100th Post

I couldn't resist celebrating this momentous occasion.  100 posts.  100 memories.  100 things I would have never remembered if I hadn't written them down.  Boring, day to day things, with a few out-of-the-ordinary things thrown in.  

I have always been a calendar keeper.  It's been a compulsion which I have come to conclude results from my need to prove (to myself) that life has been full and good.  I have never been good at keeping a journal, despite my own mother's best efforts to encourage it all throughout my childhood.  Even back then, I was only adequate.  Bill went through a period of time in high school where he wrote every day.  Seriously.  Most of which was pretty much the day-to-day stuff, with a few highly entertaining passages thrown in here and there (especially involving his occasional infatuations with some girl or another).  But then education, work, marriage, children and life started happening, and although I was a pretty dedicated scrap-booker for many years, you can only scrapbook so much with 5 kids. (Mauri still asks me when I will add to her scrapbook, which currently ends abruptly at her first birthday.)

So the calendars have been the fill-in.  My first calendars were copied blank calendar pages that I would fill in the months and days in my neatest hand writing.  Several years later I upgraded to a Franklin Day-planner.  Then, to help keep the whole family aware of what was going on and when, I moved on to the artful printed calendars that hung in cute, hand-crafted holders.  Pretty soon there was not enough room to write all of our schedules on those, so I upgraded once again to the large desk calendar.  Those have been the trickiest to keep... I made a file, and once the month was over, I would carefully rip the page off and fold it to a precise, pre-determined size, and place it in the file.  Not as easy to tuck neatly away for... someday.

This spring I went to visit my sister.  She had a weekly/monthly planner.  

Lightbulb.
I need one of those.

So as soon as I possibly could get myself to the store after our trip, I purchased one.  Target had just what I was looking for.  I couldn't wait to get it home and transfer all my calendar dates over.  But of course... things don't always go as planned, and the awesome planner I had just purchased didn't start until July.  JULY!  I went back to see if they had one that started in January, to no avail.  But Walmart did.  It wasn't as nice (no monthly tabs), and it was slightly smaller in size, but it started in January.  I purchased it with the intent to use it until July, then I would switch over to the nicer, tabbed planner.  I know, OCD.

I love it.  I only wish I had been using this kind of calendar all along.  It's not like they haven't been around forever, right?  

There you have it, proof of life.  

But a calendar can't record thoughts, feelings, moments.  That's where the blog has come in handy.  And I'm the first to admit I'm not the smartest cookie on the plate, since blogging had obviously been around for a long time before I ever realized how it could benefit me personally.  I love it though.  Even if I came late to the party.  Even though I'm not a great writer who makes every post entertaining or even interesting.  Even if my family may be the only ones who check to see what I have to say from one day to the next.

It's simple and easy.  You don't have to cover the kitchen table with the latest supplies, and dig through years of photographs, certificates, and various other memorabilia to complete a single page.  You don't have to be ultra creative, and come up with new layouts and designs (although, I'll admit by blog layout has gone through a few changes from time to time).  And, frankly, I share more of reality on this blog than I have ever included in a scrapbook.

So happy 100th to me.   There IS magic in an ordinary day.

And, in case you were wondering, Summer's this way.