Urf! Is This Many

Four years ago today I sat down and started pecking out what I thought were funny little stories about what my kids were doing and saying, and what I thought about it all as a new-ish father, right here under the masthead Urf!.

And they are funny, most of them. Just take a look for yourself down there on the right hand side of this page, click on any month from 2006-2008. Last year wasn't so hot and this year isn't shaping up to be, either, as far as consistency goes. This drought is mostly because of what this little blog has spawned, which is something approximating a career. Urf! became, for me, the bi-weekly writing of the column "Because I Said So" in The Commercial Appeal, and that has become more and more freelance writing work (much of this good fortune is also due to Stacey Greenberg and Fertile Ground) which keeps me busy and up to my neck in deadlines.

I always wanted to be a writer. I didn't tell many people that at the time, but since I was about 15 I wanted to write for a living. I went about it all the wrong way. In fact, I didn't really even go about it at all, and I still tell people that I'm lucky and really just fell into what I'm doing by accident.

This blog has archived the growing of my family. Apropos of that, we spent today preparing to grow. We dug and we dragged found materials from the woods behind our house, we shoveled and we planned. The family garden is 193 square feet (so far) of good earth. We have become an agrarian society who will, this year, attempt to reap and sow a cheese pizza.

The past four years have seen many changes. We've become larger as a family over these years, found new interests and focus, worked as any family needs to to maintain order and sanity, and grown richer. Not monetarily, by any means, but in ways that I can't even describe.

I look forward to the next four years. I hope they'll be documented here (if the internet is more than a fad), but if not, I'm sure they'll be written somewhere and I'll try to let you know where.

Thank you to everyone who has stuck around for four years and laughed with me at my children, watched them grow and become interesting little people. Thanks to all of you who came late but have stayed for the party. You've become a part of our lives and we consider you all a part of the Urf! family.