Perusing blogs and other pertinent talk

I have a lot to say tonight. If you read, I am grateful, if you don't, that's your prerogative and I don't mind. When I originally started blogging (back in November of 2007), and I can't remember how I started - just that I did because I wanted to write. The whole purpose of it was to hone my writing skills. Initially, I wanted to remain kind of anonymous. My first post is raw & not all that pretty. It's maybe most indicative of who I was at the time & who I, kinda, still am. I'm more guarded, now, I've censored myself a bit. Social Media guarded and censored. I name my children, now, & didn't do that in the beginning. They were the numbers that signified their ages at the time. Hard to believe 3 is 7, 6 is 10 and 13 is almost 17. Time flies.

I like going back & reading because it helps me remember who I am. Sometimes I need reminding because I lose myself in pleasing others. I lose myself in trying to be correct. I see other bloggers writing & some of it is raw - those are my favorite blogs to read. Some of it feels flaky, or too unreal. Not made up, but life experiences expounded upon (this is what I do and sometimes I think I'm boring & talk too much) extensively. & maybe that isn't what it is at all. Maybe those bloggers just have a harder time expressing, in this blogging forum, exactly what they are feeling. This is simply my perspective.

We all have our own perspective. I may see things one way & you another. That's OKAY! It doesn't make me wrong & you right, or me right & you wrong. It just is, simply, the way we view it.

I've met several people here in the blogging community. I used to have some blogging places that I could always go to for some charm, some laughter, some tears, more laughs w/honesty & fun or just to be smacked back into reality. When I stopped blogging for more than a year, I lost most of those friends & have come back to find that many of them are gone & some are still here. Since I haven't blogged in forever, those who were keeping up with me, don't know I'm back (or don't care...;) ). Yeah, I think I'm back for good, but me being the inconsistent terd that I am, I may drop out from time to time. Never again for longer than a year, but once in a while - I can't promise I won't.

Oh yeah, some of those bloggers moved over to Wordpress. What's the deal with that?

The first blog I started reading regularly was Candid Carrie's. I don't think she's blogging any longer, but she was a great read! She had me laughing often and she started this meme (before it was called a meme) called Friday's Foto Finish Fiesta. We all shared a photo that we took during the week (or from another occasion). That was how and when I realized bloggers were a community.

As I'm going to visit different blogs, I see SITS everywhere. Bloggy Boot camp, wow. How far it has all come. I remember reading Tiffany's blog before SITS was born, Heather's, too. Heather isn't doing it any longer, not sure why. I remember stumbling across the early workings of the new SITS blog. It was empty, still an idea trying to work itself into action. Then it became something pretty big, right out of the gate. & back then, I felt it was almost clique like. If you were a blogger & you wanted to be read, you participated. So I did. Not long because it felt like I was trying to get approval, not so much that I was trying to get support. High school was not fun for me partly because of the cliques and this felt like that. "Hey, like me, comment on my posts, tell me I'm great..." and that feels so hypocritical of me because I LOVE getting comments. It just seemed I wasn't getting...enough. I wasn't popular enough. Maybe I just suck at writing & I'm too long winded. I can't say I really know why I felt this way, I just know I did.

Then MamaKat started the writer's workshop and I LOVED that! I have gone back to it because it makes me write about things I don't always find easy to write about. It's good practice. I think I had better skills back then & they are kind of dehydrated right now, but I enjoy it. Slowly the water is seeping into the keyboard & filling the fingers with it's dew.

I found Friday Fragments at Mrs. 4s. I have yet to participate, but I know I will. Many of my ramblings are fragmented. Just like it all goes on in my head. I started to post one this past Friday, but I had plans to go to a benefit. The fragments turned more into a tribute to someone I didn't even really know. I will share that in this post, later. The benefit was for Samantha Uphold.

I am devoted, again, to my blog. I am devoted to being a Tupperware Consultant (party on the 30th - hopefully, extending a network). I want to be devoted to making my jewelry cause I have some ideas that I need to get out of my head. Those things are about me, for me. I am always and have always been devoted to family. It was just balancing family with everything else.

Here's what came from Friday -

Our school lost a brilliant teacher this week. She began her career at our school when my 16 year old was in 5th grade, then her name was Ms. Vanamin. He had her for a few lessons in the school year throughout the year. She was just beginning & the 5th graders were prepping for middle school, so they switched back & forth for a few classes. She was barely 30, this year. She was an amazing photographer, especially when it came to children.

She developed Hodgkins Lymphoma sometime last year. The school did a fundraiser during the year & called it "Links of Love". I was there when she came through to see it, volunteering for my daughter's classroom (they had a big assembly to present everything, but I didn't attend it). It took everything I had not to cry walking through the halls, watching her view it all. The links were strewn throughout the elementary building hallways. The kids (in this very small school) raised over $2400. I couldn't talk to her, I could barely look at her because I just felt so bad for her. I would have blubbered, had I spoken to her. I can be that emotional.

I am not a beacon of the community, so I am not very privy to all the info. I heard that she was put into a medical induced coma around 5 weeks ago, I wasn't sure why & I'm still not sure why. I do know from reading her blog (that is her first post, click home to read her last), that a year to the date of her diagnosis, she was in remission. She was awaiting a stem cell transplant. She passed while in the coma. She has a fundraiser tonight at a local coffee house. That's what my girls & I are doing this evening. Rest in Peace, Samantha Uphold. I know your students loved you. You will be greatly missed. You are an amazing person with a wonderful soul that will live on forever.


* Carrie is still around! Yay!!!