Blogging...

Blogging isn’t easy…you have to use words. I mean you have to use words that are useful and creative and possibly inspirational. I am rarely any of these but to be all three at once takes the celestial alignment of near Biblical magnitude. And frankly, Biblical magnitudinalness is something that I often lack.

Please know: I’ve thought about putting something on this blog nearly every day. And some of my ideas—not to sound uncharacteristically boastful—were stunning and inspired. Sadly, they were all conceived whilst either driving, in the shower, or just as I fell asleep. Apparently, I’m at my most creative when I’m not near a keyboard, and when, I might add, it might be dangerous to be so. This realization doesn’t bode well for me as a writer (and thus you as a reader) since I am at this very moment sitting at my keyboard motionless, dry, and awake. Ah well…

Regardless of when and how I best form words for this blog, several legitimate things prevented me from blogging over the past several months. The excuse I shall offer today was that I was “writing” a cookbook. But not just any kind of cookbook with any kind of “writing”…it’s the worst, most difficult kind of cookbook! It was a FAMILY cookbook!

Allow me a brief explanation so that I might feel good about myself:

In late 1996 while researching our family history, an insane thought came to my sleep-deprived zombie brain. (Zombie status was primarily due to Meghan being 18 months old and a rebellious sleeper. See? I’m a victim!) And the insane thought that had entered was that I should write (or more accurately, edit) a family cookbook. This would, I reasoned, bring the family together in harmony and love forever uniting them under the most beloved banner of all: food.

Before I could stop myself, my Zombie self sent a letter to family members asking them to submit their favorite recipes. It took about a year of corresponding, gathering, typing, editing and laying pages out, for “Our Family Cookbook” to be “published.” It was a modest tome, full of quotes and some stories about various parts of the family; 125 pages, spiral-bound, it even had an index! It cost people $5, and my mom and mother-in-law were pleased. I was thrilled.

And Our Family Cookbook became one of my favorites, not because I made it (although that would be a just cause, if I was a proudful, unrighteous person). No, it was a favorite because I actually used it. Often.

Fast forward over the next 15 years and I would hear the occasional “When are you going to print another cookbook?” question, to which I would demurely laugh and quickly change the subject. But five years ago, the winds of fate changed; first my mother-in-law and then my mother, asked when I would put together another cookbook. My very own mother subtly (or was it?) placed me on the path of more insanity, and, most dastardly of all, made it seem like it was my idea.

Before I could stop myself (what is my excuse this time? Meghan was 12 years old!) I gathered email and snail mail addresses and sent out letters asking for another batch of recipes. This time it took two years to put the book together. My delay was mostly technological: Firstly, I had to find a program that would accommodate my layout and whatever the publisher might need. Second, I had to find the money to pay for said program. Third, I had to find a publisher for said printer-ready publication. And I had to pull out of an apparent slight depression in order to do it, as well. There’s no need to describe how everything fell together…certainly God’s humor and kindness helped me to obtain the needed elements in mid-October of this year and have the entire book completed by mid-December.

And it’s now available! And reasonable (at $11.99)! You can see it here:

This is even bigger and better than the last one! And already, it is a favorite because my mom, my sisters and I purposely submitted recipes that we didn’t want to lose or we wanted Meghan and her cousins to have.

And, I’m proud of this one too.

You’d think it would be time to bask in my laurels, catch up on my blogging, spend time in other pursuits.

And yet…

More insanity looms.

The first cookbook needs updating and reprinted…

And my mom has already started asking about it. I’m doomed.

Call Me Crazy (or perhaps Co-dependent)at: marcyjoybryan@gmail.com