The Intervention

You may be wondering why I've started a blog when there are over 160 million people with blogs already.  Well, as the title of this post says, there was an intervention of sorts.

Last Tuesday, as I'd finished putting a coat of primer on half of our kitchen cabinets while my husband was trying to carry on some philosophical discussion, there was a knock on our garage door.  My husband stopped rambling and got a bit of an odd look on his face.  I looked over at my son who was playing in the leftover paint while our other child was giving the dog a bath, so it couldn't be either of them.  Who on earth was knocking on our garage door?

To my great surprise, my parents were stopping by after having a late lunch.  I thought they were coming to see the progress on our kitchen renovation.  I was wrong.  They were interested in the renovation but they really had an ulterior motive - they wanted to have a "discussion".  That's usually never a good thing. 

A million thoughts immediately ran through my head - none of them good.  All of those thoughts had to do with everyone else and involved illness, injury, or something someone had done wrong.  But all of those thoughts were for other people, not for me.  Why, it couldn't possibly be about me because my halo is usually just above my head and fully visible.......ok, so there is the rare occasion when the halo is held up by my horns, but there's a halo nonetheless..... ok, so the horns protrude on a regular basis but I'm the baby of the family, I could not have possibly done anything wrong. 

And then the words came out "We've talked with your brother (I won't name him here on the blog but he knows who he is) and he thinks you are like the Erma Bombeck of Facebook.".  Say WHAT?!!  What the heck does that mean?!   Is being called the Erma Bombeck of Facebook a good thing or is he calling me names like a bratty kid? Thoughts started racing through my mind.  My daughter, who was as wet as the dog and covered in so much dog hair I was having difficulty differentiating between which one of them was the human and which was the canine, was asking for help trying to dry the dog.

Then, as I noticed my son occupying himself by painting himself white with the last dregs of paint, the next punch came, "We all think you should be writing and should really think of compiling your current writings into a book...... but at the very least you should be writing a blog".  And before this sentence had even had time to sink in, my husband jumps in on the bandwagon and says he's been telling me to do this for a couple of weeks but hasn't convinced me.

So this is why the normally quiet and reserved man who is my husband was suddenly verbose and could talked the ear off a billygoat.  Oh yeah, you think I can't see those horns holding up the halo which just magically appeared Mr. I've-been-trying-to-convince-her-for-weeks-now?!  

And who are these people?  Have aliens come and taken over the bodies of my family?  Throughout my high school and college years, my parents would critique my writings as not being meaty enough.  My husband has always said I was too wordy and that I need to be more concise.  And now, out of the blue, these aliens are banding together telling me they like my writing?  And my youngest brother was in on this too?!

I was having some difficulty processing all of this and had to ask "So, when (insert my brother's name here) said I was the Erma Bombeck of Facebook, is he saying I need to quit rambling and that I'm sharing things I shouldn't?  Am I being one of those people?!".  "No" they said, "he thinks you're funny but need a better format to write, such as a blog, and that you should go after it.".  Go after what?!!

Well, I'd never thought much about writing other than it was my 2nd most favorite things to do when I was in school, with my most favorite being high school marching band in 110 degree heat with a wool uniform on, sweating until I thought my entire body had become completely devoid of all liquid matter and the sun had incinerated my brain.  (I really did love marching band though.)

For 15 minutes, as I cleaned the paint off my son and de-dog-haired my daughter, they hounded me until I finally agreed to think about it.  As my parents were leaving, my Mom said she'd think up a name for my blog while my husband interjected that he had already come up with a name for my first book - which, by the way was really funny.  "Y'all are just plain nuts", was my reply to all of this hullabaloo.  But, I had pacified them somewhat by agreeing to think on it and would let them know in a few days. 

In those few days, my husband continued to be "supportive".... for my parents idea.  I decided to shoot off an email to my brother to say "Hey Mr. Instigator!  Have you lost your marbles?" - to which came the ever-so-brotherly reply which pretty much said "shut up and do it".  Nothing like family to cut to the heart of the matter.

After a couple of days of thinking it over, I ran the family's idea past some friends who I thought I had stacked the deck with and would back me up and say "yeah, there are 100+ million blogs.  It's a waste of time".  To my shock (and utter dismay ....... and then fear!) they said "Do it!". 

So, after a couple more days of contemplating the pitfalls of writing and how stupid I could sound, I figured, oh what the heck!  I probably already sound that way to all of my friends and they still talk to me and acknowledge me in public, I guess I can try this whole blogging thing. 

So there you go.  That's my "short" story of how this blog came to be.  Maybe if this goes well, we can even make this into a reality show................ we could call it "The Looneys"........

by: Christie Bielss