I was there, and now I'm here--a CWBN Mid-Atlantic Conference recap

Julie just posted her CWBN Mid-Atlantic recap, so I am finally going to hit publish on this. :)

Photo by Rosie Hill

I've been blogging for ten years.

That's a little embarrassing. I think I've covered my tracks well enough that you won't find the super-old stuff. (Please ... don't try. ;) )

When I started this particular blog, I wasn't quite clued in to the whole blog scene. I was burnt out from grad school, from self-conscious writing for workshops, and wanted a place where I could use my writing to express delight in things.

But I always write for an audience. I've never successfully kept a private journal. I want my words to be read. And as I followed more bloggers, gained followers I'd never met in "real life," and absorbed the blogging culture, I thought: what am I aiming for exactly? Am I just writing for friends, people who are already interested in me for my own sake? Or am I trying to gain an audience of some sort? Do I want to be a "real" blogger, and if I'm not, does it even matter if I only post once a month or less?

When Julie emailed to invite me to the CWBN Mid-Atlantic Conference, it was so validating. I may not have a header on my blog, or an "About Me" page, or even any photos in half my posts. But Julie had remembered my blog! And even where I lived! That meant something, right?

So I signed up and decided this would be my line in the sand. After this I would write again ... and be a "real" blogger.



God blessed me so much through that day, and I feel like I could type on for pages--about Julie and her wonderful hospitality, and how great it was just to sit and chat with her at her kitchen table in her beautiful home; about finally meeting fellow twin-moms Rosie and Abbey in person; about meeting and talking to so many wonderful women; about Leah and Cristina's great presentations, and Meg's talk on prayer that brought tears to my eyes. If I tried to go more in depth about these things, I would never finish this post.



But during lunch we sat in our assigned small groups, and mine was perfect. Abbey and Marie Bernadette have written about it. We were all in the same place--wondering if blogging was something that really belonged in our lives right now, and what it meant for us aside from "branding" and all that stuff that seemed to be for bigger bloggers. Having that conversation openly with others was such an encouraging experience, and I came away from it feeling very refreshed.



I admit I felt a bit sad leaving. There was talk of getting together again during the summer, which is something I couldn't do without it being a genuine road trip; and going back to "just blogging" together was a bit rough.

But ultimately, two words sum up my experience of the conference: refreshment and affirmation. The immediate community I experienced there was a reminder--this is why I blog. I have my communities here in Pittsburgh, which are vital to me. But connections made online are very real for me, too. This blog is a place where genuine companionship, even intimacy, can exist. And I want to be here.

So for me, right now, blogging doesn't look like "branding" myself. But it does look like making this page a more welcoming space (an "About Me" page and updated profile pic?), and engaging more often and more promptly with the comments you all are so generous with, and hopefully posting more often--inviting people in, asking them to stay awhile, to share a part of my life over tea and knitting, conversing about the wonder and beauty and struggle that is a part of our lives.

So thanks for being here. :)

Yarn Along

I took a break from blogging.

I signed up for the CWBN's Mid-Atlantic Conference, which was last Saturday, and gave myself until then. Until then to just let it go, not try to write or even think about writing. (I am always thinking about writing.) Partly because a break just seemed to make sense in light of the last post. And partly because I'd been struggling a bit about writing here.

The conference was wonderful! I feel refreshed and a bit more purposeful about blogging; I've been reminded why I do it, which was something I really needed. I have a half-completed post about it in my drafts folder as I type this. (Which may mean nothing. Sometimes the draft folder might as well be the garbage bin. ;) But I have determination!! And exclamation points!!!)

In the meantime, I am, of course, knitting and reading.

The blanket is for a baby (not mine!), gender unknown. The book is Dorothy Sayer's Gaudy Night, picked up because Haley and and Christy talked about it on Fountains of Carrots, and the other books they've read together have all been ones I love. I am probably committing some sort of book crime, because I haven't read the other books in the series first; I can tell I am missing out on the depth of Harriet Vane and Lord Peter Wimsey's relationship, but it hasn't really given me much trouble. I am enjoying it quite a bit.

Linking up with Ginny as usual.

Seven Quick Takes (8)

1. I am pleased to announce that I am now the wife of a full-fledged PhD! I am so, so proud of my husband. His defense talk was amazing, and he has worked so hard at this for the past five years--as long as I've known him--and he is so deserving of having that work recognized and praised.

2. Like the bunting I made? Complete with letters that were traced using alphabet magnets from our fridge? ;) I know, I know, I should have taken pictures for a tutorial, including how I couldn't find the T or the E anywhere and had to get creative and flip the L around different directions to make those letters. Hehe. But I like how it turned out. I know it is not centered over the doorway and it drives me a little bonkers, so sorry if it bothers you too! We have SO MUCH cake in the house right now. I baked one (now eaten), and Keith's adviser bought two (one of which is in our freezer). There was a lot of champagne, too ... but that disappeared rather more quickly.

3. Knitting has been slow this week. The first sweater is all but finished--the second sleeve needs to be sewn on (and I might redo the first as I'm not too happy with it), and then it needs buttons, and then it will be done! I have also started a blanket because I spotted some Malabrigo in Azul Profundo, which is one of the most beautiful shades of blue I have ever seen, and there was simply no way not to buy it. It's been growing about two rows a day, a very slow pace for me, but I'm guessing this week I will move a bit faster.

4. Now that Keith has graduated, he no longer has to work the equivalent of two jobs!! We are really looking forward to settling in to the new normal around here ... at least until the twins arrive in a few short months. Of course, we also have to move in the next month and a half or so, which entails buying a house ... but we're hoping that will all be set in motion by the end of next week. Basically it's a huge time of change and readjustment for us. But these are all good things.

5. So, after ten posts in ten days (!!!) I haven't posted in a whole week. Understandable, what with PhD graduations and out of town company and whatnot, but. Posting each and every day is a bit much, but it felt good to blog regularly, and I'm hoping it's a habit I can keep up until the twins arrive. I've also been thinking (with Christine's encouragement) about posting a series about living on a single income as a family. This fascinates me especially as we prepare to move out of the city, because the strategies for living on one salary look so different when you live in the country vs the city vs the suburbs--and even from city to city. I have a lot of friends who own just one car and are able to take advantage of public transportation and/or walk where they need to go. But that isn't going to be an option for us in a few months. (We already own two cars, and are incredibly blessed because we got both of them for free, although they have both cost us money to maintain as they age. Keith's car is older than we are!) So it is something I would like to explore here at some point.

6. As I type this, I am watching the garbage men drive down our alley and pick up all the trash. Today they are not yelling at each other in angry voices. (Maybe they aren't angry. Maybe they're just yelling to be heard above the truck. But most weeks they sound pretty mad.) I really love trash day. Seriously. I love the feeling of purging our home of things that don't need to be there and then these wonderful men come and take them away forever. :-P (Plus, when you think about it, isn't it a blessing that we have people that dispose of our garbage for us? I mean, what would WE do with dirty diapers on our own? Maybe if we were responsible for disposing of our own trash we would make less of it ...) I'm looking forward to moving for the same reason--evaluating the clothes and books and other things that tend to accumulate on our shelves and in our closets and pruning our household of clutter. I already have a small Goodwill pile growing.

7. I am still feeling okay with this pregnancy, although I wake up in the morning and feel like I've been doing crunches all night because my stomach muscles are so tired. I think I need to invest in a maternity belt pretty quickly. Michael has taken to patting my belly at random intervals and saying "beebee," but I'm not sure if he is trying to say belly or affirming that yes, we have told him a hundred times that Mama has two babies in her belly. He also thinks that whenever I open my computer it is for the sole purpose of showing him pictures of beebees. I guess that's a good thing, right?

Head over to Jen's blog to see more Quick Takes!

why she writes

I was very recently introduced to the author Alice Thomas Ellis by a friend--so recently, in fact, that I haven't yet had the chance to read any of her fiction. But I've borrowed a book of weekly columns that she wrote under the title "Home Life."

So far they are very delightful, written very loosely in a spirit of play, dancing along a train of thought without worrying about wrapping all the ends up. My favorite, so far, is one called "Power of Speech." The opening paragraph:

I have a work by Mrs Beeton which she wrote for the 'smaller establishment': that is, a household with only a cook, a couple of maids and a boy to carry the coal. She says firmly, 'On entering the kitchen invariably say "Good morning Cook."' OK, you ponder, but what if Cook is out on the area steps dallying briefly with the muffin man? What if your household is so small you don't have a cook? Still, many housewives talk to themselves. I often say things aloud when I spill the milk or trip over the cat and there's no one here to listen. I plod round M&S muttering "prawns, butter, underpants" because otherwise I would forget what I'm doing there, and so do a lot of other ladies. One has to keep talking or one loses the knack. When the children were very small I spent weeks alone with them high up in the Welsh hills and I used to lose the power of speech. I would return to London bereft of all vocabulary, communicating in grunts and diddums talk. You feel a fool asking, for instance, Professor Sir Alfred Ayer if he would care for an icky bitty more soup in his ickle bowl.

 I totally wander around the grocery store muttering my shopping list under my breath, and I always say things when I'm the only one at home to hear them.

Writing of this sort is one of the many kinds that makes me want to blog. She takes the stuff of everyday living and turns it into something enjoyable, sheds a new light on it. And I love her for not having some great and profound point at the end of her columns--it's about the sheer and slightly wacky delight of life. One of the reasons I don't post more often than I do--aside from, you know, being kind of lazy--is that I have a high standard for what I want my posts to do. They must be entertaining or thought-provoking or beautiful to the extent that whoever reads them is impressed, or at least somewhat interested. I think about writing far too much; I write far too little.

Which is a problem for me beyond just blogging. Oh well.

But that joy, that enjoyment that sparkles in her words. She is having fun. That is why she writes.

Blogs You Should Read: "Philokalia" and "No More Than Pen and Ink"

I need to add links to the sidebar at some point; but in any case, one of the things I'd like to do here is share awesome things online. Maybe a little bit like tumbl'r, only perhaps more thoughtfully. (I refuse to get a tumbl'r account because it would kill my time, oh yes it would. But I do understand the appeal.)

Philokalia.

This blog is run by Fr. David Abernathy of the Pittsburgh Oratory. He will be leading a study of this book, starting in September, which I'm looking forward to attending, classes permitting. It consists of his own reflections on the Philokalia, a collection of texts by the Eastern Fathers. "Philokalia" means "love of the beautiful," and thus, "a love for everything of God, beauty’s source."

I've only read a few posts on here, but they are amazing. For example, the latest is about the Eternal Beauty that Saves the World.

And also, Father David is a wonderful priest. So you should read his blog. :)



No More Than Pen and Ink

Here Marlin Klingensmith shares his work and, more recently, posts reflections on writing. His stories are always a smart and enjoyable read--the worlds he creates of words are tangible enough to taste the air of them.

Actually, I've always loved reading most anything Lyn writes. His voice draws you in and keeps you reading, whether fiction or regular prose. So you should read it. (And comment. He posts more when people comment.)

Holy Shamoly ...

I got 59 hits over here today! Which is ... not a lot in the scheme of things, but you know, it's the most my little blog's ever gotten in one day. My readership is small but dependable, and then there's Twitter and the magic of tags. So--wootness. :)

As for this even littler blog, it is still going through a process of self-discovery. I have been reading too many design blogs lately, and so sometimes it asks to be that. That's when I remind it that I know nothing about design, am not remotely artistic or crafty--at least not in a successful way--and can't live up to its dreams.

...

That being said, I have measured Keith's couch for a slipcover. It currently lives in my apartment, and it is a very masculine shade of charcoal grey. Needless to say it will be getting in touch with its feminine side in the not-too-distant future.

I have also started my toilet paper wall art venture--so there will be a post on that soon.

I get so carried away with plans of redecorating that I forget I have a new roommate moving in less than two weeks from now, and she may, in fact, have something to say about how the apartment looks.