Blogging is a huge passion of mine! Can you tell? It's an outlet for my creativity... it feeds my need to decorate and cook and garden and write and learn... it also is in my teaching wheelhouse... and blogging let's this very social girl meet and interact with people all over the world.
Those are huge blessings... but they are not why I started blogging.
Here's the real story...
This journey started five years ago...
My oldest child and only daughter, Jacqueline, had just married her college sweetheart Prince Charming (and I do mean, charming!) and he swept her away to Washington DC. The happy newlyweds settled on Capital Hill in a precious townhouse!
As Jacqueline set up housekeeping she would often call me and ask,
"Mom, how do you make ..."
OR
"Mom, what's the recipe for..."
STONEGABLE BREAKFAST COOKIES Prince Charming loves
OR
"How would you decorate..."
AND EVEN
"Mommy, how soon can you come down to .... I need your help"
The PARIS GREY BUFFET we painted together for J's dining room.
At that time I had also been intoduced to the wonderful world of blogs by a young friend. I found kindred spirits on those blogs. Women who loved what I loved and wrote about all-things-home. I felt like I had found a huge secret, underground community of nice women... who shared their very best ideas and invited me into their homes too snoop around and take it all in. I really liked these women!
It was sorta like finding the MOTHERSHIP! These were MY PEOPLE!
Lot's of them were great cooks... or master decoupage-ers.... or had cracked the secret of putting together stunning vignettes. And they were willing to share!!!! And not only share... but also encourage! I could just hear them... "You can do this, I just know you can. I'll be with you every step of the way!"
About a year into blog stalking and many many phone calls from my sweet Jacqueline consulting me on home issues... a lightbulb went off in my mind. Really, it was more like being struck with lightning!
Why don't I start a blog. A blog just for Jacqueline!
It would be about all-things-home. It would guide and encourage and show her all the things I do at home... at StoneGable. I would blog about my very best recipes... and decor ideas... and diy's and gardening and such. I would pour into her life all my best... It would be just like she was still here even though she was 2 1/2 hours away on a good traffic day!
I could encourage her and love her through my words! I would let her know that she was doing a fabulous, incredible job being a wife and homekeeper and daughter.
I would write the blog like other blogger, to a larger audience, but it would really be for my Jacquie!
It took about a month for my blog, StoneGable, to go live. I was so nervous to hit the PUBLISH button for the first time. What if someone else would actually somehow find it. What would THEY think!
The first week I blogged about... BAKED OATMEAL... Jacqueline loves my Baked Oatmeal (she and Prince Charming will be home this weekend and I am having Baked Oatmeal for breakfast on Saturday)!
In those early blogging days I took pictures from a cheap point-and-shoot camera. And really had no idea what I was doing! No styling, no lighting, no frills... just lots of love!
But there it was... my gift to my daughter. So she would always have a beloved family recipe at her fingertips.
I got 7 comments on that post... and an embarrassed fear gripped me... "Oh no! Someone found me"!
I wasn't very long until my blog took on a life of it's own and I began to feel a part of the huge secret, underground community of nice women... who shared their very best ideas and had invited me into their homes too snoop around and take it all in. I was actually ON the MOTHERSHIP with MY PEOPLE!
As more and more people began to find and read my blog. I found a whole other community. A community of readers that were interested in what I had to share.
As more and more people began to find and read my blog. I found a whole other community. A community of readers that were interested in what I had to share.
I was still writing for Jacqueline, but now I was also writing for my readers... women a lot like me! And I began to love them and care about them and pray for them and want to share my best with them too! I now wanted to pour into their lives and let them know that they too... CAN DO IT!
About a year into blogging I had another lightning bolt moment.
I was like Laura Ingalles Wilder! What! Really?
Laural Ingalles Wilder, author of the LITTLE HOUSE books, began writing the famous series after she had retired. She was encouraged by her daughter to write about her life. She wrote about the simple and often hard times of a pioneer family in the mid 1800's and the changing world around them through the new century!
She wrote about her everyday life. Common things... and very interesting things to future generations.
It struck me that I too was writing for future generations. But they were MY generations! Just think... my grandchildren and great grandchildren and great great grandchildren would be able to see my life... my everyday life through my blog.
They might make one of my recipes and my very words will encourage them along the way.
They could sit at the kitchen table and visit me through my blog!
They might even have one of the pieces of furniture I painted and be able to see and hear how I painted it.
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They might learn about decorating in 2013 and catch my love of all-things-home!
And they might even learn about my silly sense of humor... and what their grandfather or great grandfather or great great grandfather calls my "LUCILLE BALL FACTOR"!
My most prayerful hope is that they will read my Sunday Scriptures and hear how I love my Savior Jesus and share that same belief!
source- Rembrandt
I would have loved blogging if it was just a to give my creativity an outlet.
I would have loved blogging if it was to impart the best-of-all-things-home and love on my precious daughter Jacqueline...
I would have loved blogging if it was to be part of the huge secret, underground community of nice women and to be on the MOTHERSHIP of kindred spirits called bloggers.
I would have loved blogging if it was just to care about and share with my beloved and faithful readers.
I would have loved blogging if it was just to have my grandchildren and great grandchildren and and great great grandchildren hear my voice in my words and come to know me and my everyday life.
But, blogging has created the perfect storm... with lightning and all!
It has given me all of this and more!
I love blogging because of you... Jacquie and Abby and Mom and family... now and in the future... and friends and fellow kindred spirit bloggers and dear dear readers and anyone else who just happens to stumble across this page!
You are the reason I blog... and I am blessed!
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