Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #547 - Blog recap & Octopus, it's NYE dinner!

Liesel fixing dinner - NYE - 1612.31

Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #547 - Blog recap & Octopus, it's NYE dinner!

Hi Mom, I have had so many huge photo albums lately that I decided to dial it back for a short entry today while I am at work on a monster entry of book reviews that I may split in two parts as I did before.

Liesel decided that we should have octopus for New Year's Eve dinner. I love octopus and squid, so this was a fantastic treat. I am also enjoying some delicious homemade ramen that Liesel made for dinner last night.

I can't believe I have such an amazing wife. I feel like I won the lottery every single day. I have no idea what I did to deserve this amazing person with whom I get to share my days.

Why octopus? Who knows. One of the great things about Liesel is that I can count on one thing: the unexpected. Liesel makes life fun, exciting, and never boring. Not that I can be bored. I refuse to allow boredom to exist in my world. But with Liesel, how can it?

I am also amazed that I am typing in entry #547 of Hey Mom. I never thought I would get this far. I may have fallen behind at times (FAR behind in November after the trip to Salem), but I have maintained more or less DAILY transmission of this enterprise since two days after your death, Mom, on July 4th 2015.

I like this daily exercise of conversations with you. It reminds me daily of how important you were to my life. It also gives me a creative outlet as I do not always have the time and gumption to write anything, fiction or otherwise.

Much of what I do here is re-posting the content that others create. I am okay with doing that. For one thing, it gives me a place to stash content for my own reading pleasure. If you, Mom, or you, dear reader, find enjoyment with any of the posts, I have succeeded. In fact, I feel a post is successful if one actual person (not a bot) clicks through to it and looks at it. Sometimes that person is just me, and that's okay. Sometimes the post gets a few hundred clicks, and that's VERY okay even if over half of them are bots because if it gets 247 clicks and 100 bots that is still 147 clicks by people, real people. Modest compared to Scalzi's blog or Doctorow's Craphound, but then I cannot spend all day writing like they do. Actually, I think both Scalzi and Cory Doctorow enjoy more down time each day than I do. At least, that's what I think from watching their online activity.

I am rather proud of my blog work. I had intended to close out this Hey Mom as a daily feature after 365 days, and then because of my sister's encouragement, I just kept going. Now I am marking the passage of blog entry day #547 and days since your death of 549, Mom.

This blog exercises my creative muscle. I get some original writing done. I get some attention from readers (thank you, all two of you). I get to learn new things. I get to save things in an easy to find place to read later. And I get to promote and/or acknowledge things I care about in a very direct way.

It's been a good run.

I have no plans at the moment for when I will cease daily transmission. Maybe I don't. I have used the holiday break to stash many re-posts so I am better able to fill in days that I am too busy to do much of anything. But I am also working on new original content. Stay tuned.

I know you are proud of me, too, Mom. I can feel it, and it means a lot to me.

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Reflect and connect.

Have someone give you a kiss, and tell you that I love you.

I miss you so very much, Mom.

Talk to you tomorrow, Mom.

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- Days ago = 549 days ago

- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 1701.04 - 10:10

NOTE on time: When I post late, I had been posting at 7:10 a.m. because Google is on Pacific Time, and so this is really 10:10 EDT. However, it still shows up on the blog in Pacific time. So, I am going to start posting at 10:10 a.m. Pacific time, intending this to be 10:10 Eastern time. I know this only matters to me, and to you, Mom. But I am not going back and changing all the 7:10 a.m. times. But I will run this note for a while. Mom, you know that I am posting at 10:10 a.m. often because this is the time of your death.