Beginning

Having spent the last year or two gradually reading more and more blogs I've been wanting to jump in and start my own for a while now. Writing that first post is proving a difficult hurdle. That and thinking of a name for this blog. So, I'm going to begin by telling you where the name of the blog has finally come from. That will also hopefully give you an idea of what the blog will be like.

Commonplace
I love the idea of keeping a commonplace book. When I was a teenager I started keeping notebooks to write down poems and quotations that struck me (as interesting/thought provoking/beautiful/inspiring...), I still enjoy reading through them, but haven't added to them for a few years now. One of the things I want to do with this blog is to note things I've come across that have interested me: poems and quotations, but also news articles, recipes, patterns, photographs and anything else that takes my fancy. It'll be a way to keep track of things for myself, and maybe it will also interest other people out there.

Iris
My name is not Iris. I tend to be somewhat shy and I think I need to try and be somewhat anonymous to feel comfortable blogging. I'm hoping that starting this blog will help me feel more comfortable leaving comments at blogs I've been enjoying for a long time, and at new ones I've yet to discover. I'm also hoping that now that I have a place to post I will be more likely join in with some of the crafty "-a-long"type projects that I see around and itch to be a part of. Since most of the time I am busy being a mother to a little girl (or occasionally sleeping) finding time to do all that I'd like to seems impossible, however, I'm inspired to try by others out there who seem to manage!
But to return to Iris. I love the flowers which is what first made me think of using iris in the blog name. Then I got to thinking more about the word iris and its various meanings and liked it more and more in the context of blogging about my life and my observation of the world around me: the idea of an eye looking at the world, filtering the light; the iris of mythology goddess of the rainbow being a messenger; rainbows different distinct colours blending together to make a whole.

Commonplace iris
I got to thinking of the other meaning of commonplace (the one that more readily springs to mind), and that also fits for me too. In many ways what I write about here will be ordinary, perhaps mundane or trite depending on your perspective. Things that I expect I'll be most likely to write about would be crafting, cooking, parenting, reading matter, everyday life. The commonplace. But as someone who spends her life doing a lot that could be classified as commonplace it's very important to remember that things that are ordinary can still be worthwhile. More than worthwhile.

When it is their time to flower I see many irises. I might pass them by with barely a glance, but if I take a moment to open my eyes and look I can benefit from noticing the beauty in the commonplace.

I don't know that this blog will always be beautiful, hopefully I will be able to avoid being overly trite and give anyone who happens to stop by something of interest to take away with them.