Well, um, okay...

Recently, I have become entirely consumed by the Pioneer Woman. Read her blog, her novel, even her cook book. If you know me, you realize what a stretch that last one is. Love her. Love. Her. She's funny, smart, endearing, and a bit kooky. I totally adore those qualities in a person, especially that last one. Especially. So, after what I am sure had to be a divine calling, as well as a false start or two, I'm off and blogging. (I won't even mention the likes of Karen N. or Kitt S., whose blogging shoes are, I am sure, cutie patootie, and could never be filled by my peasant stock 8Cs. Metaphorically, of course. I am not at all implying that Karen or Kitt have chubby feet the likes of mine, but I digress. I'll probably do it again. Try to keep up.)

My sweet family... It is somehow entirely appropriate that the younger boy is always looking a different direction than the rest of us. Entirely symbolically appropriate.

This blogging endeavor appeals to me the same way a diary in junior high did. You know what I mean? You don't know? Okay, then, it's like having entire and total control over something. Besides my 7.5 minutes each day in the shower, I don't have that luxury very often.

My house sometime last winter, sitting as it does on 1 1/2 acres of drought-stricken, weed-infested paradise...

I did consider my new blog name carefully. Even used and eventually discarded a rhyming dictionary. Then totally fell in love anew with the whole "kitsch" idea. After spending so many years in academia -- You have to stretch your neck muscles and say that word like the Howells on Gilligan's Island might have said it. You just have to. -- I am entirely enamored with all things kitschy... romance novels, paper crafts, George Strait songs, art from Walmart, and, yes, now, blogs. Okay, I was always enamored with George Strait, but that's another post entirely.

Today, I have no aspirations to higher culture; I fully embrace that I was raised in the armpit of Texas -- a place some likely consider Hee Haw Hell -- and I am entirely at peace with that. I have worked through those issues, and the ego of higher education is fading from my daily consciousness. I'm grateful for that. I'm not even bothered by writing in sentence fragments these days. Not much anyway.

Remind me next time to tell you more about myself. Maybe I will, or maybe I'll just let the rest of my weirdness be a surprise...