Blogging 101, Assignment 1

It was with a bit of trepidation that I signed up for these assignments from WordPress, seeing as I usually only write when the phrases start scrolling through my head. Sometimes it’s the middle of the night and sometimes it is while I am on a solo walk that I get inspiration. A bit of discipline is a great thing though, so I will introduce myself to the world today, along with my blogging goals, as I have been instructed. 🙂

As a little girl skipping to the Amish school where my formal education started, I had no aspirations to be a writer. I just wanted to learn to read those letters that fascinated and scared the wits out of me whenever I looked at a book without pictures. I was fairly certain that reading would be too hard for me. Fortunately for all of us, we had an amazing teacher who pulled out our strengths. Even though she had about 30 students in four grades, she noticed us individually and managed to pull us all together in a joyous quest for knowledge. Once I could decipher the puzzling groups of letters in the books about Reuben and Rachel, I galloped along reading everything I could lay my hands on, including cereal boxes and shampoo bottles. Literacy was for me a portal with endless vistas to explore.

It has been about 30 years since the Amish school days, but I still think of myself as a learner. We are all apprentices of life, whether we like it or not. I have failed a lot of exams in my life, but I get to do them over until I pass. There are plenty of activities for my hands to do and unending conundrums for my head to figure out just here in my little house with my family.

My husband is my best friend and my encourager. When we got married 14 years ago, we didn’t know much, but we did know that whatever comes, we are in it together. I stand by him and he stands by me. Don’t try to get between us or we will raise our hackles and fight. We are blessed with five children, ranging in age from 4 to 13. Those life exams I referred to are mostly courtesy of the children. 🙂

Some may think the life of a stay-at-home mom to be impossibly restricting, and I have to admit, it is harder than I ever imagined. While my children are smallish I am “keeping” our home. I mean that both in the Biblical sense of a woman who stays at home and in the contemporary sense of someone such as a zoo keeper who keeps the habitat pleasant and cares for the animals. I consider this my life work, worthy of all my consideration.

Part of that consideration is homeschooling our children. Some days I love it and some days I hate it, but it does work really well with our lifestyle. My husband is an RN with odd 12 and 8 hour shifts and mandatory weekends as well. Our school days are flexible and vacations are always off-peak season so we can stay a family unit. Speaking generally, we like learning about stuff together. Research reports are a little “meh” says my oldest son. My personal enthusiasm for practicing the writing craft has not yet translated to my children.

I process life through writing. When I started blogging eight years ago, it was mainly to stay in touch with distant family members. Then I realized that I really liked having this record of our lives and the developments in them. Eventually it sort of became a record of God’s work in my heart, and now my blogging is a mash of all of the above.

One night I needed a new title, since my first blog “Living and Learning” was not working out. I sat at the computer, sorting through the innards of my shiny new WordPress site and got an idea. There was a bookcase of children’s books right beside me. What better way to give a nod to my insatiable love of books than to play with a title? “Make Way for Ducklings!” I thought. Alas, every variation of the title was already taken. How about “Mrs. Tiggywinkle”? Nah. She was too prickly. I wanted something easy to remember, which is how I came to “Wocket In My Pocket”. Thank you, Dr. Seuss. I like that wockets are anything. We have wockets everywhere around here. Lots of them are fun to write about.

I chose my tagline “looking for the unexpected in the mundane” because that is what I do. It takes conscious effort not to settle down among the clods in the mind-numbing mundaneness of laundry piles and sticky floors. I am trying to dust off the ordinary and find the shiny bits in life.

Nobody was more astounded than I was when I started to get loyal readers. It is the best part of blogging: getting feedback, hearing that what I wrote connected with someone else, feeling that putting my heart out there may have cheered another person on. Blogging is scary enough that I have considered quitting altogether many times. But here I am, still getting up early or staying up late to try to string words together in a compelling way. Thank-you for reading.