The Beginning….

To Begin: 

First off, this is a long time coming.  No one knows me as a writer other than the occasional email or Facebook comment.

How exactly then, did I get here?  Well, my high school English teacher would tell you that he wouldn’t have put money on writing as a career path.  In college, I believed that I wrote some Pulitzer-worthy papers at 3 AM on their due date, but my cumulative GPA would say otherwise.  After college, I don’t think I wrote more than a grocery list or an occasional sappy anniversary card for John.

But, in that time I started reading blogs.

I’m not sure how I discovered my first “mom blog”, but I would find one that I liked and then spend hours upon hours reading in reverse.  I’d go back through their archives and hang on every word they wrote.  Some of those blogs have gone by the wayside, and others I still read every single morning.  I look forward to new content like a kid looks forward to Christmas.  Even then though, I didn’t think too much about writing one of my own. I was busy in the trenches of new motherhood and could barely manage to shower most days.  But, one frigidly cold December night, on a whim I decided to write a Christmas letter to accompany the collection of pictures of the kids.  Malory had just been born and so we had big family news and pictures to share.  So, I jotted down a few witty lines about each person in the household, printed it on some colorful paper and threw it in the mail to a smallish number of friends and family.  Over the next few days, some of those people called, text or sent a Facebook message saying how much they liked it.  A few would say “you should be a writer.”  I was flattered, and would always say “someday maybe” but shelved that idea until the following Christmas season, when I wrote another letter.  That year, I half-jokingly said that maybe I’d start writing a blog.  Talk about throwing down the gauntlet for yourself….BUT being a woman of my word, it was added to my to-do list. But, I had no idea how to actually do it.  A quick Google search and I was in business….The Harris Family Blog was born (www.theharrisfamilyblog.com).

And I LOVED it.  I loved that it allowed me to be creative and sometimes funny and nostalgic about the happenings of my young family.  It also allowed me to ease my guilt about those unfinished photo albums.  This was my family’s scrapbook.  I shared it with a total of about 3 people, because putting it out there was scary.

I continued writing a monthly post about our whereabouts and activities.  When I say monthly, that’s a gross misrepresentation.  Life often got in the way, and I would find myself writing about June topics in October, Christmas recap over spring break in March.  Sometimes, I am up to six months behind and it seems like it would be easier to just make one blanket post and call it “caught up.”  But, those months didn’t just happen in a heap, so I think they deserve their own space on the blog.  Some important stuff happened to my people and it deserves its place in the family timeline.  If not for them, for me.

Over time, I had more things to say than just family blog stuff.  Adding a political rant or rated-R story to my family scrapbook just didn’t seem right.  So, I started collecting stories and ideas….in my phone, on various sticky notes, even on a vodka-soaked cocktail napkin or two.  In my mind, I would someday turn this collection into a book.  It was a goal that was safely *out there* in the future…something I would do when the kids were all in school full-day and I had time on my hands (all the mamas are laughing).  But, middle age has a way of scaring the shit out of you.  Time marches on, goals that you have for yourself become urgent, collecting memories a priority.  So, I decided I needed to move that idea to the front burner, and instead of writing the book, put that collection of stories on a blog.  I may still turn the content into a book someday, but a more frequent writing platform was in order.  You just never know what life has in store for you and I don’t want to live with the regret of never getting off the bench and giving it a go.

I don’t know what I’ll write about.  Some days it will be funny stories about my marriage or motherhood, in a way that is more than just a recap of our life on The Harris Family Blog (see sidebar).  Other days, I may put my opinions on some controversial topics out there….things that are currently in the news or in pop culture.  I may get political, because in this household our politics and our football are polarizing topics.  And, that’s ok.  I’ll also share some of my hobbies in the form of cooking or recipe sharing or book reviews.  Maybe a little fashion or home decor stuff if the mood strikes.  I don’t know if anyone cares about that stuff, but it’s the kind of thing I enjoy reading on my favorite blogs.  And, if someone makes a delicious dinner for their family or hears some mom advice from a seasoned veteran, well then I have succeeded.  After all, my love language is food and my career is raising my kids.  I feed people instead of hugging them.  I am certain that the content will evolve over time just like my life, but I’ve got to get started with something, so this is it.

I also can’t say how often I’ll post.  My initial goal is a couple of times a week, and that will either prove to be a piece of cake or completely ludicrous.  My primary job is mom, and I take that pretty seriously.  It also keeps me extraordinarily busy.  This is just my “side hustle.”  My hope is that it gives me an outlet for all of the words rustling around in my brain, and that someone besides my dad likes to read it:-)