All that's fit to print

Or so I thought it was.  Yes, as I mentioned, I got a hard copy of the first year and a half of the "Chairman and company".  It was almost surreal thumbing through the pages.  I definitely remember writing some posts. I vaguely remember others.  And didn't remember some of them at all.  One of the MYP spent over an hour in the chair reading and snickering and laughing and occasionally asking me 'why did you write that about me and post it????'.  Well when they were younger, it seemed ok at the time.  She also asked why I didn't blog when they were babies.  Well frankly my dear tween, I don't think blogs even existed then and I didn't have enough time to get a shower before 3:30 in the afternoon when the neighbor girl would come over to watch the three babies so I could go get a little hygiene.

I found some of the entries to be bland and boring.  Some almost riveting.  Some embarrassing.  Some tedious and repetitive.  And some hilarious even to me.  Lisi's 'voice' has changed some.  Mine too in fact.  The posts write themselves.  Really.  I honestly can't believe I've kept this gig up.  More than that, I can't believe people find any of the blather interesting.  I often wonder how long I'll blog.  It could be another six months.  Or a year.  Or until I'm 87.  The family changes morphing on the printed page is fascinating in some ways.  In just six short years, much has changed within our walls.

So back to the book.  I used the website blog2print.  It was the easiest and fastest way.  I didn't say cheapest.  My 187-page volume of 2007-8 cost $80something (psst!  don't tell the Chairman!).  I feel I can justify the cost because I spend zilch on anything crafty with the exception of some yarn to crochet once in awhile.  The other sites are Blurb and Lulu I think it was called.  Both of them required you to participate in how things are aligned.  One site wanted you to download their program and go page by page through your blog to decide what goes where.  Nope.  Too labor-intensive for me.  Plus the pressure of being creative kind of puts me over the edge.

How is the book quality?  Good I'd say.  The binding and paper is nice.  There's a neat table of contents.  Picture quality is decent.  But there's some pagination issues.  Sometimes a description of a picture is listed and the photo is on the next page.  Since this book is only for our own family's enjoyment, it really doesn't matter.

So I'll probably order the next years now.  I started with a red cover.  Think I'll throw some creative juices into the line-up and make the next one orange, followed by yellow... might as well have a rainbow sitting on the shelf!

With all that said, here are a few quotes about writing I enjoyed this morning:

"Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing" - Benjamin Franklin

"I'm writing a book. I've got the page numbers done." - Steven Wright

 "Writing is the only thing that, when I do it, I don't feel I should be doing something else" - Gloria Steinem

"Writing is an extreme privilege but it's also a gift. It's a gift to yourself and it's a gift of giving a story to someone."  - Amy Tan

"I love talking about nothing.  It's the only thing I know anything about."  - Oscar Wilde