alright, i've done it. i created a blog. except for one failed attempt at a group blog among some of the church ladies (we were all inspired after a beth moore conference and decided we were going to memorize two verses a month...), i have no experience blogging. i read them all the time. a lot more than i ever meant to (thank you very much, caroline privette, beloved sister in law of mine). ever since she introduced me to Sarah Bessey formerly of Emerging Mummy, now just of Sarah Bessey I think, I've fallen down one vole hole after another (we have a vole infestation problem at our house) in the christian blogosphere and wasted countless hours in deep thought. but today was the nail in the coffin for keeping my ideas to myself. i stumbled on ann voskamp. my first reaction was "aahhh...this is lovely", but then i noticed a typo. a glaring typo that could not possibly have been poetic license. and then, i noticed how incredibly annoying her weird phrasing was. and i've got an english degree and am a voracious reader, so i have encountered unusual prose styles before, but this was just too much. pretentious. confusing. utter nonsense, really. i was flummoxed. what do i think of this strange thing? the pictures are beautiful, but really. do we need four pictures of the same combine? i'm from a place called lake swamp. i've seen a tractor. so i emailed the aforementioned sister in law my feelings on voskamp:

Have we talked about Ann Voskamp before? Do you know this strange person? www.aholyexperience.com Maybe you've mentioned her? Whatever, um...I'm not sure
how I feel about her. I think I'm going to buy her book for myself for my
birthday. Here's how I feel when I open her blog (with the volume up on my
speakers).
>
>  - I feel like a bull in a china shop.
>
>  - I feel a little jealous and think rather aggressively, as if someone's
accusing me of being the opposite, "I can be gentle and kind and meek, too. I'm
this kind of person, too!  Don't you see?!?!  I AM SWEET AND LOVING AND HAVE
DEEP THOUGHTS!!!!!!" 
>
>  - I feel annoyed because she has a lot of glaring, dumb typos.
>
>  - I feel perfectly at home and like this is someone who would not look
strangely at me if i were to show up for dinner at her house wearing a cape,
funky shoes, black nail polish, several strands of handstrung beads, and bearing
a loaf of banana bread.
>
>  - I feel peaceful.
>
>  - I feel like I'm walking through a quiet, kitchy tourist boutique in the
mountains; one in Maggie Valley rather than Cherokee.
>
>  - I feel inspired.
>
>  - I feel like it can't possibly be this simple.
>
>  - I feel like she's naive.
>
>  - I feel like she's brilliant.
>
>  - I feel like she knows something I don't know.
> 
> - I feel like an awkward teenager at an adult function. I'm wearing a dress
that doesn't fit properly because at 14, I'm too big for the "little girl"
department but my mom won't let me shop in the Juniors department because it's
all trashy, so I have to settle for Misses, where all the clothes are cut for
women with breasts and butts and hips, and I have none of the above. 
>
>  - I feel annoyed again.
>
>  - I feel inspired again.
>
> How do you feel? 

the bigger problem, though, was that i had not discovered all of these shortcomings until after i'd already told a few people i was planning to buy her book, one thousand gifts or something like that, for myself for my birthday next week. now. what can these people possibly be thinking of my judgment?!?!  they probably think i'm a total sap. oh, well. anyway, i moved on quickly because i had a shit load of stuff to do in the house, and the autoplay music on her site happened to be someone i actually like (can't remember his name. check out her blog if you dare.), so i cranked up the laptop speakers and went to work cooking and folding clothes and straightening things up, but ultimately not being nearly as productive as i am leading you to believe here. i get the girl wonder to bed after some strange arguments over whether it's a good idea for her to try to balance on the back of one of her chairs a la an eastern european acrobatics troupe and huddle into my recliner with my trusty blanket and my baby computer (is it called a netbook? is that the technical term? i don't know these things.) to search for recipes for tortilla casserole because i'm meal planning. i have a 45 minute each way commute, i'm a mother and i'm a wife. i meal plan.

holy cow, this thing has gone on for a while. whew. land the plane, there, lew. land the plane.

ok, ok, anyway, i went from recipe searching to more mommy/christian thinker/whatever they're categorized as blogs, and after one too many quiver fulls, fundies, and others of that ilk, i found one with this tagline (or whatever you call it):  "a place where joy, stillness, sorrow and bliss flow seamlessly." and that's when it really hit me. they're all full of shit. "joy, stillness, sorrow and bliss flow seamlessly".  no they don't. it's a long, rocky row we're all trying to hoe here. i'm so done with all this fluffy, lovie dovie, everything's roses stuff. no. it's not. it's hard, man. so i am doing the world (or at myself at the very least) a service:  i'll write my own blog. it will be kind of the bizarro ann voskamp blog in that it will lack artistic pictures, flowery language, an actual following. so, here it is. the language will become more coarse as hour approaches midnight (i turn into a pumpkin at 12:01am). i'll try to make the grammar and punctuation unoffensive at the very least. can't say the same of the opinions expressed.

(for someone who signed up for twitter two months ago but still hasn't sent out the first tweet because she can't think of anything to say, i didn't have any trouble conjuring up an inaugural post. sorry.)