DAY ONE

And so it is my first day of blogging.

Day One is also a medical practice doing gastric bypass surgery and the name of the agency helping my 21 year old daughter who has cerebral palsy build a happy productive life when she leaves home to live on her own. Coincidentally, it is these two things, being overweight and the mom of a disabled child that lead me today to make this day one for myself too.

My oldest daughter has been encouraging me to blog because of the freedom it gives--writing down your deepest thoughts and musings and then setting them free to be viewed by anyone and everyone in the blogosphere. To get me going she even offered to show me her own blog which she said "nobody reads". It made me feel good that she would open herself up like that, but I turned her down as far as my reading it goes. It seems like an invasion of her privacy to me. Besides, she is such an open person who shares so much of her thoughts, dreams, fears, with me I didn't feel the need to enter her private world. But maybe I will ask her to see it someday. First i must prove to myself that I, too, can be a blogger.

Day after tomorrow I am leaving on a short trip to visit my daughter Annie in Bismarck, N Dakota. I'm taking Amtrack which means I'll be sitting for 17 hours or so. I'm only going for six days but that's a long time to leave my dogs and cat. I still need a suitcase. My daughter is a health reporter for the local NBC affiliate. I'm looking forward to going but I am stressed out about it, too. There is no way I would ever not go so why stress on it, I tell myself, because no matter what, I'm going.

The reason I CAN go is because my disabled daughter is away at summer camp. That's another whole source of worry and stress, too. In fact, I should be loading her mattress from home into the van right now because when I was at the camp on her birthday, the 21st a few days ago, I was appalled at the horrible mattress she is sleeping on. If she had not told me how bad her nights are on it, tho, I would not be making the trip later today--but she did and so I will. Its about 55 miles away. gotta go. more later.