Linnetontheleaf

 I am really not that old (AM I? — barely past the half-century mark), but the pace of the world makes me feel that way.  It is appalling to think that I lived nearly the first half of my life in a computer-free zone.  The first computer I was really familiar with was enormous and only did payroll, yet we were AMAZED.

 So anyway, it should come as no suprise that even with WordPress plain-English instructions, I am challenged here.  I’ve spent the last 3 days trying to figure out how to insert that picture in an acceptable size — at first it was enormous!  after days of struggle, it’s now tiny!  I cannot seem to hit the happy medium.

 I knew when I began this that I would find it technically challenging, and on the whole, I guess I am pleased it hasn’t been WORSE.  I lose heart so very easily in such realms, where I am so 1) incompetent and 2) basically uninterested.

 I resent the assumption that we are all so tech-savvy!  The expectation that we are all capable of being our own in-house tech support is akin to getting a message like this from your doctor — ‘bad news, you need an operation, but you’re going to have to do it YOURself.  Here are some instructions in mumbo-jumbo.  Good luck with that!’

When our little ones WERE little, I wondered how parents could STAND it when their killer-adorable kids grew up and turned into ordinary adults.  How COULD they say goodbye to those plump limbs, that sublimely smooth skin, the round downy heads?  New parents are always slaves to those baby characteristics, and pyschologists tell us that such traits seem to actually inspire devotion — Mother Nature’s evolutionary tool for insuring the survival of the species.

However, now I know how we cope as the kids grow up, and these traits vanish.  Our helpless adoration for those painfully cute babies morphs into sheer CURIOSITY — how will you turn out, little one?  I can’t wait to see you at ten, at sixteen, at thirty!  I also feel myself joyously sharing their small triumphs each day, as they conquer each new independent outpost.   Today I figured out how to study for my first mid-term exam!  Today I called my cell phone provider to figure out why my phone wasn’t working!  Wow — you ARE growing up, and I am unaccountably GLAD.  I thought it would HURT to see you grow up and away from me, but no,  I rejoice. 

I feel exquisitely chic and up-to-the-moment!  I recommend blogging to all my at-loose-ends friends!  I am absurdly proud of myself for figuring out wordpress’ childishly easy instructions (altho as you see, I’ve barely scratched the surface here).

But I feel so painfully CONSPICUOUS that I find I cannot share anything here.  I don’t even know anyone who is reading (since I’ve carefully concealed the name and location of this blog o’ mine), yet it feels like public speaking whenever I sit here and type in this bland little box.

Obviously I have to get over this!  But I’m a long-time diarist, and keeping my jottings secret is a deeply ingrained habit, probably since the 8th grade!  (roughly 30 years ago)   Any tips for me, fellow bloggers?

I work hard.  Grocery shopping.  Advance cooking for the week (for evenings I must be out).  Laundry.  Clean.  Catch up with everything that slideswhile I’m working during the week.  By the end of the day, I’m usually knackered, but the sense of accomplishment, and the absence of dust on the house’s most prominent surfaces, is a considerable consolation!

Beethoven last night was grand.  It does my heart good to see 50 high school kids so intensely involved in a piece of CLASSICAL music.  They may head home with their ipod earbuds blasting something deplorable, but for that hour at least, they knew greatness, and plainly adored it!

Today, the other kid (aged eleven) had a rehearsal with his embryonic rock band.  Isn’t that just what the world is clamoring for? — a rock band with boy-soprano vocals?!?

…is almost always a good day.   The mood usually lifts on Thursday evenings at choir rehearsal, which (in theory at least) inspires peace and tranquility for the day to come.  Yesterday I had the added excitement of a doctor appointment, where I learned that I’d narrowly escaped coming down with Congestive Heart Failure!  (side effect of a drug which caused edema)  Wow.  Now I feel REALLY special — that’s nearly as dramatic as the whole blog thing, isn’t it?

Life feels very good at the moment — I DO NOT have heart failure!  I DO have a blog!  Tonight our daughter, a dandy little violinist, plays Beethoven 5 with her youth orchestra, then we’ll eat Indian food and guzzle some rose.   I am glad to report that this is more than enough to make me very happy indeed.

I’m absurdly tongue-tied — this feels so momentous!  After considering it so long, I am finally starting a weblog.  Where will it lead?

Fortunately I’m too busy this evening to wax very philosophical, as I might otherwise be tempted to do.  Let me get into the kitchen to finish up dinner for my family — cooking and family, two of the topics which will probably consume a large proportion of the words to come on this page.

What else?  Gardening.  Writing.  Travel.  Painting in watercolor.  Music.

But first!  Dinner!

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