Why do you love doing what you do?

Like writing. And laundry, lol! That's when I came up with the idea for this post. Because sometimes we are enthralled with certain activities, even the boring things. Like laundry.

Actually the title popped into my head earlier today while I was 1) Doing laundry. And 2) In the middle of writing a chapter. Then of course there's quilting, but lately that's fallen to the back of the pile mostly because I still have a wound on my arm covered in Aquaphor that has stained one shirt to the point it's now for when I eat chili or some other stain-worthy dish. So I can't hand-quilt, though my cranky shoulder is better, whew....

Yet I stare at my collected thread basket in the evenings, thinking back to my, ahem, younger years (BIG LOL) when I could sew at will. For now, quilting isn't what I'm talking about, though if you want you can lump it alongside writing as creative things I love to do.

Um, what about blogging, Past Me quips.

Oh uh, yeah, I nod, looking around for Future Me. Usually they hang around together, well, they show up at the same time. Yeah, I concur, I do like blogging.

It's not like fiction writing, Past Me notes thoughtfully.

No, but it's very satisfying in an, uh, a uh, hmmm. Why do I like blogging so much?

Because it's writing off the cuff, shooting from the hip. Well, don't write shooting, Past Me smirks nervously.

I nod, though I have written it. I wonder if someday when Past Me is Present Me will I see this, shake my head, and write it again anyways.

Anyways.... Why do I like writing blog posts? Or doing laundry, for that matter. Laundry is pretty mindless, once you sort the colours. In the washer, out of the washer, into the dryer, out of the dryer. Think of a title, scribble some lines, attach a photograph, there's a blog post. I wrote yesterday, here I am, writing again today.

Past Me smirks, nods, then shrugs. But why, she asks sincerely.

When I was a kid, I didn't feel like people listened to me. I felt isolated, and in a bad way. For a couple of years, my siblings and I were, well, trapped in a house with our alcoholic mother. Maybe that's TMI, but it's also a huge basis for my adult personality, in appreciating COMMUNICATION. The funny thing is now the world being as crank-minded as it is, I don't have the comments turned on here. But maybe that makes it easier for readers, who can peruse all this blah, blah, blah and not feel like they have to respond. Which isn't that conducive to communicating. More it's me giving my ten cents because two cents these days isn't worth squat and you the reader, well, you're reading these words and can do with these thoughts what you will. No one gets hurt, no one leaves feeling they weren't listened to because if you truly wish to leave a comment, you can email me at annascottgraham at gmail dot com.

But only if you want to.

I've had a private blog for over twenty years that began because our youngest daughter at the time was doing a year of American high school living with my husband's sister in the Midwest. She took chemistry, which neither myself or my better half had any wish to teach any of our kids (we were living in the UK and homeschooling, FYI) and while we missed our daughter terribly, she enjoyed herself, came home for Christmas, then again the following June, and then a couple of years later we all moved back to America. But while that eldest was away, she hooked me up with blogging, a way for her to know what was going on at home and a way for me to get my ya-ya's OUT. I don't blog there much anymore, mostly because I'm pretty loquacious here, haha, but I can look back on those years, especially the first few, which were our last couple dwelling in England, and be reminded of things for which my brain no longer has room.

And let me tell you, there's a LOT of those things, Species 8472 notwithstanding.

So yeah, I like sharing what's happening in my life with anyone willing to read about it. I like talking about the writing, of which I did today, and if this post wasn't already so long, I'd attach an excerpt because the current tale I'm telling is one I'm kinda in love with, why it's gone from a short story to fourteen completed chapters, ahem, with at least two or three remaining. Maybe four, and if that's the case, I won't finish it this week. But that's okay because it's something I do for myself because I LOVE doing it. I do the laundry because if I don't, we go around in dirty clothes. And having done the laundry as a kid, I had to walk ten or fifteen yards outside to the wash-house where the washer and dryer lived, as well as an old chest freezer. Sometimes the washer didn't work, but thankfully the chest freezer always did. So traipsing to the laundry room within one's own home is pretty easy-peasy compared to trekking to the wash-house, or taking heaps of clothes to a laundromat.

Maybe it's all about perspective. I don't iron clothes, though I try to fold t-shirts right after they come out of the dryer. My husband is a help with putting away clothes, so that's not really all on me either. And ONE of these days the biopsy wound on my arm will heal and I'll be able to hand-quilt again, woo hoo!

While checking for eggs, I found the fawns and Mum back by the chicken coop. Still pretty amazing they like hanging around close to an outbuilding.

Until that happens, well, there's working on books, checking on hens (Nadia aka Puffy is still in the Broody Hen condo, bless her!), keeping watch for fawns, who we saw today poking around blackberry bushes, and writing blog posts. And if there's something in your life you just LOVE doing, I'd LOVE to hear about it. Or just keep doing it to the best of your ability as long as it doesn't hurt you or others.

No idea where Past Me went, so with that, time to put away a stack of socks. Have a wonderful Tuesday out there.