What the Heck is There to Say?

I'm sure you can tell - I haven't exactly been blogging up a storm here lately.

Mostly it's because I am busy (aren't we all?). I don't make time for it - I want to sit and browse endless for lingerie sales. (no really - this is my favorite way to waste time on the internet. I dream of finding an 80% off sale at Journelle where all the bras are in my size and made of sea foam colored lace and mesh. Also, it would be cool if Eberjey made my size or if Fleur of England cost the same as Wacoal). I know shoes and home wares from Anthropologie are the more acceptable forms of female obsession, but this is mine)

But what I'm really thinking is: what exactly do I have to say? To the world - to you, my readers (most of whom I have no clue who you are and others who stay anonymous, but I know you're reading).

I have a pretty great life, honestly. The struggles I endure are quite minuscule; they only seem large because I am so selfish and small. Sometimes, when I think of how good my life is, I get frightened - like God views life as a balancing scale, and he sees I'm tipping it way too much and he's going to send some cancer/death/poverty/etc. my way just to even it out.

I have also figured out that for most people, they don't want to read a happy blog. Happiness is boring. Y'know, like that Russian guy said: "happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." Granted, I think my happiness might be unique because I'm not thin or good at photography (is that a prerequisite for a great mommy blog??), but still - I am an upper middle class white mom who works part-time as a youth director, but mostly stays at home. My husband's job has taken us to Rome and will soon take us to Ireland. Who wants to hear me cry about not fitting into jeans from seven years ago? (but seriously - I love those jeans and will never sell them because one day I will punish my body enough that it will shrink into the size 8 oblivion it needs to be to fit into those pants)

But what's the alternative? Write about how every third time I open my washing machine, a roach scurries into its depths? (it's terrifying - Florida is the land of bugs) Who wants to hear about my inexplicable ability to keep a clean house with only one child, or how I always end up throwing away food that's languishing in my fridge because our microwave broke like six months ago and sometimes, I'm just too lazy to turn the stove/oven on to reheat leftovers so I get take-out?

The truth is, I think I need to write a little of both - about our happiness and my corresponding snubs to the overtures of grace that God is constantly offering me. In the big picture, I have very few worries and am mostly happy. But in the day-to-day grind, sometimes I feel overwhelmed: by my stunning loss of ambition, with my own inadequacy as a house keeper, with my own materialistic desires, with my near pathological refusal to let anything bother me (because then I'd have to admit that something was wrong).

As I said to Calah the other night, the work is the glory. The work that I'm doing - in my life, with my family - that's what I have to share here. If I share it honestly, maybe then that'll be something worth saying.