Welcome to my mess or my big blue mess as it were; it's currently a work in progress. What follows is a draft and lacks any polish, but so be it. I may clean it up. I may simply shrug and pretend it doesn't exist. I'm like that.

One of my friends or maybe two of them had this idea that I should record my little anecdotes somewhere for others to enjoy. See, my friends (all of whom have terrible taste and a worse sense of humor) have a nasty habit of telling me I'm funny. In the beginning modesty forced me to poo poo the notion but then my ego got the better of me and began to run amuck. The next thing you know I was e-mailing everyone for site name suggestions. Every great web name was taken so I had to settle on the Big Blue Mess. Yes, this is a story about settling. Although, I prefer to think of it as a story about blaming my friends and family.

Big Blue Mess is a term my ex-husband used to refer to my amazing painting skills. I'm sure he meant it lovingly as he went slack-jawed and gasped out the question "what is that... a big blue mess?" Since then, I use "big blue mess" as a tongue-in-cheek way to refer to any of my creative adventures. Blue being a favorite color of mine, most of the pitiful attempts I make in the name or "art" come in some shade of blue.

Now about this site and my concept for it... I see it as a hub for myself and my friends to express themselves. In my case, it's a chance to practice writing so my friends can visibly see I'm trying and will stop beating the "you'll only get better with practice, practice, practice" drum to death - those people just don't have any rhythm. I do not see it as a traditional "blog". Instead,I see it as "painful story time with Beth". It is not my intention now or ever to write about my political beliefs, my world views or my thoughts on religion. I'll let people who are smarter and wiser than I tackle those loftly subjects. Plus, unless you're seeking my vote or advising me spiritually, you really don't care unless I say something outrageously controversial. If I did that, then you'd feel compelled to respond and that would enter a new area where I personally didn't care. So, let's call a truce now and avoid those subjects as best we can.

Now the stories I write about are true at their core, although I tend to focus on unimportant details in the name of humor. You may call what I write "exaggeration" I like to think of it as "creative license". Some of my stories are fairly old, but my friends asked to see them again. Ok, it was just the one friend and everyone has to suffer because of that. Too bad for you. The reason I write/tell these stories comes from a long standing dinner table practice back when I was much younger. We'd sit around the dinner table and my step-mother would ask my Dad and myself for a story about our day. Well, there's only so many ways you can tell "...went to class, had lunch, went to some more classes, got on the bus..." which meant that I had to get creative. This website is the result of years of telling a story about my day.

This website is also the result of my good friends contributions and ultimately Anna and April who realized I was much too lazy to make it happen on my own, so they handed it to me on a big messy blue platter. Let's also blame the rest of my family and friends who are truly the meat and potatoes of my stories and thank them, too. My family could personally make William Faulkner sit up and take notes and it's through them I learned to have a sense of humor. God knows if you didn't laugh at them, you'd cry.