And now, an independent assessment of my blog practice.

I spent the day with my daughters, shopping for a wedding dress for the younger. We were driving to our next appointment. I was furtively checking page views on my blog. Then this hilarious conversation, in which my progeny interpellates me about the subjects which move me to write on my blog:

Younger daughter: I hope you blog about this tonight, Mom.

Me: I'm sure I will!

Older daughter, casting a sidelong glance: Mom's like a teenager...always looking at her phone.

Me: (laughs, closes phone with a righteous guilty conscience. Busted.)

Younger daughter, not to be deterred: I'm not around all the time, so I'm not in the blog as often.

Older daughter: Listen, she never writes about me, and I'm the one who's here all the time!

Me: (inarticulate protest--what!?) Hey. Hey! I write...

Older daughter: She'll write about her garden. Work. And a hot day, you'll always write about that.

(a couple hours later: we're talking about the wedding, which is in December. My Scotland daughter will be arriving on the 11th:)

Me: I gotta make sure my grading's done.

Older daughter (who totally has my number): Oh, grading. You'll also always blog about that.

One thing about writing a blog for a really really really really long time: I never want to have experiences just so I can blog about them, but that's a risk you take when you write forever--that your experience starts to assume the dimensions of a potential blog post. That can feel a little cheap, and I don't want the people I hold most dear to feel that way to me. It's a little conundrum, though, because I also like going through this blog to remind me of things I once experienced--so if I haven't blogged about something, that failure is just one more chance that my actual experience will be absent. Maybe this is what Socrates was talking about in the Phaedrus, when he expressed his apprehension that writing would cause a deterioration of memory. Also, I recognize that this is not a real problem. But it does feel worth it to reflect upon it.

Well! never let it be said that the just opinion of my splendid daughters does not matter to me. So: we had a beautiful day, the three of us plus the baby, discussing the merits of this and that dress, and ultimately finding an absolutely beautiful one. It felt so special, that we could do this together. We cried, we laughed, we had a fancy lunch. We drank refreshing beverages from a drive through. My daughter, the bride to be, is radiant and lovely and so happy. My daughter, her older sister, is wise and witty and beautiful. Naomi was as patient as an infant could possibly be.

At the end of the day, we went to a park and ate dinner with a big proportion of the family present--talked about the wedding tomorrow, listened to and watched the kids play.

For today, I will not say a word about my garden. If the day was warm, who had time to notice? (and also I am not working nor am I grading this summer.)

Just being with my beloveds, and that is good enough for this blog.