I am a writer by trade. I get paid to write.  Ok, let me be specific.  I am a technical writer. I get paid to write manuals – user manuals.  Yes…boring, not-at-all creative user manuals.  This was not at all what I had in mind while sitting in Mrs. Bouma’s 7^th grade Language and Literature class and announcing (in my mind) that I was born to write.  The poems, short stories, essays, and memoirs that so many kids in my class languished over were, to me, quite thrilling and, frankly, I lived for every assignment.  I knew that year that I was destined to write forever.  Destiny, however, has a funny way of plopping you smack-dab in the middle of a life you never thought you would have. If you would have asked when I was 13 if I would consider a career writing assembly directions and user guides, I may have laughed in your face.  No, really…I was actually not a very “nice” girl in my formative years, but that is another story for another time. So, how did I end up here…with this life? Well…that is a story…a story I, myself am not exactly sure how to answer…at least not in this little intro.

I have thought about writing a blog for, well, a long time.  At times my Facebook posts are a blog in and of themselves.  This, of course, annoys me, because it is actually a pet-peeve of mine – but of course I have continued to fulfill my own pet-peeve – until now.  “The buck stops here.” I have no more excuses for run-on sentences and paragraph style posts on Facebook.  I’ll move my run-on sentences to this blog instead. J

My real hope is that through this blog, I will somehow remember where my roots were grounded.  I miss writing.  I knew a whole lot more about myself when I wrote it down on paper.  In some essence, I think I lost perspective of who I am as a person. What do I identify myself as?  I am a wife, but I don’t think that is what I would “say” I am.  I am a mom, but again, that is not my identifier.  I am a Christian.  Ok, so that is a HUGE aspect of who I am in a spiritual sense, but what about physically and emotionally? As previously stated, I am a technical writer, but that does not accurately describe “me.” I am a cook, a baker, and I have spent time as a homemaker (ooh…a rhyme), but…does that depict Kathleen J. Smith? Hmm…

So, to make an already long story short, this blog is so I can write…so I can creatively write. Actually, so I can just get beyond technical writing.  Ok, if I am really being honest it is so I can just chew on the flab in a more relaxed setting…but who really needed to know that.  If you know me, you know I like to talk.  Some talkers can’t write to save their lives, but me, on the other hand, give me a pen and I will tell you the whole story.  Probably tell you more than you want to know.  Maybe this will help give me the push to publish something (a dream of mine since that Language and Literature class), or maybe this will end up as just another foodie or mom-blog…which, by the way, I would be ok with.  For once, I don’t really have a plan.  This is unusual for me. So, bear with me, and let’s just see where it goes.