So...what does the title of your blog mean?

I guess I have left you hanging long enough wondering what in the world does the title of this blog mean.  In fact, I have probably left you hanging for far too long.  I had intended to get back to blogging in just a few days, but I did not count on 2 employees at the library getting sick, conflicts between Windows 7 and several State of Georgia agency websites, open enrollment for the employee health care plan and the library's annual report.  Believe me, all those obstacles have not been overcome, but I decided to post a short blog before everyone (including me) loses interest.  So...back to the title of the blog.  Back in the late 1980's, a singer/songwriter named Mary Chapin Carpenter hit the charts with several very catchy songs.  Billed as a country singer, but sounding more like a folk singer, Carpenter was named the 1992 & 1993 Female Vocalist of the Year by the Country Music Association.  Her biggest hits included "Shut up & Kiss Me", "Passionate Kisses", "I Feel Lucky", "Down at the Twist & Shout", and the song from which the name of my blog came, "The Bug".  This song is about the ups and downs we encounter in life.  Sometimes we are on top of the world and then we fall to the depths of the valley.  As Mary Chapin Carpenter puts it "...sometimes you're the windshield and sometimes you're the bug."  Since my life has taken lots of unexpected twists and turns in the last five years, I thought that this philosophy would be a great title for my blog.  However, not to leave you with gloom and doom, here are the rest of the lyrics:

"You gotta know happy - you gotta know glad

Cause you're gonna know lonely and you're gonna know sad.

One day you got the glory and then you got none

One day you're a diamond and then you're a stone

Everything can change in the blink of an eye

So let the good times roll before we say goodbye."

How did I get into this?

So...what ever possessed me to start writing a blog?  Don't I have enough to do already without adding one more thing?  Well, apparently not because here I am.  The Librarian in me loves the written word.  The artist in me loves the creative part of the writing process.  The dreamer in me hopes that by sharing my thoughts, I will grow as a person.  The last five years of my life have been...what's the right word...tumultuous, life-changing, traumatic, eye-opening, overwhelming, unexpected, and challenging.  Many more words come to mind, but most of them are unprintable.  Starting with my near-death experience in an automobile accident in 2005, through Steve's diagnosis of lung cancer and his eventual death in 2007, and right up to my life today, my life has taken turns that I never could have imagined.  The inner strength that I thought I possessed simply evaporated when Steve died.  Now I am trying to rebuild my life and for some reason, on a Tuesday afternoon in late September, writing a blog seemed like a good way to start.  I have been reading the Brys family's blog since they moved to Switzerland last fall.  Jamie is my daughter's sister-in-law.  Her insights on raising two children have been heartwarming and her tales of traveling in Europe are enlightening.  This afternoon, I received a message from my daughter, Maggie, telling me that she had started a blog.  Reading her thoughts and observations just made me feel good.  So, I thought that I might give it a try.  What am I going to say in my blog?  I have no earthly idea!  I will probably ramble alot because I am still trying to "find" myself after everything that has happened in the last 5 years.  I hope to come to a new understanding of what it means to live and grow through adversity.  I will probably throw in a few interesting and entertaining stories about the happenings of a day in the life of a librarian.  That part will always be entertaining, because you never know what will happen at the public library where I work.  I hope this journey takes me from darkness to light, from despair to hope and makes us both smile along the way!