I Blame Allison

She called me yesterday, out of the blue. Cute little Allison Goodrich, who was only ten years old when she first started babysitting my first little boy. Sweet little Allison Goodrich, who was the first babysitter my second and third sons ever had, and who loved and spoiled them so much that they never really liked all the poor souls who came after her. Adorable little Allison Goodrich, who had the audacity to grow up, become Allison Stoker, have three babies of her own, and remind me how old I'm getting.

"I can't believe you don't have a blog!" she exclaimed, as though if I were as cool as she remembered me, I would have joined the electronic revolution a million years ago. Well, I almost did. I halfheartedly tried to. I started a couple of blogs, never invited anyone to look at them, and then abandoned them altogether. I created one for my business that I haven't used at all. I even have a MySpace page... sort of. Allison has informed me that none of that counts. Okay, fine. Here's the real thing, and she had better read it, and like it, too... because if no one else likes it, I'm planning to blame Allison! :o)

I've decided I should move some of my old posts from my abandoned blogs over to this one, which I will do over the next week or so, so that everyone can catch up a little bit. I'll be posting some pictures, too, since I managed to trick the sweetest man on the planet into marrying me more than two years ago (mwah-ha-ha-ha!), and most of my friends have never even met him, not to mention the four awesome stepkids that came with him! That's right... we have EIGHT kids between us, ranging in age from 18-7 years old. "How do you DO it?" everybody asks me. Like I even know. When they're all here, everything is kind of a chaotic blur, and then I pass out in my bed sometime around midnight. If I wake up the next morning to find that all eight children are still alive and reasonably healthy, I consider the previous day a resounding success!

I hope this blog will help me to find long lost friends, and feel more connected to the not-lost ones. I hope my far-away family will feel a little closer. I hope it survives long after I'm gone, so that anyone who happens across it in the future will get a little glimpse into how I viewed the world. I'm excited... I think it will be a blast! And it all starts when I hit that bright orange "Publish Post" button down there... ready... set... POST!