Old diaries

I started in again this morning on my autobiography. I'm working on it using my old computer as I have the Word program on that machine and not on my laptop.  I'm finding it much easier to move around in Word than the Office.Org I downloaded to my laptop.  I go back and edit everytime I sit down to write but I need to keep going and worry about editing later.  That job alone will take up a lot of time but that's the fun part of writing for me.

So far I have about 36 pages and 20,000 words and I haven't moved to Port Townsend yet. I decided to include a few diary notations as it helped jog my memory on several events that I'd forgotten altogether.  I only wish I had written better entries. They're all quick sentences (written in shorthand) that I recorded at the end of my day.

On Dec. 15, 1972, I was pregnant with Jenni and we'd decided on the names Dana Lynn for a girl (after my brother) and Andrew James for a boy (cause I always liked the name Andy).  My brother thought naming a kid Dana was not a good idea because people never could seem to say the name correctly. (DayNA, DanAH etc.)  I should have ignored him but we switched to Jennifer.  She seldom goes by that name, though; uses Jenni pretty exclusively. If I call her at work and ask for Jennifer, they think I have the wrong number We ended up getting an Andy in the family, after all, when Mary got married.

There was no rhyme or reason to some of the entries I made. I obviously didn't put a lot of thought into what I was writing. It was late night and I probably had a book I wanted to read.  I found stuff like this:

12-10-71  I did ironing for the neighbor. Took me all day but I made $6.

12-26-72  I'm having false labor pains.  Harry Truman died.

6-23-72  John had four teeth pulled and was sick all night
6-26-72  I think I coughed up blood this morning. Hope it's not cancer.
7-21-72   I've got an abscess tooth.
7-24-72   I got a root canal today
7-25-72   Joey knocked out his front tooth when he fell down

3-16-73  We decided to move to P.T.  I wonder if Mary is allergic to sauerkraut.

Yep!  My diaries were a real literary work of genius!

Looks like the wind has calmed down a bit outside. I suppose I'd better get on my bike before I talk myself out of it again. After seeing pictures of how I look pedaling, I realize I need to pedal all the more!

Here's an interesting video I got from Rose Johnson yesterday....