Just start. That's how.
How do you start your blog? What to say first? Should it be something really significant - a declaration of intentions, aspirations, grand opinions? I thought about that, but all I could come up with was a paralyzing case of anxiety. Wouldn't it be something, though, to begin with some witty, brilliant, and profound thing that might make someone think, "Now I know what I want tattooed over my heart."
Nope.
I have no mission statement. No thesis statement. I'm just going to start.
I did call the blog Out of the Blue. Right?
It is Monday Morning. The magic time slot of productivity and dreams, when menus, shopping lists, to do lists, and memos get written, weeks are scheduled, inboxes fill with Spam, when all diets, good habits, and marathon training programs start. So perhaps it is auspicious after all, that it is on Monday Morning when I write my first post on this blog. (I might even start a diet and run a marathon later.)
One of the items high on the To Do List is to collect a stool sample from one of our dogs, and take it to the vet. I'd forgotten this step when I took the dog for her annual well dog check-up. The vet's office called to remind me on Saturday. Carried on the currents of Monday Morning, buoyed by coffee and grit, I'd found the little sample vial - with a little poop spork built into the lid - that the vet had sent home. We are a household of five; there 2 dogs, me, my husband and daughter. The 3 of us with thumbs have been very well trained to let the 2 of us without thumbs out the back door whenever they ask. Which is about a thousand times each day. If my plan is going to work, I need to tell the rest of the Thumbs Team. I find my husband and daughter at the end of the hall, in their respective work spaces, at their respective desks. I announce, loud enough for both of them to hear me, "If you let Phoebe out, watch her to see if she poops. If she does, use this little poop spork to get a fresh sample for the vet. If we can't get it to them within 2 hours, we have to put it in the fridge. It has to be fresh."
This is the moment my daughter spins around and gives me the Icy Dagger Death Stare, and whisper-snarls through clenched teeth, "MOM. I'M IN CLASS." And sure enough, her computer monitor is a grid of college faces, all in their first class of the day.
This is also the moment my husband has to choke back a laugh, as he is also on a call, but not a video call, and he's wearing a headset, so maybe the people in his meeting can't hear background sound quite as well.
This is how my day, and my week, and my blog, all began.
