I feel that I should explain why I'm doing this. Why "blog?" Why the title "
Their mom, his wife, their teacher, and me?" Why spend even more time on the computer and not cleaning, or grading, or doing something else productive?
I need to write. That's all there is to it, I need to write. I teach 7
th graders in Texas. In 7
th grade, my students have to take the Writing
TAKS test and I have to
teach them how to write for it! More importantly, I have to teach them how to write for life. Teaching writing was NOT what I started out doing. I was going to be the fun,
creative History teacher, like Ms
Simpson at Campbell Jr High, way cool and fun and energetic and with all KINDS of ideas!!! Instead, I got a job teaching Language Arts, and it turned out to be my place in the world. It's my spot, I fit and I love it, I'm changing the world, at least I like to think I am. But, I am NOT a
writer! I have stories and loved to write them when I was a kid, but I don't
write. I haven't written ANYTHING since teachers assigned them to me. I write when I have to but that's not really true.
I write in my head ALL the time. Little dramas that unfold in my mind, for example; today as I was driving from the grocery story to my house with my son in the car I saw a truck. It looked, for a
millisecond, like my husband's truck. It wasn't, but I though . . .
Ooooh what if that was Eric and he was going of to meet some hussy (he would NEVER)? I could picture it in my head. I'd follow him to her house and watching him get out and give her a big smooch (that I couldn't picture, like I said he better NEVER). I would then park a house down and take Patton out of the car and point out his Daddy and tell him to go say hi.
Ohhhh so busted! Those
are the stories that I see in my head, though not all so melodramatic. I realized that if I really want to teach writing, I have to do it.
So I'm
writing.
I have no clue who is going to read this. Honestly, it will most likely be just me, but maybe, if I'm really lucky, I'll find my voice and I'll begin to feel like a writer and I might even share it, misspelled word and
run-ons be damned. Maybe it'll be a Julie/Julia thing and I'll become a famous
writer, but really ? ? ?
The other thing to explain, why the name? It's because: first I have to be their Mom; Ashlee, Joseph, and Patton, then I'm Eric's wife, then I'm a bunch of middle
schoolers teacher, and last and least, cause there's not much of me left, I'm me. A girl from Texas who wants to do
something that will last, something that someone will be proud off. Maybe?