Reflections

When you look into a mirror or standing water you see a reflection, not reality as it actually is, but one that is flipped. Often times reflections allow us to see things in a different way or notice things we did not by looking straight on. So here I am going to attempt to flip my reality of the last 2 weeks on its head.

Starting school again is always hard. Christmas vacation was very challenging this year. We lost 2 dear family members, one expected due to cancer and the other my dearest Grandma, very unexpected. And what hurt was not so much her loss, because of my faith, I know that she is still with us and that I will see her again, but because I could not be there for her transition. I was in Florida on a long-awaited vacation. Vacation was fun, and still hard in some ways. Losing Grandma in the middle of it put additional pressure on the family and organizational challenges a trip of that size demands, but then my baby (toddler) sprained his ankle and had to be carried everywhere and required a fair amount of doctor visits. So I was nowhere as prepared for school as I would have liked, but it came roaring down upon me, and my baby who just started walking again the night before school started got used to having Mom always hold him, and wasn't happy about her going away routinely at all. (I am beginning to suspect grammar is one of the early things that get distorted in a reflection.)

So when I enter the class, I was relieved that most of this stuff is old hat, to a blogger of 14 years. Yup, this blog has been running since 2004. When I started the blog it was to connect with my extended family and share with grandmas lots of baby pics. The blog ended up connected with an online internet business I ran for the next 5 years and then Facebook came on the scene and stole the blogging steam. In some ways that freed my blog from the self-editing of having readers I knew and loved, and in many ways it just plain ignored it.

It is fascinating to blog again, to bring about snippets of life that deserve more permanent time than Facebook would give them, and to also share knowledge gained in the process. In this blog resurrection, I have updated both the look and functionality of my blog, adding widgets and blog roles (at the bottom of the page). I finally gave up pink as my background color,  as I no longer hope for little girls, but am a proud and exasperated mom of one pre-teen girl and one sweeter, smaller one.

I am enjoying using the RSS feed on Feedly. It has proven a most effective way to keep on top of class bogs and assignments, however, the news feeds are overwhelming.  I am much less enthralled with Twitter. The best thing about Twitter is the NASA feed I connected with. I guess I enjoy some permanence, some continuance as if I could save the perfect day (or minutes) on my blog and come back it when I need a lift. Wait, I do that. I lose myself in my blogs past to rediscover myself in the now. That alone is the most valuable reason to blog.
To see all the blogs for class, click on my tag #en3177