This morning, one key thought kept running through my head, "Wow, I am so thankful to not be sick." I had the stomach flu the day before yesterday (and my first blog post was actually done from the couch while I was trying to recover from that). It didn't last that long - only about 36 hours. In previous times, the 36 hours of the stomach flu may have seemed longer than it does now. After all, I now know all about being sick.

I think it was 5 weeks, 2 days into my pregnancy that I threw up for the first time. After about 2-3 weeks of throwing up an average of 2-3 times per day and feeling nauseated most of the time I was awake, I told my mom I didn't know if I could take much more of this being sick thing. She told me, "You'll be surprised at the things you can do that you didn't think you could do." Well, I was surprised. I made it through a good solid 10 weeks - that's 2 1/2 months - of that dreadful stuff they call morning sickness (even though it lasts ALL DAY LONG). And now, I've been feeling really good for about the last 4 weeks - with the exception of my little stomach flu episode (and a bad cold that I had the week before that).

But, seriously, how often do you think about how great it is to not be sick?

I went to throw something away in the bathroom trashcan the other day, which sits to the side of the toilet. As I leaned across the toilet to toss in my piece of trash, I recalled all of the lovely times in the past few months I spent leaning over the toilet vomiting. And here I was on that day, feeling perfectly fine. I was reminded to be thankful for that.

And now, even though I felt like I was sick for a near-unending amount of time, I really don't even know what it is to be sick. I mean, some people are sick or suffer from chronic pain for years on end. Some people don't know what it is like to have a day when they actually physically feel good.

So, hey, I guess I have it pretty good. I'm a rather healthy person who gets an occasional flu bug or a cold, who has a little once-in-a-while asthma, and who experiences totally normal sickness during pregnancy. I'd say that is pretty do-able.

Now, if I can only remember not to forget how lucky I am.

For quite some time, nearly all of the other members of my family have had their own blogs. My siblings have repeatedly asked me, "Karen, when are you going to start blogging? and "Karen, why don't you have a blog?" I replied with answers like, "Even if I had a blog, I probably would be terrible about writing regularly and then you would all be mad at me anyway."

Yet, for some crazy reason, I recently told my sister Liz, "Fine. Sign me up for a blog. I'll see how it goes." (Wow, I sound like someone from the dark ages who doesn't know anything about the internet. Sign me up for that crazy thing, Liz!)

So, here I am with a blog. It has probably been a week and I still haven't posted anything - until now. But, what do I want to say? So much pressure! I was thinking I should probably come up with something really important and though provoking to discuss for my first post. However, instead of worrying about finding something great to write about, I'm just going to let the fact that I've started writing something be good enough for now. So, to my family who has for so long insisted that I join them in living the life of a blogger, "Look! I'm here! I've entered blog-world!" Wish me luck!