I've been thinking a bit about what to do about his blog, about whether I should continue with it or not. I've been printing out old postings to put in a binder, more like a journal. I thought perhaps rather than writing here every evening, I'd print something out from a text editor and add a few photos into a quickie scrapbook type-thing. But as more time passes as I think about it, the more I start feeling that I'm not recording things I don't want to forget. Even if it's just for me, I want it written out. So here I am. Perhaps I will continue to print it out every evening and shove it in a binder. And perhaps I'll even add real photos instead of the small ones that get printed out with the blog. But for now, I guess I'll blog.
I was going to start with June but holy cow it's been a while since I've done this and I have photos "res'd down" from back in May too. So I'll start there.
The end of May we went to the zoo with some friends. They were going to see a show in the Bronx and invited us along. We skipped the performance but met up with them at the zoo before and after it, and really enjoyed ourselves. It was nice that B had a chance to join us; he doesn't really get the opportunity to utilize our Bronx Zoo membership much.
Speaking of zoos our Beardsley Zoo class ended. Both boys had a wonderful time and definitely want to do it again next year. The woman who organized it with the staff may be sending her kids to school next year, so I stepped up to do it. I don't want to see this class not happen; it's too good to lose. I put a note on my calendar for the beginning of August.
One day when some friends were over all the kids had fun playing with E's Eyeclops Bionic Eye, which is a magnifier that hooks up to the TV. They check out hair, skin, salt, and fibers in the rug. They all had a really fun time. Luckily it eventually stopped raining and we were able to go the new playground as planned.
The kids had so much fun that they talked the rest of our playgroup into going there the next week for our weekly park date. The park really is phenomenal; it took them two years to raise the money to build it. It's what they call a "boundless playground", which means it's built to be accessible for disabled kids. One problem though: they have all these horizontal bars where horizontal bars do not typically go and they are not even painted a different color to announce their presence. So two kids in our group (including R) got bonked pretty hard when they didn't see them and ran into them. All those bars all over the place just blend into each other when they are all painted the same. Nevertheless, the park is still quite fabulous. They even have a whole website for it. Click on the photo to see it larger; it's very cool.
With all this wacky weather we've been having, we've been enjoying some spectacular rainbows. Here's a photo of two that E took in the parking lot of the soccer field.
Lots more every day fun happening too. E washed my car but never did get paid because he didn't finish the inside. He loved climbing up on top of it to do the top though.
More restaurant playing going on. Here we have pigs in a blanket, chocolate covered ants, spaghetti and meatballs, and pumpkin cookies with ice-cream.
That husband of mine is one creative guy.
For the boys, our town's Memorial Day parade is all about the guys in the little cars, and the candy people throw off the floats. And we are talking serious amounts of candy.
Another highlight is having Nagy Papa meet us there to watch with us. He lives so close he can actually walk there. It's been really fun having him join us the last couple of years.
My personal favorite thing is living in a town where such a thing occurs. I love being able to wave to people I know in my hometown parade. I love living in a small town.
Our wedding anniversary was the day of the parade. B and I have been married for 17 years, and have been together for 24 years. Yikes! Our anniversary is the 25th and we didn't make a big deal of it this year. I took the night off from cooking and we went to Young Young's Chinese Buffet.
E's 8th birthday was on the 26th. He is just thrilled to be 8 now. Seriously. We had a small celebration with Nagy Papa and a teeny store bought cake since we had breakfast at Hometown Buffet with lots of junk food for brunch. He asked for, and received, lasagna for dinner.
It feels good to remember. Thank goodness I keep an accurate date book :-)
Sunday, June 29, 2008
The end of May
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Reflecting on blogging here
This blog is a journal, pretty much; a way for me to record our daily lives so that I can see for myself that we really do get things done in our unschooling fashion. Plus, my family lives so far away that I've always thought of it as a way for them to peek in on what's going on in our lives. Especially for my mom.
But last week we were up in Maine for a memorial service and there were over 30 of my mother's family members in attendance, so it was with frustration that I noted that out of all those people only two are actually registered to be able to check in on what's going on with us (no, my mom is not one of them). I guess I never realized that it's mostly friends and strangers who were reading.
Two years ago I had a falling out with someone I had been very close to. Unfortunately she did not "fight fair" and despite my efforts to the contrary, I lost my (and my children's) whole social circle along with her. It was a very long, drawn-out severance, but the two of us are civil now; when she dropped her son off at E's birthday party on Monday, none of my new friends could detect any tension between us.
However a couple of weeks before I made this blog private, a mutual friend mentioned to me that she had had dinner with this woman and another. This woman asked my friend if it was a photo of her on my blog she had seen, because it was hard to tell if it was her, and my friend replied yes. Then my friend asked these two women if they regularly read my blog, and the reply was "oh yes, we read it all the time".
Well this was actually the third time someone mentioned to me that this woman questioned them about things she had read on my blog. Two other people had actually mentioned being interrogated by her about whether I was speaking of them when talking about play dates and such. And yes, both of them actually used the word "interrogated" to describe how they felt.
I got really weirded out by this so I made my blog private. I had actually made this blog private once before, but upon reflecting, chose not to give this woman that kind of power over me and opened it up again. But it's feeling too creepy now.
I feel really sad about this. I do not blog as often as I used to. Yes, I write for myself, but it's always been kind of cool knowing that people out there were checking in on the "day-in-the-life" of my unschooling family.
I feel really sad knowing that my mother's giant family (and my mother, herself) have not accepted my invitation to register so they can drop in once in a while.
I feel really victimized by this woman. Blogging is something I have really enjoyed doing and I feel like she's taken that away from me by making me feel like I'm being stalked. Yes, call the word extreme, but the fact is that all the friends she "won" are finally starting to realize how narcissistic she is. And not only does she lurk in my life and discuss it with others, but she always seems to expect me to know what's going on in hers on the few occasions we speak; she thinks I'm talking about her with other people the way she talks about me. Argh.
The only good thing that has come of this is that I can rid myself of her negative energy through blogging about this now, knowing she can't read it, or that it will not be conveyed to her. And even if it is, at this point I really don't care. Her karma will take care of her.
I need to concentrate on finding my motivation to continue doing this.
*Sigh*
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