not since the beginning but long enough to forget how I found you but I was drawn in from that first read. Thank you!
I found you through the William Morris project years and years ago. I felt a kindred spirit with you in many ways- left a career to be a stay at home mom, cradle Catholic, a yearning for simplification, weight struggler (mostly failure), voracious reader, former South Bay dweller.
If you loved A Prayer, have you read Peace Like a River? One of my favs as well.
Please keep writing. I read every word!
I’m a long time reader but I haven’t been keeping up with my blog reading like I used to. I dove back into your blog tonight and I must say that you are such an incredible writer. Honestly, you should consider writing a book. Not fiction per se, but general musings and storytelling. I’m being completely serious. With all the garbage on the web today (I include a lot of blogs in that category) it is so nice to hear from someone who is so refreshingly honest…..and funny. Plus you have inspired me to start cleaning out my cupboards…..which is SO overdue. Thank you on all counts. :)
So I’m checking on my favorite bloggers who haven’t posted in a while to remind them of their loyal readers. I wholeheartedly agree with the post from Amy but I would like to add: I would rather read a few meaningful posts a year than recycled posts alot of bloggers do now. That said, I hope to hear from you soon and wish you and yours a very Merry Christmas!
Cheers!
Angela