My word of the day on Monday morning was “dryasdust.”

Pronounced, as you might expect like “Dry as Dust.”

Seriously?

Yup.

I was curious.

As a noun it means: “A boring, pedantic speaker or writer.”

As an adjective it means: “dull and boring.”

Yikes.

I started to think…

Dryasdust.

Is that me?

Am I dryasdust?

Am I “a boring, pedantic…writer?

I wasn’t sure right away, because I didn’t know what the word “pedantic” meant.

So, I looked it up.

Pedantic: “someone who is overly concerned with minor details, formal rules, or showing off specialized knowledge, usually in an annoying way.”

Oh no.

Is that me?

I don’t know.

I don’t think so.

Since I don’t follow any formal rules, maybe not.

And I certainly don’t have any special knowledge about anything to show off, unless you want me to talk about the moles I have in places you can’t see, I am safe there as well I think.

So, I don’t know about pedantic, but boring, still boring maybe.

I mostly write about things in my life, like my family.

But I don’t necessarily think my life is boring. Maybe compared to some.

I have three daughters.

How can life be boring?

How can one be dryasdust when you have three girls to write about?

Brokeasdust maybe.

Drivemetodrinkasdust possibly.

But not so dull and boring.

I remember writing Christmas letters and getting grief because I mentioned one them in sequence, before one of the others.

Or that I wrote more detail about one than I did the other, “you wrote more about her than me!”

After that one, I actually started counting words and making sure all three daughter paragraphs balanced.

Then, I decided to quit mentioning any of them in my letters to avoid these kinds of concerns.

But then I got told that I needed to start writing more about family and grandkids, and less about the cranky old guy stuff I have been writing about.

And then just recently I got this text from one of them “you always write about everyone but me” (sad face emoji included).

Yeesh, I can’t win.

Dustinthewind maybe.

Again, this year I missed the National Daughters Day social media opportunity.

When I sat down and started to write this, it was Monday, September 28, and I was only a few days late. Before I knew it, it was Wednesday, and I was still trying to wrap it up.

And now it’s Wednesday evening, and where was I going with this?

Oh yeah, dryasdust, “you never write about me,” and daughters.

Daughters are important.

Thanks to daughters, I have three grandsons to write about too Cameron, Christian, and Ethan (in no particular order of importance), and most recently, a little “grand dog.”

I haven’t written about Chester yet…hmm…maybe that’s why he barks at me.

But I am sure I will.

So you see my life is not dull and boring.

Earlier I mentioned Dust in the Wind, a song by the band Kansas most of us are familiar with. It was one of my brother Carl’s favorite songs.

According to something posted on the internet, the underlying message of the song is that “While the song expresses melancholy and despair regarding our physical mortality, the unspoken takeaway is an implicit call to appreciate the present and recognize what truly matters before our time runs out.”

We all know about time running out.

And what truly matters before out time runs out in addtion to family?

Well, Jesus of course.

I also read that Monday, in addition to being a few days late for National Daughters Day, was National Sons Day.

And I do appreciate those that truly matter in the present, and some from the past that still truly matter and present in my heart.

So happy “National Whatever Kid Day” to all my kids; Donny, Savannah, Hayley and Alexa (in no particular order of importance of course).

As they say now, “I appreciate you.”

I once wrote in one of my essays: “I often have fun writing about my kids and I have said before they are all good sports. The truth is my daughters have taken their share of lumps in life but they continue to rise up. They have had some life experiences probably shared by many daughters. And then they have had some I hope no child ever has to go through…Yet they are resilient. They are women now, some with their own kids (though no daughters thank God). And unlike the rest of the daughters out there, they have to put up with me. And they do a pretty good job at that too.

Even though I never write about them.

Postscript:
So I got this from the internet, it explains where the word “Dryasdust” originated from:
While the definition of “dryasdust” is literally “dull and boring,” the story behind the word is not. Sir Walter Raleigh Scott was a 17th- and 18th-century writer, considered the inventor of the historical novel. “Ivanhoe,” a historical novel concerning the life and times of a Saxon knight, opens with a “dedicatory epistle to the Rev. Dr. Dryasdust.” This fictitious character served as the intensely dull, but extremely informative, book antiquarian who supplied Scott with the necessary details to write his book (and also featured in the introductions of some of Scott’s other works). The word “dryasdust” has persisted as both a noun and adjective for a boring, pedantic sort.