apparently, i'm a tease

so yes, i blogged last week, and then silence once again. and then i got an email saying that i was a blogging tease (point taken) and another couple of emails saying, "wait- i thought you were going to blog again?"

i was. i didn't.

i think blogging is like exercise- when you're in the practice of doing it, it just becomes part of your day. but once you take a couple of breaks suddenly you've fallen off the bandwagon for huge gaps of time. so here i am. blogging.

i almost don't know what to write about. we've had plenty going on that i could post about. the last couple of months have been very full - celebrating our ninth anniversary of marriage, knocking out a bunch of new cards for papyrus, juggling two schools for m, trying to catch up with ruby who is into everything all at once (and speedy as can be), finishing my studio, getting ready to have someone come live in our third bedroom & then having that put on the back burner, a four day work trip sans children, painting the exterior of the house, co-planning and making all of m's school's art projects for their annual benefit...

so here i sit, with writer's block. half-way through a post and i haven't said much at all. kind of like when you finally get back to the gym and can't exactly decide where to start.

maybe that's ok, i guess.

lately i've been really hard on myself for not accomplishing more in a day.

a few weeks ago on npr i heard a snippet of a woman talking about how there are two types of work- productive and reproductive. in very general shorthand, productive work is making something tangible- it has historically been men's work. (like productive work would be going to build a bridge, or make a financial deal, or do something businessy- uh, you can tell that is not my realm) reproductive work on the other hand is work that is neverending and reproduces as soon as you've "accomplished" it- feeding children, laundry, cleaning. historically it has been women's work, and even jobs outside the home have been reproductive jobs for women- nursing, teaching, etc. essentially, raising kids is one whole bucket of reproductive work for 18+ years. you feed, bathe, clothe, discipline and change them, and then start all over the next day. and even if you have a job where you do "productive" work all day, you come home to a whole lot of reproductive work. for women especially, it can be very discouraging that you feel like you are working all the time but with no end in sight, since much of reproductive work still falls on women's shoulders to accomplish.

(i cross this bridge three days a week to drive m an hour to her deaf school. 

that's 6 times a week, only to do it again next week.)

so, the point of all this is to say- even though i've gotten a lot of productive work done the last few months, because i am surrounded by reproductive work that just piles up again infinitely (like dishes in the sink, dirty laundry, a floor that needs to be cleaned, a bathroom that's dirty again three hours after i cleaned it, snacks and lunches for the kidlets, etc), it feels like i haven't gotten much of anything done. but i have. and that's what i need to remember. even when it feels like a whole day has gone by and i'm exactly where i started, just more tired.

as i write this, i'm realizing that this blog is a spot in my day where i can see a tangible, finished thing when i press the publish icon.
so maybe i should be doing more of it.
just saying.