So today I’m making my debut in the Carnival of Beauty. The Carnival of Beauty is a weekly collection of blog posts written by Christian women from around the net. There’s a specified theme each week and anyone who meets the criteria is welcome to submit a post. This week’s theme is the Beauty of Aging Gracefully and is hosted by Carol at She Lives. Check it out!

You may have heard about Michelle Duggar who gave birth to her 16th child last week. I think it’s great but I just can’t even wrap my brain around that. How. In the world. Is that possible? I’d like to sit down with Michelle and pick her brain because I imagine I’d learn enough from her in one hour than I would in 10 years of my piddly life.

I’m feeling better and I’m so ready to be blogging again and wouldn’t you know it, I can’t think of anything to blog about. I guess this is what they call blogger’s block—it’s like writer’s block but that’s not what I have because I’m not a writer. To think of myself as a writer is enough to give me extraordinary stress. I hate writing. Always have. Always will. Blogging is fundamentally different. Blogging is simply exposing the nonsense going on in my brain. Writing is far more deliberate, classy and meaningful.

So, I’m thinking to myself, if blogging is “simply exposing the nonsense going on in my brain” and I have nothing to blog about, it begs the question: Where has all the nonsense gone?

I’ll keep you posted.

I’m slowly surfacing from the deep. I think.

Just thought I’d make an appearance. I’m in the process of thinking through some answers to a few questions some of you have asked. I’ll be posting my thoughts as soon as I can be on the computer for more than two minutes without getting nauseated.

Blogging is a weird form of communication. (By the way, for those of you who don’t realize it, what you’re reading is a blog.) It’s mostly one-sided of course. In fact, the majority of the time I feel like I’m just talking to myself. What’s really interesting is that it’s like I’m talking to myself but I’m doing it in front of the world. Kind of like those scenes in the movies where a psychiatric patient is put in a room by themselves and then there’s a second room full of people standing behind one-way glass “observing” said psychiatric patient. Creepy, no? And what makes it creepier is to think that I KNOW THERE ARE PEOPLE WATCHING ME AND I AM FREE TO LEAVE THIS ROOM AT ANY TIME AND YET I CHOOSE TO STAY.

Hmmm. But now I understand why my mother, when I explained a blog to her, crumpled up her face, furrowed her brow, made me think she wanted to curl up in the fetal position and said, “Oh Aim. Don’t you feel…exposed?” Funny, though—she thinks I’m a nut for blogging and yet it doesn’t stop her from reading the darn thing. Now that’s unconditional love people.

My husband and I celebrated 8 years of marriage yesterday. It has not been a cake walk, people.

Worth it? Yes. Easy? No. But I digress.

OK, so last night as we sat eating Middle Eastern food (he had lamb, I had falafel…not that you care), we came to a disturbing conclusion: We do not know how to have fun.

This is not a new problem. In fact, in our first year of marriage, one of our friends pointed out the issue and proceeded to give us about 50 board games in an effort to stoke the fires of fun. It backfired. Playing a game means someone will lose. One of us (that would be me) does not like losing, so you can imagine how our “fun game nights” ended when I didn’t win (not that I lost a lot, of course).

So, I turn to you, dear readers (all 3 of you). We need your help. We’re looking for your fun-filled ideas. We ain’t rollin’ in the dough, you’ll remember, so it’s gotta be cheap—free would be better.

And don’t suggest sex. We already know about that one.

If you’ve been reading the blog at all the last few days and it seemed to be freaking out, it was. That’s because I have been FIGHTING with the dumb layout and it has been DRIVING ME CRAZY throughout the process. I think things are finally under control.

The only thing I’ve got to say is that Internet Explorer has been known to do WEIRD things to websites. So, if you’re reading this and it looks very bad—like the text is way over to the left, for example—it’s because you’re using Internet Explorer and you should get a new browser (in my opinion). I recommend Firefox. It’s free.