In the beginning...

Funny thing happened on the way to the web...
I started a blog.

For technology the way it has advanced since I was in high school using Apple IIe computers to today, from a textual Internet only to what we have with social media, I have remained staunchly opposed to all of it.  I don't My Space or Facebook or send out tweets.  I don't have my own website or pretend to know a lot about HTML, but the engagement of my activity in such things and the genesis of this Blog is a simple one.  Here's the story.

When my first daughter, Grace Carole, was born on June 20, 2010 it was the most wonderful moment of my life.  There was a new found love and joy that consumed me and in the coming months ahead, it only grew exponentially.  Grace was just that, a blessing from God and my wife, Kristy, and I have never been the same.  One day while we were in a Starbucks nested inside the local Target, feeding Grace, a man, a stranger, that was sitting at the adjacent table said that we should cherish these moments forever.  Well duh, we are parents, why would we not?  What he was driving at was a practice that was suggested to him when his kids, now much older, were born: get yourself a journal and write down all of the good and bad moments.  When you are feeling blue, read back over them and it will lift your spirits.  So that is what we did, we went to Barnes & Noble and got our self a nice notebook and started writing every day.  We took turns, some days she would write, and others I.  We even had the Grandparents and God Parents write her a passage to commemorate the occasion of their first visits to us as a family.

As time went on, daily writing became weekly summaries and the weekly summaries became a calendar that I was updating with events in the hopes that I would go back and capture the moments again.  There is nothing like writing when you are inspired and capturing the moment when it is fresh and still real.  Well Grace turned a year and I look back with the guilt that I never finished the year writing.  In fact my last entry is for the week of 12/12/2010. 

Not soon after Grace was born, Kristy and I learned that she was pregnant again, due August 7, 2011 with our second.  We, like with Grace, found out in advance and it was to be a baby girl.  She, also like Grace, came early and was born on July 18th, 2011.  As if the guilt of not finishing the journal for Grace wasn't bad enough, what was I going to do about Abby?  Would I start that task again.  I lost time and motivation with one kid in the house, how was two going to make the task any easier?  I can hardly shower every day let alone write in a book after the two of them are finally down for the night. 

Snap to another story real quick...
I have a good friends that since 1988, we have been writing letters, yes postal mail, ever since he moved away from my home town.  We lost touch rarely and took breaks hardly.  Our longest was when he moved back in to the area and attended the same college as me for a bit.  We had lunch every other day, why did we need to write?  There was a long break and I had moved, so not having kept any of his letters, I no longer had his address.  I tracked him down only to find that he had moved in with his sister after his father's passing and, obviously had a new address.  The letters started up anew.  But once Grace was born., the time between receiving his correspondence and me replying got longer and longer.  And here is the point of the story: he finally wrote me an e-mail to my work and we started up again, electronically.  I spend nine hours a day in one seat at work and so this was the best way for me to be good about replying regularly and frequently. 

And that is where I got this idea to start Abby's journal in the form of a Blog.  I can write on my lunch at work, be good about writing every day and wah-lah, guilt gone, problem solved.

So Abby, when you are old enough and interested enough, this is for you.  Sorry in advance Grace if this keeps up longer than the journal did.

-Dad