MY FIRST BLOG POSTING

I had no idea that chosing a blog title would be so difficult! I have two sheets of paper with ideas, all starting with the notion that I wanted to be a spot where friends and family or passersby in search of good conversation could drop in for a spell. We could sit at a kitchen table. Or in a garden. At a pub or coffee shop.

A google search of the word "wayside" (which had just hopped into my brain out of nowhere) found the John Lee Hooker song "I was standing by the wayside, just trying to flag myself a ride". Then there's a German Proverb "fair flowers are not left standing along the wayside long". Or there's "Fringes of the Wayside" by Steve Inglis, which sounded pretty cool! Just what IS the wayside, and why did that word jump into my head? In the old fashioned sense, the wayside is simply the side of the road, and the road is a path affording passage from one place to another. That's it, I said to myself! I want to be the roadside stand where you stop to pick up fresh tomatoes and cataloupe or a cold glass of lemonade! A stop to refresh yourself as you travel down the sometimes confusing and frustrating, often too crowded, and more often than not very impersonal ... internet highway!

So what can you expect when you wander to the wayside to visit me? Hmm. More often than not, you'll just find me talking to myself, hoping that you'll feel comfortable enough to chime in from time to time (preferably with a paragraph!) Not exactly a Dear Diary, and not a Gratitude Journal. Maybe I'll be talking about my grandsons and the joys and frustrations of being a grandmother (mawmaw). Or about animals and animal rights and my attempts at making sense of animal neglect, or about my volunteering efforts for the cause. My view of current events. The frustrations, fears, and joys associated with getting older (I turned 60 this year). My garden battles with fire ants or the bliss of having a pair of blue birds sitting on my deck. Well, I just won't know until the time comes!

What I can tell you is this: my blog won't be about step-by-step craft projects, home schooling, details of a dream vacation to the Bahamas or the Alps, or about religion or politics. It won't be about a novel in the works, or a new poem I've written. It might be about a favorite tv show that was on. Or a song just released. Nothing deep beyond casual musings on life in general - and my life in particular.

One final thought on this my first blog entry. I'm known to be socially shy, but I have no shortage of written words! I like to say that I wax poetic, but the truth is that I just get carried away with the "sound" and beauty of the written word, that I use ten words where two would do the job. As I was exploring the use of the phrase "by the wayside", I was led to an article with that title written about Stanford Cazier, former president of Utah State University. Pulling out a small section from it describing his verbal skills will tell you a little about my own method of writing: "The words spill out ... as if there are more words and ideas inside than can possibly be addressed. They are cluttered with asides and fragments and insights and tangents and observations on everything...They seem to flow from an inexhaustible fount, building a verbal edifice that is immediatley torn down and replaced with a grander one, weaving and pulsing in an all-inclusive commentary on the mysteries of nature and man's place within it."

No one will be writing articles like that about me - I'm just saying that I sometimes get carried away! But I hope that you will enjoy what you find here, that you will be refreshed by your visit, that you will return from time to time, and that you will share some of your thoughts with me. Let's face it, there are a gazillion blogs out there and only so much time in a person's day to check them out. Come by when you can, and send a shout out if you care to.