Backblogged - literally

Okay. So I stole this title from my best-friend-since-7th-grade's blog. Only she wasn't actually behind on her blogging. Just her life in general was crazy. Well, I submit that I am having both issues.

I am getting complaints, so my apologies that my blog is so annoyingly outdated (is anyone actually still checking?!?) I have sooo much to post about that I hope I can get to, but I will just start by explaining where the heck I've been as briefly as possible while still indulging my obsessive-compulsive tendency in journaling.

It all started with Christian's birthday. You see, I have this tradition of making myself stark-raving mad for the month leading up to Christian's birthday. Every year I produce a video that includes all the pictures, and some video from his previous year. Like a video scrapbook. Sounds simple enough, right? Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, no. It's pretty much the hardest thing I do all year long. Think finals week on crack, and it lasts at least 3 weeks. Every year I attempt to complete this project without making myself and my husband completely insane. Every year I fail miserably on both accounts. My loved ones BEG me to give it up. And yet I can't. I've decided that there is some sort of mental illness involved.

But this is my rationale (defense):

First of all, I am a little bit obsessed with all things personal and family history related - journaling, photos, etc. Case in point, I started keeping a journal in 5th grade and wrote EVERY SINGLE DAY (often for hours) until the end of eighth grade. I had 21 volumes by then. Nice, but not normal. It got to the point that I was practically writing more than living (definitely more than sleeping), and since I couldn't really do it halfway, my journaling kind of got dropped until college. I've never been as good since, but you can see the tendency to go overboard. Yes, it's true. Enjoy the raw honesty, folks. And next time on Dr. Phil...

Secondly, I am even more obsessed with my love and gratitude for my son. The video has become my way of expressing that love and gratitude by doing a yearly tribute to Christian. I simply just have way too much emotion and meaning wrapped up in it.

Finally, it's just cool. When it's finished, in spite of the fact that it's never as perfect as I wanted it to be (or obsessed over), it is so fun to have. And I know that we will treasure it forever. Oh yeah, and one more thing. I just want to capture this time forever and never, ever forget him the way he is right now. The video is my attempt to do that.

So there's my defense to all who are familiar with this unhealthy yearly exercise that causes me to pull at least 3 all-nighters each year and almost kills me. I won't stop, but I do promise to keep striving for balance. And hopefully I'll get good enough at it someday that it will go really fast!

So I got the video completed just in time to head off to Utah for one of the most fun-packed whirlwind trips I've ever had. We celebrated the 4th of July for several days and then had an early birthday party for Christian with my parents, sisters, and extended family.

The birthday party is a whole other stress-filled crazy woman story. Did I mention that I also write him a song every year? Oh, I almost forgot. Just to be clear, I don't compose music. Ever. But I do rewrite lyrics to existing songs. In this case, ever since Christian's first birthday, I have re-written the lyrics to "Happiness" from the musical You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown to include verses about Christian's personality that year, things we love to do with him, funny things he does, etc. Hopefully more about his party later.

After Christian's birthday and my extended trip to Utah, came my worthless surgery and annoyingly long recovery. That's another story as well.

Then it was my Grandma Simon's 80th birthday. I got the brilliant idea to start another major project and design an album online for her full of the heirloom pictures of her parents and and her family, their love letters to each other, etc. To skip the long story, this one didn't really end up working out in the end and was put off until Christmas. But to make up for it, I wrote her a tribute letter and -whatever possessed me? - wrote HER a song. I swear I don't do that a lot. That's another story too. It was kind of embarrassing because I had to sing it for her over the phone, and I was extremely nervous for various reasons, and then it didn't seem like she really liked it, so I felt stupid. But then my sister Lauren told me that she actually cried and everyone did like it, so I felt better. I just wanted her 80th birthday to be special.

And THEN it was my dad's 60th birthday. And I, of course, started another major project. I got all of his 8 siblings and his mother to write a letter of memories about my dad growing up (which involved lots of begging and nicely reminding my busy aunts and uncles). One of my aunts and one of my uncles spent hours and hours scanning and uploading old pictures for me to put in the album, for which I will be forever grateful. I'm actually still waiting for one more letter, so the book isn't completed yet, but it will be awesome once we get it printed. Lots of work, though. Still, how much work has my dad done on my behalf in my lifetime? I could hardly repay.

And now we have just come through a horrible stomach virus. And horrible is really an understatement. It's the worst I've seen in years.

So, travel, projects, insanity, surgery, swimming lessons, illness, various unnamed crises ranging from serious to not so serious but stressful all the same, Eric's birthday, and just run-of-the-mill craziness have kept me away from my blog. In short, I have been so busy living that I haven't had time to blog. So thanks to the two of you who have hung in there with me and still check. And I promise that there is much, much more to come... now that the birthdays are over.