To Blog, or Not to Blog (Oh, and Happy New Year!)

It's been more than two months since I was last here at my little site--which used to be a place I frequented quite often, believe it or not.  Back in the day, when I opened up shop in 2011, I was here almost every morning, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and raring to type up my little stories and random musings.  Even though almost no one was reading those posts, writing them made me so happy.

And the funny thing is that if anything, I have more to write about now than ever.  My family has grown by leaps and bounds and all of my people's lives are so very interesting, so very blog post-worthy.  But I am having the most severe case of blogger's block that I've ever experienced.  And I'm seriously considering just quitting altogether.  I've said that before at different times over the years, but this time I might actually be serious.

My husband thinks I should keep at it; he knows how much fun it is for me to have a writing project in the works, and keeping up with a blog is an ongoing writing project (that is, if you ever actually sit down at the computer and DO it!).  So I guess he might have a point.  And maybe it's not time to throw in the towel. Not just yet, anyway.

So much has happened since I last checked in, which was just after Halloween.  A trip to South Bend for a Notre Dame football game with a couple of our boys.  Multiple Pearl birthdays in October, November, and December.  Thanksgiving.  Christmas (which included having our youngest son, his very pregnant wife, and their adorable almost two-year-old little girl staying at our house.  They were with us for two whole weeks before going back to their home outside of Nashville.  Oh how I miss her--I mean them!).

Having four of our five boys and their families (15 grandchildren included!) over for a family party on the 27th was the highlight of our Christmas.  We were only missing our oldest and his gang.

I also spent the last few months before Christmas working on a special picture book project for my grandchildren, which I might share here eventually.  Oh yes, and then there's the whole learning how to make sourdough bread saga!  Let's just say that I'm a great maker and keeper of starter (I've named mine "Bubbs," although when I read somewhere that people name their starters,  I swore up and down that I wouldn't do such a nerdy thing), but I've had varying degrees of success with the actual bread itself. Especially when, like the farm wife I pretend to be, I try to use home-milled flour instead of the good old reliable store-bought all-purpose fluffy white stuff (remember this post?). Yikes, there's so much to write about, and I don't know if I should try to re-cap the past few months or just push ahead into 2025.

While I decide, know that all of our Christmas decorations are still up, because son #1 and his family (including seven of our grandchildren!) are coming next week to spend about a week with us, and since they weren't with us for the holidays I want it to feel Christmas-y around here.  (Also, the Christmas season doesn't technically end until Feb. 2, when we celebrate the Presentation of Our Lord on Candlemas Day. So we've decided that they don't come down until then!)

Happy New Year, dear readers (you know who you are: baby sister, my better half, a few D-I-L's, and about three other people!  Ha ha!).  I'll just be sitting here sipping my coffee by the tree when I've got nothing more important to do.