Just A Quick Intro...

Hi, I'm Jami, and I'm a Know-It-All.

I'll just put that out there so you can help keep me honest. I am prone to relapses - I've had several. Fortunately, I have 8 wonderful children and a supportive husband who take great pains to assist in my recovery. Every time I lapse into thinking I have the world by the tail and can lift my head high and raise my voice in the crowd - and all those other pat phrases - they kindly, but not necessarily gently, take me by the hand and guide me back to a course of humility.

This is my memoir.

I'm not sure if I'll ever get to the point where I'll share this. I'm hoping it will stay buried in the e-universe with the other millions of blogs floating out there. Maybe I'll have it written in my will that my descendants can share it 100 years after my death, like Mark Twain. Just to be on the safe side, I will be changing names to protect not so much the innocent as the guilty who may be in charge of my care when I am elderly.

An explanation of the name of the blog. I am a woman in my late 40s. A wonderful age, by the way, if you don't mind jiggly thighs and arms and, I have just discovered, chins. I also have a huge jiggly fold of skin where my cute stomach and belly button used to be. Alas, they are gone with the wind.

But that's what I'm talking about. Back in the Know-It-All stage of life, I would have been mortified to have those jiggly bits. I ran several marathons in my 30s in the quest to eliminate jiggle from my life. And to be able to eat all the red licorice I wanted and not feel guilty. Now, as I approach my 50s, the vanity is losing ground. I'm not going to lie - I still care about what I look like. But I've gone from wanting to look good in a swimsuit (my teens and early 20s), to wanting to look good in shorts and skirts ( my late 20s and 30s), to wanting to look good in slacks and long sleeve shirts.

Another example: my parenting. I used to be a parent who took kids to dance lessons and music lessons and art classes and museums, for heaven's sake. I used to go to parent teacher conferences and TAKE NOTES! I still go now, occasionally, but only when I know the teacher likes my child and I need a little pick me up. Otherwise, why bother? I homeschool my 3 youngest children for the sole purpose of avoiding reading calendars and science fairs.

Well, enough for tonight. My unmade bed awaits me. And that's not something I can blame on getting older.