There are days when I wonder: why blog?
It opens you up to criticism and opinion and a whole new world of insecurity.
Sometimes it feels a bit like a club I'll never quite be part of. The "big" blogs, the ones with big public profiles and thousands of readers, are, for me, at the same time inspiring and intimidating. Some days I just can't believe how productive these women are. How perfect their photos.
When I come home from a day of work and just manage to get dinner on the table, the kids bathed and storied and songed and bedded and I'm hanging out the washing at 9pm, I look up some of my favourite blogs and they are full of the fabulous knitting and sewing projects people finished in one day, the perfectly arranged (and clean) corners of a perfectly gorgeous house, the fabulous food shots, photographed perfectly in natural daylight. Young children photographed playing happily with organic wooden toys or out in the woods and multiple older children all being successfully homeschooled, and I admit, it can inspire and depress me in equal parts.
But today.
I was walking through the supermarket, trailing Henry, consequently carrying three things I did not go into the supermarket to buy, and I bumped into a lovely friend of mine, also shopping.
She was holding a recipe and buying the ingredients - and it was my recipe.
She'd seen it here and decided to make it.
And THAT's why I blog.
I hope I never irritate you.
I hope you never look me up here and feel in any way inadequate.
My house is rarely clean and my children watch TV while I'm cooking dinner.
I struggle to finish any project (you may have noticed) and set myself too many, all the time. (See side list.)
But the fact that one person might look up a recipe here and go make it, makes it completely worthwhile. My food itself is lowly and unsophisticated and my food photography is usually rushed and there's certainly never any whiteboards used to reflect light or anything fancy.
But I do really care about what you're eating and the trouble you're having getting your three year old to eat vegetables and your one year old to eat anything but fruit. I really GET the whole question of whether you cook one meal or two (kids + adults) and how to encourage kids who won't eat breakfast/bread/beans to eat something.
I love making stuff when I get around to it, and I love talking about my family and asking for feedback on things like classic movies (thanks so much for the lists of films! We're going to be all set!)
Thanks thanks thanks for tuning in.
I'm so glad you're here.
xxx
