So this is supposed to be about me. I’m trying to think what you might want to know about me.
I’ve been at this blogging thing for over two years now. I started my first one the last day of 2007. I used my name in the title of that blog. And while that’s not necessarily a bad thing, I didn’t like that I’d done that after awhile. And I was kind of tired of having to pay monthly for Typepad. So I started a blog geared toward gardeners, and switched to Wordpress.com. That was all well and good. And it was free. But I had the unfortunate habit of straying off course to crafts and decorating. Which probably didn’t bother some. But I’m sure the die-hard gardeners inwardly groaned.
So finally I started Cozy Little House. I don’t know why I chose that name. I was looking around my house, trying to come up with something apt. And it just came out of left field. I checked, it was available with Blogger, and I took it. That was nearly a year ago. I like Blogger. You can’t match its easy customization features. So I figured this one was meant to be.
I talk about my personal life from time to time. Inevitably at times I wish I hadn’t. But then, I’ll get an email from a stranger telling me that they’ve been through something very similar, yet they can’t seem to talk about it. Or can’t bring themselves to write about it. And I guess that makes it worthwhile. I know I like to read about all aspects of someone’s life. Because life isn’t just about having “pretty little pictures on the wall.” It’s about good and bad things and all matters in between.
I’ve talked about dealing with lifetime depression, and how that’s affected my daily life. So I won’t go into that here.
I had my first daughter at 17. And of course, the boy I thought would be there forever suddenly wasn’t. Actually it was a planned pregnancy. I don’t know if that makes me sound very immature or possibly just naive. We wanted to get married, and weren’t old enough. When girls got pregnant, usually someone would step up and put their John Hancock on a legal paper . And you could call the preacher, and then live happily ever after in wedded bliss. Or so I thought. Ha! It actually took me a year to get pregnant. Can you imagine? You would have thought I’d have been properly fertile at that tender age!
To my utmost surprise, by that time he’d already found himself a second girlfriend. And guess what? Now she was pregnant. Not only that, but she was my best friend’s cousin. After I had my baby and went back to school (back then you could stay home for the duration and make up your schooling once the baby was born), I had to sit in class with his pregnant wife. She had a daddy who worked the railroad, and I’m sure there wasn’t much question about whether they were properly married.
There I was taking care of a baby that had two surgeries by the time she was fifteen
months old. And making up two years in one so I could still graduate with my class. Class of 1975.
Lesson 1 for me: Boys will indeed be boys. That one was a perfect stranger two years my senior when he started pursuing me. That rascal wooed me and sent me roses and put me on a pedestal. Never having had a father or central male figure in my life, I was just enthralled.
Karma reached out and bit that boy on the butt however. His marriage to my best friend’s cousin (how awkward is that?) scarcely lasted more than a year. The girl’s parents ended up raising their baby daughter. And life went on.
You know, I’ve made many mistakes in my life. Some real doozies. But my daughter’s father didn’t come to realize that he wanted to be in her life until she was heading into adulthood. By then, it’s often too late to form any sort of real bond. He seems to go in and out of her life. She’s 35 now. She’s polite to him, but very reticent, and I don’t blame her. He will always be on the outside now looking in. Which makes me feel kind of sorry for him. Yet he’s on his fourth marriage and fourth set of kids, so I guess he’s not too miserable!
I ended up going on to college, eventually graduating with a journalism degree. I married one of my professors when I was 20. He was about 13 years my senior, so it was sort of doomed. He adopted my first daughter, and we had a second.
Blogging was quite the catalyst for me. As I tend to be somewhat of a loner, I could have friends and communicate on my own comfort level. It opened up a whole new world
I became more confident. And I discovered something I probably never would have otherwise. I found that I had a real fascination with photography. I learned that with a camera in hand, I could go out into nature and become mesmerized by texture and nuance and color.
That old adage is true: Take time to stop and smell the roses. Truly, don’t just pass by those roses and give them a glance and lean down momentarily and sniff them. Stop whatever you’re doing, wherever you’re headed, and really see and smell them. Indulge your senses.
I now spend much of my time in my garden with the pets when I’m not writing my blog or reading others. I listen to the birds chirp at the feeders, the wind chimes sounding in the breeze.
My life is a far cry from what I did earlier in adulthood. Which was investigative journalism. Small time. Nothing big. But the stories were heartrending. I’ve written about some of them on my blog. Mostly crimes against children. I often think of these dead or kidnapped children when I’m out in my garden. Sometimes the facts or faces will find a trail back to me. Digging in the dirt, I like to pretend I care for their memories there. To keep them from being forgotten. Not just be some statistic and a long ago newspaper story.
I am living my life, the second portion of it, smelling those roses every single day that I can. And blogging about it on a regular basis.
Brenda Kula http://cozylittlehouse.com/
Thank you so much Brenda for taking the time to do this for me. I can not tell you enough how much I appreciate you. This is a great story and I truly believe all of you have great stories so join me like Brenda and Susan have and tell us your story! Remember it does not have to be about you if you would prefer to tell just a story then email me grandmayellowhair@gmail.com....
Still trying to figure out the prefect title for these post....Appreciate all you funny comments about my morning with the Tom Cats! Whoa that was really crazy...now I have to replace the screen on the door....
I have added some wonderful giveaways on my sidebar so check them out. Also remember mine closes soon.
Love to all
Maggie
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