Blogging and I haven't been having a love affair lately.
There's been lots of reasons for that - kids, jobs, life - but mostly, my words have been missing.
A couple of weeks ago, in an effort to figure out exactly what the problem was, I pulled out a few sparkly coloured pens and some butchers paper, and started mind mapping.
During the process, I found some answers to other questions, and then got distracted by kids again, and brushed everything aside for a while, and dwelt on the answers.
All of a sudden, it occured to me - the stories were missing.
I forgot my core reason for blogging - that I'm capturing the stories of our lives for my children.
The story of these photos being in black and white because I changed the white balance on the camera to take photos of Natalie's birthday cake on Saturday night, and forgot to change it back, so most of the photos from the beach are tinged blue and I don't know how else to fix them.
The story of Natalie's best friend staying for a sleepover on Saturday night. The story of Steve asking her if she ever had breakfast at the beach, and her response "we never go to the beach for breakfast, but sometimes we have McDonalds, or fish and chips"
The story of his subtle cranky teenage ways; until he realises he's having fun. Just like another teenager we know.
The story of her exploring, discovering that salt water tastes awful, that she can splash with her hands, but splashing with her feet leads to falling over; and dad is always there to catch her.
I can't think of better reasons to blog.
* Natalie's tears were because Douglas threw away a cuttlefish without showing her. Not thirty seconds later, she was on the hunt for seaweed for sandman hair.
linking up with Essentially Jess for IBOT