This thing called love...

And no, it isn't what you're thinking.

I'm not talking about "romantic" kissy kissy love...
But rather the love of all things blog related.

Blogging, reading blogs, becoming invested in the lives of people whom I have never met (yet)... googling photos and coming up with blogs I never would have come across if I hadn't first searched for "wildflowers in Uzbecistan", or "grandmas mayo and chili cake".
And getting totally sucked in.

But alas, my love affair has been suffering lately.
Seriously.

Not that it's ever far from my mind, mind you.

See, I can weed and garden til the cows come home, and think up some fantastic blog material.
I can scrub counter tops to rid it of ant footprints and scrape blackened breadcrumbs from the toaster... and whilst doing those boring chores, I can think of wonderful, insightful, earth-shatteringly funny stuff to blog about.

Only I forget it, later.
I sit down, and there's a vast window in my brain, which as soon as my arse hits the chair, the window opens and lets all the good stuff out.
Which leaves me with the boring, spur of the moment, mind-numbingly inane stuff.

It's kind of like opening a telephone directory and letting your fingers do the walking... and just seeing after your fingers have been busy, what you've actually come up with.
Like 'pick a card. Any card'.

Which in my case, is crap.

What I wanted to do with this whole blogging thing, was to get my thoughts and memories down on the proverbial paper as it were... so that my grandsons would some day read through it and think "Wow, Grummie was a hoot and a half in her day, wasn't she?" "Grummie had a great life and some great adventures in her day." "Grummie was cool".

Yep...cool is what I was aiming for.
Sort of.

Because my 3 little guys mean the world to me... and because we're so far apart, it makes it hard to convey to them just exactly "who" this woman called "Grummie" really is.
What made her tick.
Because I didn't want to be simply the giver of gifts and cards and money to these guys. I wanted them to know "me" - like I never got to know my mama or nana's thoughts.
(and besides... whoever knew that I could fall so deeply and irrevocably in love, with 3 little boys that I have only met once in my life for two weeks?)

Unfortunately, they'll probably read it through and think " geez...we should have invested in a home for Grummie a long, long time ago... But who knew that she would have lost her marbles at such an early age?"

But that's not the point. It was supposed to be... but somewhere along the line, other factors came into consideration.

Stuff like friendships formed, and seeds planted.
Ideas for doing this, or cooking or baking that.
Thinking 'I can do that if she can, because she's made it sound so wonderfully inviting that I would be a complete and total idjit if I don't try it too.'

Wondering on any given day what Mary or Sally have been up to, and wondering and waiting for the bits and blobs of their lives to be blogged about.
So that I can laugh or cry, right along with them.
Caring and sharing.
Because I've grown to care.
(Not that there is a real "Mary or Sally"... it's just easier than typing a 101 names, ya know what I mean?)

Because somehow, this has ended up being about you.
Not me.
Your lives.
Your stories.
Your friendships.

So this blogging thing hasn't exactly ended up being the "thing" I was aiming for.
But because of you, (and who knew you were even out there?) it's become so much more.

And I'm grateful to you.

~~~~~
Geez... would ya look at that?
I started off with one thing in mind and ended up going off on a tangent ... completely forgetting where I was heading with this.
What I meant to say was that I have these absolutely terrific ideas for posts - and then I get so side-tracked reading your terrific posts, that I lose track of what I was thinking about posting about.
Because you're far more interesting than me.
And for that... I'm grateful.

Because, if it's true that you're judged by the company you keep, my grandsons will think that I've had a wonderful life.... now won't they?