To blog or not to blog that is the ?

Do I find joy in blogging? Or do I find it tedious? Is it a journal that will be easy to create a book from or will it be just a sad litany of complaints and irritations? I suppose a blog is a way of expressing oneself to a wide public, but what if you really don't want your thoughts passed hither and yon? It's like those songs, "do I stay or do I go?" or "you say goodbye and I'll say hello." It's a conundrum of oxymorons. And to tell the truth the jury is still out. Right now I should be filing all the plethora of receipts, reports, and junk on my counters and putting Stephanie's missonary book together. If I were more computer literate, I would start creating a great blog for her that she can turn into her missionary books when she returns. It's so hard to decide. I mean I know I am supposed to keep a journal but in such a relatively public forum. I find I have lots of journaling opportunities. In my fit day, I'm to express my mood and my journal there, and it becomes more a list of what I did that day and what I ate and how much I exercised, but this one is more of therapeutic conversation, but in real life I have great therapists--Lynda and Dr. Bob. Is this just one more distraction to keep me from writing because I am writing here. So after a little pondering, I have decided that what a blog for me is more a journal like my Times and Seasons, Family history. This would be the place to post pictures and tell amusing anecdotes that I can read next year and use one of for my Christmas letter. It is a tale for the Scheherazade in me, so given that I want to tell a story, so that I may never forget.

Last night we had a wonderful Christmas dinner. I ate the brussel spouts and mashed potatoes for my "liquid diet." I had set the table with the gold chargers, the crystal, china, and silver and it looked lovely. Dinner would be around 3, 3:30, 4, you get the idea. We were having prime rib and I would prefer mine on the pink and juicy side, but the rest of the family likes burnt offerings. I was tired, I had gotten up early to clean the house and get ready for Stephanie's phone call. As it turned out the hour she was allotted was magnified into almost two so who am I to complain, but . . . I was planning on using that time. Instead of ended up squeezing in time to make two chocolate sundae pies, do laundry, start the process of changing the sheets on my waterbed, clean the kitchen, etc. Anyway, I was trying to figure out a time to take a nap before dinner and I guess that's where the extra hour went, but probably more than likely it was given as a gift to the missionaries. I find Elder Moss and Elder King think I am Scheherazade because this is the second time in less than a week they have come calling, more out of frustration that it is Christmas time and hard to set up times and their investigator pool is pretty slim pickings, while Stephanie's is erupting and there must be a bit of desire to hear about her success to know that the Church is still true if not in Redmond, at least in Texas.

They showed up a little after 2, just as I had finished peeling the potatoes for cooking and eventual mashing and was in the process of folding the stiff egg whites into the chocolate sundae pie filling (not truth in advertizing, there is so little chocolate it should be called custard pie) and I was ready to take a nap, unfortunately, my bed was still unmade--getting Rob to make it, took another 4 hours and David, but eventually, it got done-yeah! Anyway, they came in and opened their presents, each got a Costco sized box of cereal, Elder King likes Honey Bunches of Oats and since Elder Moss didn't state his preference, I figured since his favorite dessert had been a cranberry cake, why not cranberry macadamia cereal. He liked it, too.

And so I told stories, stories from my missions of how obnoxious the zone leaders were and how I tricked them out of telling me where I was going to be transferred and how Bruce was able to send me a letter on the day I arrived, causing my new zone leaders to say, "hey, she's only been here a day and she's already got mail!" And then I told them the story of all stories. The one Stephanie had referenced in her Christmas conversation, the one I hope never to forget because it is soo good.

Lori King told us this story of her friend who chooses to sit behind one particular family during sacrament meeting, because something amusing always happens and this Sunday was no exception. After the sacrament was passed and the speakers began to drone on, the parents started to nod off. Mom and Dad were in the arms of Morpheus when "junior" and his little sister were bored and trying to find something to keep them entertained. What could be more interesting than a tour through mom's purse. So junior started rummaging through her purse, where he discovered something that was a bit unique and unusual. There were some long cylindrical objects wrapped in pink plastic. "Hmmm, a present that needs to be unwrapped, no doubt." And so junior ripped off the wrapping and found a long tube with string hanging out the back and a sort of plunger like tube that pushed whatever was in out. Junior thought, hmm this is interesting what will happen if I give it a good thwap! Poof, off the tampons sailed to the right. Hmm, that was fun, where's another one. Poof to the other side another sailed. Little sister was intrigued (so was the speaker who saw them sailing and for a moment lost his place) The whole audience was intrigued by the point. Sister picked up the "dangling" objects and thought, "maybe their earrings" and slipped the cord around her ear so they could hang down. Brother thought, "No I think they are lariats that you can hold on to and twirl and proceeded to do so. Together they explored all the possibilities that tampons could be used for. About this time, mom woke up and there was an explosion as she lifted up junior and removed him from the chapel. So sad, but that's why my friend likes sitting behind this family, something always exciting happens.

After telling a couple more stories, the elders left and we sat down for dinner. Alexa was still enjoying her other family's Christmas and came late (at least we were still at the table and hadn't eaten dessert) But the story that was new to me was the one Elgin told of his grandparents, Tom and Beulah. The day before I had mentioned that yeast waffles were a Springgay treat and he said that it was a very rare treat that bisquick basically was used for everything (and here all these years I have been making them from scratch thinking this is what Rob had eaten every Saturday--the little twirp) We were talking about Beulah and what a fabulous cook she was, on a wood stove no less, and that we would be eating her chocolate sundae pie, when Elgin told the story of a 50 gallon barrel that the family had put apple cider in, but as in most cases of "food storage" It just sat there waiting for a good time to use it. And so it waited. It waited so long it turned to apple vinegar, functional, but not as readily usable. And still it waited until one day, the acidic nature of the beast broke the barrel and the basement was flooded with 50 gallons of vinegar. We said, "We'll it must have been a pretty clean basement since one uses vinegar as a cleaning agent sometimes" but Rob said, "that's a lot of vinegar! 50 gallons."