Welcome!

Thank you for stopping by to check out my blog.  Clearly, it is a work in progress.  That's okay, though, who isn't?  When I started thinking about writing a blog, I couldn't decide what it would be about.  First I thought, I have three kids, so maybe I should focus on blogging about mom things.  But, let's be honest, what do I have to contribute to that oeuvre when every Mormon housewife in the State of Utah is a momblogger with a minimum of five kiddos a piece?  Have y'all noticed that, by the way? There is a ton of blogging going on in Utah.  Maybe if you don't drink alcohol you have a lot of time to blog.  I dunno.

So, my next thought was decorating.  I am a decorator (with a small "d").  My qualifications are that we renovated our 1929 bungalow three years ago and I managed to not screw things up too badly with the choices I made.  My other bonafides are that I spend an absurd amount of my limited free time looking at design blogs, magazines, Houzz, and Pinterest.  When the ideas that I've culled from these sources are brought to bear in my own house I have had decidedly mixed results.  I am not particularly handy, but I have grand ideas that someday I'll pick up a can of chalk paint and transform our old water-marked gate leg table into a thing of beauty.  Truly, it is a crazy pipe dream and the poor table will end up looking like my three-year-old got ahold of it with her finger paints.  See the victim in the photos below.  So innocent, so unaware.  Look at that big ole water mark in the second picture, though.  Or is it a scorch mark?  Who knows!  Also, my photography skills are *ahem* not so strong (see below).  If you have a design blog you have to be a credible photographer.  It makes such a difference in the perceived quality of your content.

In that same vein, I considered starting a blog that provided a synopsis of website merchandise each day, but I couldn't quite figure out how to do it in a user-friendly format.  On a daily (and sometimes twice daily) basis I receive emails from One Kings Lane, the Foundry, Joss & Main, Open Sky, Rue La La,  Daily Candy, My Habit, My Perfect Sale,  Zulily, plus all those Groupon-type companies like Scoutmob and Living Social.  There are days when I feel overwhelmed by the possibilities and I don't pick up deals that I would actually use because the volume of information and products is so great.

On to my next idea, which was to concentrate on just writing about the various and sundry things upon which I ruminate.  I fancy myself an observer of the ridiculous although I am too quick to judge and criticize.    This is a character flaw, but I hope that it helps that I recognize it as such.  I read on Glennon Melton's great Momastery blog a quote from Mother Teresa along the lines of, "when you judge you don't have time to love."  I try to be true to this ideal, but I struggle mightily.  I hope that my commentary is more a look-at-this-funny-thing observation as opposed to what-is-his/her-problem critique.

So, y'all this is what I've come up with: a mish-mash of all these things that interest and distract me from the five loads of laundry I do each day and the four beds that need to be made and the three lunches that need to be packed and the two girls who need to be nurtured into women and the one boy who needs to become a man.  I hope that it will be fun and silly and make you feel happy when you read it because who doesn't want that?

And isn't that a twist you don't normally see in a blog?  I will look at some blogs, websites and pins on Pinterest and just feel like I am the most disorganized, lazy, uninspired, unartistic person who has ever existed.  Do you ever feel like that?  But then the blogs always have "inspired" in the title or the description, so I think, "well, clearly I'm supposed to be inspired by this."  Honestly, though I often feel jealous and a little inadequate.  So, none of that here at "Out Went the Light."  I promise to write about things that can make us all laugh and feel good about ourselves.  I further promise that if I do showy-offy things that I acknowledge that they're showy-offy and apologize for it in advance.

So with that promise, thanks for checking out my inaugural blog and I hope you come back again!