I'm popping in to say hello on a Saturday. I know, I know... crazy. After running some errands earlier, Mike and I spent a lovely afternoon next door at a cookout at our neighbors' house. They have a fantastic group of friends who we've gotten to know in the four years we've lived here, and we always have a great time when we hang out at their house. We spent the afternoon laughing and enjoying watching the kids run around. Kids are more entertaining than movies or TV any day.

So I've been thinking about my blog a lot lately. Don't worry, I'm not going anywhere. I read a comment somewhere recently (don't recall where offhand) where someone was saying that they hated when bloggers apologized for not posting. Gosh, I'm guilty of that... a LOT. Well, that got me to thinking. That and reading Somerset Studio's new magazine, Artful Blogging.

I've been doing a lot of thinking about why I blog. Why I enjoy it. And how, since this blog is for ME, I don't have to apologize to anyone when I don't post. I don't have to apologize to anyone when I don't have freebies. I don't have to apologize to anyone when I talk way more about Neil Finn than a person should (although, frankly, I don't think it's possible to have too much Neil, well, EVER). These things are hard for me to admit. I'm a Virgo. I'm anal retentive. And very demanding of myself. A perfectionist, if you will.

I've been reminding myself the past few days that this blog is something I do for fun. It's something I do for me. The fact that there are people reading it is way cool, but that's not why I blog. Blogging for me is my version of journaling. I never kept a diary or a journal growing up, but I have come to realize, in the almost year and a half of blogging I've been doing, that I really enjoy the process. I love just popping on here to babble about whatever. I've always been a writer, and being able to do something for me, with words, is just yummy. And necessary.

It's been a trying week. The computer shift (old to new) took a lot of time and effort. I was forgetting to smell the flowers a lot this past week. I've been in a bit of a funk anyway (hormonal mostly) and missing my Grandma a lot lately. I think about her every day. I have things that I want to tell her about and stuff that I want to show her. Things that happen that I know she would find funny. And I can hear her laugh in my head. I've been dreaming dreams with her in them really frequently. I find this both reassuring (because I've gotten to see her) and very sad, because I wake up and she's gone.

The other night, we were going to bed, and I'd opened the windows in the bedroom since it had gotten cooler outside. I could hear the crickets outside... they were really loud. And I said to Mike that the sound of crickets reminds me of my grandparents' house. I have very fond memories of visits to my grandparents' house when I was growing up, and we'd often sit out on their screened-in porch after dark, rocking in those chairs made out of that webbed criss-crossed material on metal frames. They'd often be squeaky. And the crickets, oh, the crickets would be loud because it was summer. Sometimes you could hear the bullfrogs at the creek a few doors down.

And we'd sit out there for hours sometimes. Telling stories. Talking. Laughing. The sound of crickets makes me think of those wonderful times. The sound of crickets the other night made me think of my Grandma. And it actually made me smile... to have such wonderful memories of time I got to spend with her.

Isn't it so very cool how small details can ignite memories like that?