BLOGGING

Posted on by michellethurman2344

So here I am….blogging; still not sure what that even means, but I will give it a try. Writing is a passion, a compulsion, even an obsession, but what to do with it…that is the question! I have been writing for most of my life and I have boxes and boxes of typed and handwritten pages to prove it; but they sit in the top of my closet where they have been for years…gathering dust. They were an outlet for my need to write; and now they sit moldering in old boxes.

My mother was also a writer, but her writings are more personal than any of mine. She wrote about her life. She wrote poetry…a poem for every occasion. She posted some of her poetry in her church’s bulletin. She sent many of them to family and friends. And she kept journals of her daily life; sometimes about traveling with family and sometimes every day, ordinary stuff. My granddaughter also writes stories, mostly fantasies. She has quite a way with the written word and even though her stories are not my kind of stories, I enjoy reading what she has written. Her words reach out and grab you, pull you right into the story. My oldest son is also a writer, poetry and songs. Writing, I guess runs in the family.

So, back to blogging, what to do with a blog? Well, first off, I need to create a habit and routine of writing every day. I am pretty rusty. Life, you know, gets away from you; trudging through each day, doing what needs to be done, fulfilling your obligations; punching a time clock, rushing to appointments, taking care of family needs. Everything grabs you, demands attention, fills your life with chores and tasks that keep you busy and drain your energy. Now…I am retired. I can pursue the things I want to do; get back to writing.

I think blogging will help me become more focused, give my writing more purpose, and that is important. I started this because I want to write down family stories; record them for my children, and because they are history…..our history. I am just learning how to use this modern digital world, it is still a bit of a mystery to me, and I need practice in all aspects of this thing called blogging. But I am learning and it’s fun; an adventure, new things to learn and do….proof you can teach an old dog new tricks! (metaphorically speaking of course!!)

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Published by michellethurman2344

I was born in California, but both my parents were born in different areas of rural Oklahoma. My father grew up on a small cattle ranch and my mother grew up in the hills of eastern Oklahoma near the Ozark Mts. Both were born in the 1920's when Oklahoma was still more a part of the 1800's than the twentieth century so I like to say I was born of parents who were the last generation born during the old west. Their old west roots had a huge impact on my childhood. I spent the first three years of my life on my Granny's chicken farm. She was my father's grandmother and she owned 60 acres of alfalfa which she rented out and lived on three acres of barnyard where she raised chickens. There was some electricity, but no indoor plumbing outside of a faucet in the kitchen. The toilet was down the boardwalk in a small shed...in other words...an outhouse. The shower was a room under the water tank in the pumphouse. Granny's little three room house was the only painted building on the property. Everything else was raw, unpainted wood including the two room house my parents lived in. And I loved living on that little farm where I pretty much had free run of the barnyard and sometimes even wandered into the fields surrounding it. The town where I was born is along the Colorado River in the middle of the California desert and across the river from the Arizona desert and while we did live there for the first 12 years of my life, we moved a lot due to my father's employment. He was a big equipment operator and we moved to where the work took him, but usually only six months of the year then we moved back to our hometown. We moved to Northern California in 1958 and I have lived here ever since. I am a mother, a grandmother, have one great-grandchild and recently retired. I am divorced and now live with my youngest sister. My sisters and I like to cruise and take road trips. I am enjoying my life.

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