October 20 14

Sundays are like gahhhhhhhhhh. They are the most frazzle-y day of the week around here. Activities, grocery shopping, playdates, bar and bat mitzvahs, photoshoots, football. It’s all good things, of course. Good, but frazzled. Now Sundays after three-day Jewish holidays? Those are just beyond.

And Sundays after three-day Jewish holidays when you wake up to find that your site has been mysteriously suspended? I can’t even.

I quite literally figuratively lost my ability to can. It’s funny how in that moment when it crossed my mind that I could potentially, possibly, probably lose all of my 2,796 posts I couldn’t even find the words to properly express how devastating that loss would be to me. 10 years. 10 years of mildly decent writing and mostly hilarious stories. So much of it seemed unimportant at the time — does the internet really need to read another post about someone’s kid who stalls at bedtime? But it’s important. It’s all important. It’s a snippet of who I was at that exact moment in time.

After much panicking — from me— and help — from a lot of good and smarter-than-I people (gold stars and many thanks to you all today—seriously) I’m back up and breathing a sigh of relief…and reminding you that storytelling is clearly not dead. As much as a lot of it has been replaced by top ten ways to do just about anything and tutorials (with pinterest-friendly imagery, of course) there are still stories that need to be told.

I often tell my stories sitting at my desk in the wee (now super dark) early hours of the day when everybody else is still sleeping. I tiptoe downstairs, make the coffee, reboot my Mac (because I am a terrible memory hog and tab opener), and sit down and write.

Later on in the day I am so distracted.

I follow links from Twitter and find myself down hour-long internet wormholes where I am looking at actual worms that are living in hikers’ noses for months . You know, those really weird stories that show up on Grey’s Anatomy or some other medical show and you realize that the show’s writers are taking these stories from actual news stories and now not only am I wasting time, I’m also never going hiking in the amazon.

At 6am, the only links on Twitter are the automated horoscopes or quizzes (Which Walking Dead zombie type are YOU?).

I get distracted by cute photos of your kids (not cats. NOT CATS) or my actual job or meetings or phone calls or or pumpkin recipes or home showings or photo editing or discussing The Wire or daily 40% Gap sales or calls from school telling me that Isabella needs indoor shoes because hers are insufficient.

Side note: Seriously, indoor shoes are up there with reading logs.

I’m distracted by the giant cake in my kitchen.

isabella-cake-boss

 

Yes. On Saturday evening, after an almost full month of baked-goods-filled holidays, we finally followed through on our promise to allow The Cake Boss(ette) to decorate her first fondant cake completely all by herself. She has been gathering materials for months, she has been making designs on paper. She was ready to go. We, of course, were not. And then, we let her loose in the kitchen, after we’d covered it floor to ceiling in garbage bags.

And then she went and made this. With only her imagination, her 9-year-old hands, and her years of Cake Boss-watching experience. It was all very WWBD (What Would Buddy Do, of course) and that is how she ended up figuring out how to make trees making little tiny cuts in the fondant with scissors. THIS KID.

I know I’m distracted because I have to reheat my coffee in the microwave at least three times. And tell myself not to have just another tiny piece of cake.

I’m gross, I know. 

But in the early mornings. It’s just me, my coffee, my keyboard. And some silence. Just the way I like it.

How do you tell *your* stories?

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  1. I was so worried about you yesterday! I freak just thinking about that happening to my blog. msybe you should print out your blog or make it into a book like some people have? I want to do that, at least for some of my posts.

    Comment by Loukia on October 20, 2014
  2. Oh, Ali. I love this so much. AND I am so happy that your site is back up and running. I’d help you with that cake if I were closer 🙂

    Comment by Gwen on October 20, 2014
  3. I tend to write at night, after the kids are in bed. Unless, like yesterday, I had to carve our time on a Sunday afternoon.

    So glad you didn’t lose your stories. Any time I’ve had hosting issues in the past, I almost barfed. xoxo

    Comment by Angella on October 20, 2014
  4. I’m so glad they aren’t gone! I need to go on tonight and back-up my site! I’ve actually thought a lot about blogging more! Yay!

    Also, I cannot get over that cake! She’s so awesome! I’m so proud of her, and not one bit surprised AT ALL that it turned out so amazing!

    Comment by Kristabella on October 21, 2014
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