My first blog EVER.

In order to get started, I think I'll just close my eyes. This is new and it may take me a few minutes to get going.

I am happy that I have my hard drive wiped out and newly installed everything. It is evening and I will soon get the urge to go out running with the dog and I'll want to drive to the lake instead of going out in the neighborhood. The days are noticeably longer and I can get more done before I go out.

I don't like closing my eyes, because the sun is bright out there today and I like looking at it. I can hear the dog breathing as she sleeps.

I'm off course at the moment. I'm supposed to be finishing page one of my newsletter and emailing it to my coach, not to mention tomorrow is the last day for taxes and I have not started mine yet. I do have the software, which includes a form for filing for an extention. I may end up doing that.

Then I have a busy weekend helping Mabel cook and working, and I am sorry that I told my son I couldn't visit him because I couldn't get off work and I was helping Mabel. He sounded dissappointed. I am dissappointed too. But when he said I guess I'll see you this summer some time, I felt sad. So now I think I'll take off Sunday and go see him anyway even though I will only have Sunday evening with him. He's definitely worth the drive. I don't mind driving anyway.

I don't know enough about blogging. But I've jumped in anyway. Someone had the name I wanted already. I had no clue how to title it. I'll no doubt change the title after I figure out what I want write about.

For dinner tonight: leftover stir fried peppers and onions with cabbage and celery, on Thai rice with a piece of roasted chicken, sesame seeds. Not bad. These days I'm in the mood for stir fried peppers with color: red, yellow, orange and green. And the onions make it smell and taste wonderful. no gravy, but I tossed on some soy sauce. Wishing I had some duck sauce packets in the frig. No, not even any jelly or preserves.

This feels really awkward. I simply do not know enough. Who is going to read this? How will they know I'm here? I think I should go read other blogs first to see how it's done. But I don't want to be affected by others' writing before I put myself out there. I want to just show up on the web and be honest. How do I inform people I know? Email them? I do look forward to reading others' writings. I just don't want to make myself tainted my first time.

I love to freewrite, but this is not going to feel free for sure, at least not at first. With the possibility of lots of people reading over my shoulder as I type. Yikes. Don't be too cutesy. Don't pretend to be intellectual. Don't try to impress people. Don't this. Don't that. Restraints. Then no words will come out at all.

Freewrite is just write whatever comes to your mind. And mine is all over the place, like dreams, jumping from one thing to another. That is the way I think. Lots of people do, but probably I'm on the SHE end of the spectrum. Flylady defines a SHE as Sidetracked Home Executive. Now then, I have a job outside the home, so I'm not technically a SHE anymore. But when I'm home, I still am a SHE. (If you don't know who Flylady is, you can find her at flylady.net.)

I love my life now. I never dreamed I could reach such a depth of contentedness. And I have NOT arrived anywhere near the place at which I used to think I'd be happy. I am just happy living in this moment. I guess that's why I chose the title Present Chapter, or whatever I wrote...this present chapter? Doesn't matter.

I never dreamed. Not in a million years. I think at some stage, I had resigned myself to the Eeyore mentality (re: Winnie the Pooh's sad donkey friend, colored blue, head and tail dragging). That is, I thought, I'm just going to have to make the best of it. Huge reserves of stocism in my genes. I'm never going to make the people around me change, so I'll just have to cooperate for the sake of peace and growth in my family and put up with it. We can do what we can to make things better, I thought, but maybe I'm just not the happy type. It's my temperament to be on the down side.

But no more. I am still enjoying the surprise of this unexpected joy. I am deeply contented. Even though I have big goals I am working on and need to be working on, I have told my children that if I die tomorrow and never reach those goals, I will have died happy. I have finally figured out how to be content in the moment. This change is a 180 degree turn from the way I used to think when I was DEPRESSED. Duh.

I don't mean to say that I never feel down. But my overall countenance is smiling. God is smiling at me and I am smiling back. He is so good. I suppose the details of how I got from depressed to content will come out as I write. But I can't do it all in one log, now can I?

I think I will close with that for now and go out into the perfect spring temps and run with the dog, even if I did do it backwards and will no doubt wish I hadn't eaten before running.