On blogging

That last entry took off like a lead balloon. I guess that's just how it will be from time to time. You can't come up with something brilliantly insightful, interesting, or just plain entertaining every time you write. I feel like this blogging thing may be just another hobby that I try out on a whim, this time at the urging of a fellow blogger. I thought about it for a few weeks before jumping into blogland. I finally decided that blogging would be good brain exercise. Really. Brain exercise. I told my DH way back when I became a SAHM that I needed to find some resource that provided research-produced exercises for different areas of the brain--areas that tend to be underused (which we would only know about from the neurology research, of course) when your most common activities are playing pat-a-cake and putting shape toys in the shape sorter so that your baby can take them all out again and start over, all while watching every rerun TBS can show of the Cosby Show and Fresh Prince of Bel Air. (And that's all before 2pm.) I have been free from my workforce job for over four months now. (Woohoo!) That's four months without having reason to write anything other than thank you notes (which I am so behind on it is just nauseating) and daily correspondence via email to my dear friend. My reading had become limited to parenting and child magazines, propaganda sent to my mailbox by Gerber, and rare BabyCenter newsletter articles of interest. (I have since attempted a Nick Hornby novel that fell flat and am now well on my way toward finishing a home maintenance method book called Sink Reflections.) My adult conversations include the morning "Don't forget to [fill in the blank] today", early evening supper plan/"when are you coming home from work today?" phone call, and bedtime "oh, I forgot to tell you..." episodes with my DH. Doing math in my head is worse than ever. And I am shamefully dependent on the spell check these days. My brain needs a good workout! I tried reading daily my friend's brilliantly insightful blog (Among the Ruins), at the urging of my DH, but I find that my mind cannot process adequately to absorb deep thought anymore. It was WORK to read it, which was frustrating b/c I could see how important and interesting it would be to me if only I could get past the words! (I am still encouraging my brain to work on that.) Anyway, I haven't found that well-researched neurological resource providing me with a system of brain exercises (someone should make one! people would buy that...tell them it would make them live longer, more active lives and they would totally buy that!), so I figure it is up to me to vary my activities to activate different areas of my brain. Perhaps I should do some research to discover what the different areas of my brain are supposed to be doing. And what would exercise them. In the meantime, I will just keep blogging and singing the Itsy Bitsy Spider.