Do you ever bump into someone that you recognize and you might even know their name, but you don’t really know HOW you know them or much about them, really…
only that you know them and they know you?
And then you start talking and it becomes too late to ask them what their name is and where you met them and why you keep hugging each other?!
I have been blogging now for many a year, and I have, by the magic of the internet and the grace of God, gathered up a sweet little gaggle of readers.
My audience is in no way huge, mind you — I always remind my ego that I have significantly less Facebook followers than our local pumpkin patch! — but since I assumed it would be my mom and my church friends and my aunts and Grandmother reading my writing, I am nothing less than amazed by any increase that comes my way and, consequently, very grateful.
Some of you found me through a search engine, some on Pinterest, some through WordPress, some through a friend, but lately, as I’ve had to keep my writing to a shorter format, most of you have found me on Facebook.
(Facebook is my jam, yo.)
And I realized this week that, however or wherever you found “Mrs. Gore’s Diary”, many of you might be reading my daily updates and have absolutely no idea who I am, what I stand for, what I like, what my policies are, and who the little people are in all my pictures.
Let me take away any of the awkwardness for you and introduce myself, from the very beginning.
(pssst! And if you’ve been reading for awhile and have an acquaintance with our life, let this just serve as an update!)
1. Hi. Obviously, my name is Mrs. Gore, and I am the primary writer, party-thrower, picture-taker, and product-sharer behind “Mrs. Gore’s Diary.” I am tall and sturdy and what I would describe as passingly attractive, thanks entirely to modern technology. I have often said that I would have been a very ugly Victorian with my beyond-awful vision, terrible teeth, fussy complexion, and hair as voluminous and frizzy as a horses’s tail. In fact, when I don’t tame my hair, my husband calls me “Hagrid’s Baby.” All that to say, I am so grateful for optometrists and contact lenses, good make-up, dentists (sort of), and dependable hair tools. Because, you know, it’s fun to be able to leave the house and get groceries every once in awhile.
2. Over the last two years, I have been writing a book about marriage and motherhood. In fact, there is a section in that book about WHY I go by the pen name “Mrs. Gore” (because there’s actually more to it than it simply being my last name! Did you know that??). But if I told you now, I’d have to kill you. And we can’t have that, because, a) I don’t want to go to jail and b) it is important that I eventually have more Facebook followers than the pumpkin patch! (Just kidding. The pumpkin patch is truly awesome – it deserves to be well-known and celebrated). Anyhow, I hope to finish this book soon and start sending it out for publication. I would say I’m “doing my best” to hurry up and complete it, but there’s this little thing at our house called “when the kids go to bed, we watch TV every night and eat ice cream.” I suppose I COULD work on my book after the kids’ bedtime, but…nah.
3. My husband is a Southern Baptist pastor, a gifted theologian and, more recently, a truth-bringer to the foreign land of Tanzania. If I could finish my long book, I’d love to write a short book about our experience with the global mission field – it was big doin’s, I assure you. I love Mr. Gore. Like, LOVE him. Our church is tiny and wonderful and incredible, and…fun fact!…I have actually been attending there my entire life! And speaking of writing short books and long books, I could pen an encyclopedia about our church’s story, but just trust me that I can’t believe I get to be a part of such a tale, a wretched sinner like me. God is good.
4. The Lord instilled in me, from a very young age, the importance of family and setting down roots. And now when I look at my life, I see that He obviously had a purpose for that! If God allows, my husband and I will be so happy to stay in our church forever, with the people who have heaped love and wisdom and care upon us for many, many years. My parents live ten miles from us, and my husband’s family and all three of my brothers and their families live within two hours of us. All of these people are written — nay, etched — on my heart, and if you stick around for long, you’ll see many of them in the posts I share, in the pictures I take, and in the traditions we practice. I am sort of passionate about spreading the word that the grass isn’t necessarily greener down the road, not when the unifying blood of Christ is available in your own backyard.
5. My husband and I have four children, ages 8, 6, 4 and 2. Boy, girl, girl, boy. We have been called to this mission field of hearth and home, and would love to maybe someday perhaps Lord-willing add at least one more pipsqueak to our line-up. We are pretty big fans of having the pittering and pattering of feet in our midst, even though our house is already the living embodiment of “The Family Circus.” The more madness, the merrier, we say. Well, my husband says. I agree wholeheartedly, when I’m not hiding in my room. Here’s a picture of our whole family, our first photo after Mr. Gore returned from Africa…
6. I am not a perfect woman and, even though I am a professing believer of the Lord Jesus Christ, I struggle with many things, including-but-not-limited-to a weak faith, anxiety, hypochondria, introversion, materialism, idealism, people-pleasing, procrastination and self-loathing. Speaking of self-loathing, I desperately hate my weaknesses, but they do make me long for our forever Kingdom. I used to be terrified of “the end”, whether it came in the form of death or the Second Coming, but I finally understand now (on most days) that I’m not made for this world, and neither are you. And that changes EVERYTHING, does it not?
7. I love, love, love pretty things. White enamel, floral prints, old silver, piles of books, teapots and percolators, ticking stripes and buffalo checks, vintage signage, little pearls and petite gems, birthday candles, roses and peonies and wildflowers, pastoral scenes, church steeples, supple leather, and romantically chipped paint. I have a serious glassware problem, a cardigan addiction, and I have been known to spend entire afternoons in Anthropologie. I have learned in the last decade, though, the difference between enjoying pretty things with an open hand and being ruled by them, and I’m much happier for it.
8. I am a homeschooler. I have a homeschool blog that I update MAYBE once a year, if you’re lucky. It’s important to me.
9. One day I shop at the organic food market. The next day we eat Puffy Cheetoh’s and chicken bits from the gas station. One day I banish all screens from our lives. The next, the kids watch back-t0-back episodes of “Little Bear” while I search for the end of the internet. One week we are on a great schedule wherein the house remains clean, our homeschool boxes are checked off, I write ten chapters of a book, and all of our errands are run. The next we arrive at church shoeless with only a vague idea of whether it is Sunday or Wednesday. I don’t like to think of it as “inconsistent” so much as…moderate. Let’s all just keep it somewhere in the middle, everybody. Excellence is for spelling bee kids.
10. I have many Lucy moments. Like the time I got stuck in the back hatch of our van or the time I met the Pioneer Woman. I enjoy being laughed at, though. I consider it a ministry.
11. Other things I like, in no particular order: Sunday mornings. Coffee. Jane Austen. Classic movies. Doris Day. Bing Crosby. “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.” Chips and queso. Holidays. History. Country drives. Cold weather. Well-written hymns, old and new. Baby chimps at the zoo (my family has to drag me away). Clean scents. Harry Potter. Humor. Outdoor shopping centers. Aslan. Being waited upon. Being tended to. Having my food prepared for me. Winter coats. Disney Princess karaoke. Sitting at Panera Bread with my laptop and a cup of Hazelnut. “A Christmas Carol.” Kindness. Fat babies. Children’s stories. Cozy blankets. Redemption. Pebble paths. Dark chocolate. Antique shopping. Old quilts. Laying on my back and looking up at the trees. Farm animals. Music, in whatever form I fancy for the day.
12. Strange-but-true factoids: a) The first time I fasted was in college for G.W. to win his second term. I made it three hours. b) I went through a mini depression when Regis Philbin retired. He filled in for Steve Higgins on “The Tonight Show” about a month ago, and I cried like a baby. Seeing him with Jimmy Fallon – the only person who could possibly fill the Regis-sized hole in my heart – was just too much joy for one night. c) I have frequent daydreams about living in a senior retirement village. And I don’t mean in the future, I mean, like, now. Just me and the WWII vets, playing cards and drinking coffee, getting my hair done without having to leave the building, a piano for me and my pals to sing all the old hits…YES, PLEASE.
13. The older I get, the more committed I am to writing. It is my #1 pasttime and hobby. I write every day, in some capacity. Sometimes blog posts, sometimes children’s books, sometimes Facebook statuses, sometimes letters to friends. But the necessary free time for sitting in solitude and writing down your thoughts, I have found, is hard to come by, especially when one homeschools. You see, there are always children here. Always. Which I love. But, yes…children. Everywhere. At all times. Therefore, one of the HUGEST lessons I have learned since I started sharing my writings on the internet is that…
well, I guess I’ll tell you that part tomorrow. I don’t want you to get sick of me just when we’re getting to know each other!
~
Stay tuned, y’all!
