Birthing a blog

A dear friend of mine (and co-worker) likes to give people nicknames. At work once, she met a new employee and said, "Your name is Roger? I think we have enough of those here. Let's call you Larry instead."

And so we did. And still do. She could always get away with stuff like that.

When I was pregnant with my first, she started calling me "Schumama" - now I've adopted it as the name of my blog. Look what she's gotten away with again.

Besides her nicknaming talent, my friend also taught me to seek out fun where I am. When we first met,  I was an anxious, perfectionist mess taking myself too seriously in a new job. She wore Converse to work and led sing-a-longs from her cubicle. We were good for each other. Today, we still are. 'Cause I revert to my serious, worrisome self more often than I care to admit. I forget to live in the moment. I measure time and tasks against a self-determined efficiency quota. I make plans.

Then God surprises me with new plans.

I need a blog to hold me accountable to abandoning my over-planned self. The one who might miss the joy in a situation. The one who forgets to make her own fun.

And because I so very much love to write.

The last time I wrote a personal blog, I was recording moments in Haiti. Writing that blog was never work and always inspiring. I want to feel like that again. But you put yourself out there when you blog.  Serious Me doesn't much like that. But Fun Me reminds me to keep it real. The birth of this blog didn't take nine months, but two years of wondering if I had anything to say at all.

Fun Me said, "Just say it."

From this site, I'll document my family's journey and talk about the world from our little space in it. Stay tuned, friends new-and-old, close-and-far.