So it begins....

I have threatened to start a blog many times. My kids say or do something hysterical, and I think "I should be writing this stuff down!", or maybe I just want to vent or think, and the quiet in my head is not near as satisfactory as the clicking of the keyboard.

But mostly, I feel the urge when I look at my life, and think, "WOW...how did I get here?". "Here" is not normally a bad place...actually, it can often be the most wonderful, glorious place I have ever been, but it is normally somewhere that I never would have dreamed that I would ever be. 

Once upon a time I pictured myself as an adult, with tattoos and body piercing, owning some sort of questionable pet like a pit bull or an anaconda, working a deliciously questionable job, like my owning my own tattoo parlor or something exciting, like an undercover cop, working both sides of the law, just like you would see on A&E. Then I married my first husband and sobered up. Oh, if only I had done the latter first! Then my first child came, the inevitable divorce, and then a decade of self discovery and, hopefully, improvement.

So back to the blog. I almost started on a couple years ago when I realize how funny and clever my children were..I don't ever want to forget! Then a second urge came when I started my own Arbonne business...I wanted to be able to store product reviews and maybe help others in their own business endeavors. But the final straw came when I bought the minivan.

Yes, the minivan. I actually received condolences from some of my friends. It was my grand admission to parenthood, adulthood, and responsibility...and one item I swore I would never own, right next to Mom Jeans and those little stickers people have in their car windows denoting their kids, which I have always wondered might be serial killer fodder...I mean, if there's some nut ball running around who likes to kill families of 5, why should I advertise?

But I digress. I now own my first minivan. And something happened. I didn't suddenly gain 15 pounds and start asking my children if they were wearing clean underwear. I did, however, pop in Violent Femmes, and transported all three children, a husband, and several dishes to my mother's house for Easter dinner. And the eldest didn't even have to climb over the top of the middle child to get to the back row and my husband didn't have to hold the cake in the passenger seat. That's when it truly, for the first time in my life, occurred to me that maybe, just maybe I could have it all. I could still be me and be wife and mom without compromise or having to give up pieces of myself. Maybe compromise didn't mean loss, but a mutualistic symbiosis. And I suddenly felt like a minivan crusader, the Masked Mom, who could Be and Do it all.

So I sit at the keyboard, thinking about all the things I could do with a blog. I can express myself, laugh at myself (and my kids, of course), and vent, as well as store business and product information and, hopefully, inspiration. Because, really, it all works together, my life has become full through all of it, not just a part. And I really loved the background design, that blurry vision as it all rushes past going, going, going....somewhere. But where? So it begins. Let's see where it goes.

"A suburban mother's role is to deliver children obstetrically once, and by car forever after. "
~Peter De Vries