Wonderful Wordsday

I have been writing from my little girls’ vantage point, but there I will stop. It’s one thing to post an occasional humorous bit about adolescence and a whole other thing to write an entire post about it. 🙂 My oldest son has said, “Mama, please don’t write about me on your blog. Total strangers have come to me at church and said, ‘Hey, I recognize you from your mom’s blog!’ and that is embarrassing!”

As we all know if we have any memory at all, one’s entire early-teen life is fuel for embarrassment. Having “Happy birthday” sung at fellowship meal is enough to make one wish to disappear. I am striving to be respectful to my boys and there I draw the curtain. I level with them when I want to post potentially incriminating details before I hit publish. This idea of handing them the spotlight for a day would never pass their filters for what is okay to write.

Once I met the daughter of Dorcas Smucker from Life in the Shoe. I have read her blog for years, so of course, I recognized her daughter immediately when she visited a friend at our church. I said those infamous words, “Hey, I think I recognize you…” and she finished for me with a little sigh, “…oh yeah, you probably read my mom’s blog.” Mrs. Smucker says she paid her children for especially good stories that begged to be told. That’s an idea, and one I may try on my easily embarrassed offspring in the future.

Today’s prompt for a post was to pick out some great words that are not really common and tell why you think they are interesting. I learned a few new words recently. The first is “blego” which is a blogger’s sense of importance online. I squirm with the suggestion of narcissism implied by blego and think maybe I would be a lot better off being completely anonymous. I would have name assignments for my children like First Son and Third Daughter and I could call my husband Sig-Other or something slightly more original than Hubby Dear. That would spare us any repercussions from too much blego, don’t you think?

I also learned about “digital dieting” which is a necessity ever since there is documentation that internet addiction exists and complicates people’s lives. A digital diet is when people limit their screen time and go for long walks to reconnect with nature, or force themselves to eat out without taking a single foodie photo to post on Instagram.

Last on my list of wonderful new words is one we all know we have needed for a long time. After all, “okay” is so generic, so unsatisfactory to convey the subtleties of layers of meanings we need to convey. So I think I will just go to bed now, mmkay?