Let’s call this the brand-spankin’-new-blog edition.

— 1 —

I am so excited to (finally!) be able to jump on the 7 Quick Takes bandwagon. Friday mornings are one of my favorite times of the week. Once I get the kiddos cleaned up after breakfast, I like to sit at the table with a cup of coffee and read through a bunch of the Takes. In peace. If the little noise-makers let me. If you’re a real-life friend (Hi, Mom!) coming here via Facebook and you’ve never heard of 7 Quick Takes, be sure to go visit Jen to see what it’s all about.

— 2 —

If you’re not a real-life friend and you came here via 7 Quick Takes – or some other internet route that I can’t fathom at the moment – my name is Julie and I’m a whole four days into blogging. You can read about my plans for the blog here. In a nutshell, I’m a stay-at-home mom to two toddler boys, a former lobbyist, and an avid consumer of Catholic mommy blogs and national/international news. I’d love to spend some significant time huddled up with interesting people in a coffee shop, discussing the world’s problems. But my two beautiful little boys actually need their mother to be here with them, so… blogging seemed like the natural alternative.

— 3 —

On a more technical matter, as a brand-new blogger, I expect to be experimenting with my blog’s layout, design, capabilities, etc. And I have to admit that I’m more intimidated by WordPress than I expected to be. So if you have any suggestions as to things I might want to incorporate into the blog or actions I can take to better familiarize myself with WordPress, I’m all ears. Or eyes. Whatever.

— 4 —

I took my boys to get haircuts (the little one’s very first!) this afternoon. So as to provide my (future, theoretical) readers with a little introduction to the boys, I thought I’d provide a picture and a short account of the experience. First, the cutie-pies, post-haircut:

The big one is almost three and the little one is 20 months old. Big brother is so sweet and happy and friendly that he is the most cooperative of toddler clients a hairdresser could ask for. And he’s so sure of himself that when I later said to him, “Let me look at you.” He replied, “I haaandsome!”

Little brother has a bit more attitude and a lot more fear, so I was worried about how this was going to go. Much to my surprise, he actually tolerated the haircut fairly well, but I kind of think his expression in the above photo is a pretty good representation of what he thought of the whole thing.

— 5 —

I’m already starting to miss those little blond curls:

— 6 —

And the brown ones too:

By the way, kiddo gets to be a ring bearer this weekend! He has a little tux and everything. I’ll report on the experience next week; I think he’s going to love it.

— 7 —

To wrap up and pull back to my “brand-spankin’-new-blog” theme (which is funny that I’m even doing, given that I have this opinion that Quick Takes are supposed to be miscellaneous, not themed), I’ll just say that I’ve really enjoyed this first week of blogging. It feels so good to be doing something – however small – with my brain. And it’s been fun to watch the stats come in and see that people have actually been reading what I write. My first full day, I had views from Germany and Ghana, which I understood, because I have friends in both countries. But yesterday I had views from Egypt and Nigeria. What!? How interesting is that? So thank you – whoever (and wherever) you are – for visiting. I hope you’ll come back and I hope you’ll join in on my little conversations on some of the Big Questions.