Blogging--a funny word--actually it is short for web-log. It’s a place where one may write entries on the world wide web. One can keep a log, a diary, or a journal here. My daughter, Ellen Mallernee Barnes, a professional writer, has a blog, where she writes about her life, family, interests, hobbies, etc. Here's the link to it: blackandwhiteandlovedallover.
From his smart phone one day at lunch, my friend Brian read me my daughter’s blog entry from Tucson and Sedona, where her family was on a trip. It fascinated me to hear about a day of her trip. Of course, I had gotten texts and occasional phone calls from the trip, but the blog was much more detailed, and it had these wonderful pictures. Most everywhere I go now-a-days, someone comments on how much s/he is enjoying Ellen’s blog. Her blog gets a lot of “traffic.” And there are wonderful pictures on the blog. So now I read Ellen's blog with regularity.
Since 1972, I had taught high school English in Cheatham County, Tennessee, and now I luxuriate in being retired. But even longer than being a teacher, I have been a "contemplative," one who ponders on and meditates about all sorts of things. I suppose my thinking deeply about things is what drew me to teaching English in the first place. And certainly my contemplating hasn’t stopped with my not teaching.
In the first two years of my retirement, I wrote letters to the editor of our local newspaper South Cheatham Advocate on some local educational issues, and I wrote a few columns on such topics as growing older, being a grandmother, and adopting Kingston Springs as my hometown. As a matter of fact, there was a year or so when I was still teaching that I wrote a regular column in the Advocate. And of course, I used to share my writing and certainly my thoughts with my students. Yes, I enjoy writing!
So my daughter Ellen gave me the gift of setting up a blog for me, and I propose to write regularly again. This time my thoughts will appear at least once a week in this blog. Because as I told my friend when I met him for lunch yesterday to celebrate his 60th birthday, "welcome to the no bull-shit decade!" I, myself, am 64 now, and one thing that I want to grapple with on this blog is this "second half of life." Our American society/culture has lots of rites of passage for the first fifty years of life: graduating from high school (and college), landing a job/career, getting married, having children, getting that first home, getting that raise/promotion, starting your own business, raising children, having the children graduate, etc. Then retiring. So what are the "rites of passage" for the next fifty years or so of life, from 50 to 100? So stay tuned, dear friends!
From his smart phone one day at lunch, my friend Brian read me my daughter’s blog entry from Tucson and Sedona, where her family was on a trip. It fascinated me to hear about a day of her trip. Of course, I had gotten texts and occasional phone calls from the trip, but the blog was much more detailed, and it had these wonderful pictures. Most everywhere I go now-a-days, someone comments on how much s/he is enjoying Ellen’s blog. Her blog gets a lot of “traffic.” And there are wonderful pictures on the blog. So now I read Ellen's blog with regularity.
Since 1972, I had taught high school English in Cheatham County, Tennessee, and now I luxuriate in being retired. But even longer than being a teacher, I have been a "contemplative," one who ponders on and meditates about all sorts of things. I suppose my thinking deeply about things is what drew me to teaching English in the first place. And certainly my contemplating hasn’t stopped with my not teaching.
In the first two years of my retirement, I wrote letters to the editor of our local newspaper South Cheatham Advocate on some local educational issues, and I wrote a few columns on such topics as growing older, being a grandmother, and adopting Kingston Springs as my hometown. As a matter of fact, there was a year or so when I was still teaching that I wrote a regular column in the Advocate. And of course, I used to share my writing and certainly my thoughts with my students. Yes, I enjoy writing!
So my daughter Ellen gave me the gift of setting up a blog for me, and I propose to write regularly again. This time my thoughts will appear at least once a week in this blog. Because as I told my friend when I met him for lunch yesterday to celebrate his 60th birthday, "welcome to the no bull-shit decade!" I, myself, am 64 now, and one thing that I want to grapple with on this blog is this "second half of life." Our American society/culture has lots of rites of passage for the first fifty years of life: graduating from high school (and college), landing a job/career, getting married, having children, getting that first home, getting that raise/promotion, starting your own business, raising children, having the children graduate, etc. Then retiring. So what are the "rites of passage" for the next fifty years or so of life, from 50 to 100? So stay tuned, dear friends!
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