My Blog: There and Back Again

I started a blog to get myself writing more.  Determined to get busy writing something, a thought, an introduction, a paragraph...an idea or wonderment at my world around me. I imagined my blog as the perfect tool to keep me ramblin' on.  Discipline was what I needed.  I would post pictures and graphics, quirky little anecdotes, lists of my favourite stuff, take fifteen minutes out of my day to just put down a few hundred words and keep my writing muscles flexing. No problem...I could fit that into my day.  

Unfortunately my blog got away from me......actually it was my life that picked up speed with another baby, family drama on both my husband's side and my own, health issues, the fodder that is raising a family......and so my blog was left behind as of my last post in September of 2010. I like a few of my first few posts....too long now I'm thinkin'....but still worth continuing on with.  I just couldn't keep up, couldn't get motivated, the thought of attracting a huge audience like the really serious blogs out there seeming impossibly daunting, scrolling, commenting and 'liking' on Facebook easier and less stressful than choosing my own topic and cranking out my own ideas about it. 

So here I am again....making a promise to my 3 official followers and whoever else accidentally landed here that I will visit here often.  I will not leave it so long between check-ins.  I would love to say fiercly that I will blog every single day but I know myself, I know my life, and so I won't do that to  myself.  It's what happened the first time round and has led me to here. Twice a week is more doable, more realistic so I'm going with that. 

So....what to write about?  What's the blog about really?  What does  From the Hip Mama have to talk about?  And who cares anyway? 

I've decided to always start with food.  I love food and my tooth of weakness is a sweet one so more than likely you will see a lot of pictures of cookies, cakes and ooey gooey. It will be my own photos....these are all my own photos on my blog.  After attempting to organize the My Pictures file on my computer recently it was obvious I have a habit of taking pictures of food be it out of my kitchen or growing from our trees out on our 4 acres of home.  I have a lot of shots of Thanksgiving turkeys covered in bacon strips and a buttery-kissed skin.  It's a beautiful thing......so I'm going with it.

These are Mexican Hot Chocolate cookies (thank you Martha Stewart) alongside my Banana Bread and a lone Nanaimo Bar from the Coombs Country Market.....place with the goats on the roof.....and when I posted this picture on my Facebook page I wondered what people might say....or  not say.  Found out most people like cookies.  "Delivery or pick-up?" commented one friend, "Wish I lived closer!" said another to which another friend 'liked'.  And my favourite comment of "Mmmmmmmm......"  finally sealed the deal for me.  Decided there and then that food was coming to my blog.  Because a blog should start out at least coming from a personal place don't y'all think?  Otherwise it's just trying to be 'liked' , trying for the sideways smiley-face or heart-shaped icon, it's looking for approval and feeding your pride, and it just ends up sounding forced and feeling unnatural.  And I'm not cool with forcing my words out. 

My Banana Bread is good.  Many people have told me so.  I've won a few blue ribbons at fall fairs with it so people with clipboards think so too so I suppose that proves it.  The proof for me is when my 20 year old stepson shows up with bags of frozen black bananas from his freezer and asks me nicely to please use them to make banana bread for him.  It's when my friend's twin boys gobble up my banana chocolate chip muffins and come back for more because ''They're just so GOOD!". It's when I hear from people that their banana bread just never comes out like mine.  It's my own.  And that's good.  We all need something of our own that no one else can duplicate or figure out.  My banana bread won't save the world but it's saved the day a few times at my house, started a conversation where there wasn't one before, has kept my kids in the kitchen beside me instead of plugged in somewhere, fills my house with the smell of comfort and home.

Hard to argue in a kitchen that smells great.  But that's just me........