secret diary

Gone, I suppose, are the days of a diary with a lock on the side. We would hide our little book under the mattress and place the key in a box in the back of the closet. It was completely taboo to read someone's journal. What has the world come to? Actually encouraging our friends to read about our daily lives? I'm not sure there will be much to read here of interest to anyone else, but this will be my attempt to capture an occassional glimpse into the lives of the Hale family.

My mother was not a journal writer. We have a brief, but hilarious, series of letters she wrote to her mother during a week long camping trip when we were small. It is one of the few pieces of writing we have of hers. (I don't know that she was a germ-a-phobe, per se, but I think she still liked her 4 small children to be pristinely clean for any photo opportunity that came along. It is hilarious to read of her Herculean effort to accomplish that level of cleanliness out in the northern California forest.) Anyway . . . my second mom is a wonderful woman who also in a Herculean effort got all 9 of us to adulthood. However she, too, is not a journal writer (unless she has a secret diary stashed under her mattress). She is a great mom and has had a fascinating life and it would be cool to read her thoughts and her take on the crazy, fun, complicated and wonderful life we all lived and survived together.

My sister and I have vowed to remedy this problem of omission and break the non-writing cycle. I think Lauri has done a much better job journaling and record keeping than I have. My writing efforts have been hit and miss over the years. So this blog is an attempt in my "hit and miss" pattern. We'll see how it goes.
I have been reading a few blogs recently. I have thoroughly enjoyed reading about our adorable neices and busy nephews and my very 'deep-thinking and way-smarter-than-me' friends. It is fascinating to read insights into the life of others. There are a lot of interesting people out there! But I still feel like I'm ignoring a taboo and reading secret diaries.