One of the best things about writing a daily blog is you can pour out your heart, express your frustrations, confess your weaknesses and occasionally, when you’re in the mood, embarrass your family.
 

You can talk about your son’s piano lessons, your daughter’s new bed and your sister’s old boyfriend, and not get fired.
 

“Just, whatever you do, can you leave me out of it?” my daughter Amanda begged tonight as I ran a made-up quote by her. “I think you need to keep your personal and professional lives separate.”
 

“But I don’t have a professional life,” I reminded her, which is about when she ran away from me trailed by her little brother, who was afraid I would follow up the piano lesson blog with an inspired piece about his tuba.
 

As a professional newspaper reporter, writing about women I observed in restaurants not wearing pants was not encouraged. Neither was writing about my loss of memory, naked men or my co-ed softball team.
 

I think that must be why I have written with more frequency and more joy in the last three months than I had in a long while. If I could make a living at this, I’d be the happiest woman in the world.
 

Not that I am not happy writing sports. I am. After a few months of seriously wondering whether I would ever return to sportswriting, I am happy to report that in writing about women in restaurants without pants, I have also re-discovered how much I truly enjoy being a sportswriter in my new duties for ESPN.
 

If I hadn’t returned to sports, I may have forgotten all those off-hand remarks people make when you interview them that never quite find their way into your stories because they just don’t fit, but that never quite leave you either.
 

Like when you’re finished talking to Cubs manager Lou Piniella about Ryan Dempster and the pitcher’s infant daughter’s health crisis, the interview is finished and Piniella slowly shakes his head.
 

“You don’t get it back,” he says quietly, talking in general about how the baseball culture has changed from the days when he was allowed a day off for the birth of only one of his three children. “Kids don’t forget about not being there for their birthdays and mothers don’t forget about not being there for their babies.”
 

Or when you’re sitting in the dugout one morning waiting out a blinding rainstorm with Dempster and your sportscaster friend Peggy Kusinski, and it’s just the three of you, three parents, talking about how much you love your kids.
 

“You know that movie “Taken?” says Dempster, whose baby is still in the hospital at this point, still with a tracheal tube because she is unable to swallow on her own some three months after her birth.
 

Peggy and I nod, though I doubt she knows the movie any better than I do.
 

“Liam Neeson is in France looking for his daughter,” Dempster tells us, “and the chief of police there says, ‘I’d help you but you’re tearing down the city.’ And Liam Niesen looks at him and says, ‘I’d tear down the Eiffel Tower to save my daughter,’ and that’s the way I feel about this. I’ve always felt that way about my son but seeing my daughter sick and in bed and going through this, I’ll do whatever I have to. I just want to get her better.”
 

It was for the same story that I spoke to White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen, who as always delivered with comments uniquely Ozzie. But then you turn off your tape recorder and he adds:
 

“The only thing in life you have is your kids. As soon as you leave this game, they’ll remember you when you die and if you ever go to the Hall of Fame. The only time they bring you back here is if they can make some money. But when you talk about your kids, that’s the only thing that’s really yours. Your wife, your mom, they’re not yours. If one of my kids gets sick, [screw] baseball, I’ll go be with them.”
 

Those are the best moments, even when you can’t always work them into print.
 

And that’s why I love my blog, because I just did.

My new friend Tom e-mailed me the link to a newspaper column the other day, thinking I would enjoy it.

I did not.

The column was by a sportswriter for the Seattle Times, a very good writer named Jerry Brewer, who wrote about going back to his hometown to be inducted into his high school’s hall of fame. But really, it was not about that so much as it was about the writer counting his blessings for being paid for doing what he loves to do – write about sports.

That was the part where I became morbidly depressed. I mean, do I need to be reminded about people who not only are still employed, but really, really happy about it?

Then the other night, I was minding my own business, laying in bed and waiting for another Sex and the City to begin, when I caught part of the show, My Boys. For those of you who have never watched this show on TBS, it is about a woman sportswriter who covers the Cubs for the Chicago Sun-Times.

It’s not a bad show. I actually really like it, primarily because like most successful shows, it bears little to no resemblance to real life. For instance, the main character, PJ, is dating her competition at the Tribune. This part could maybe happen. And both PJ and Bobby are gorgeous, which I guess, could also possibly happen but if it did, both would surely be searching for bigger game than another baseball beat writer.

Also, PJ and Bobby never work. Instead, from what I can tell, they drink and play poker and get to see all their friends on a nightly basis without ever having the office call and bother them, or missing a flight or even taking a flight.

The other night, they were covering spring training – again with all of their friends. This is the part where I came in and once again became instantly depressed because even a fictional character was gainfully and happily employed as a sportswriter – and why wouldn’t you be with a job where you never have to work, have a gorgeous boyfriend and all your friends with you on every assignment? — and I’m not.

But then last night came around, I played softball, I wrote about playing softball and I was ecstatic. If you read the blog, you will know my mood had little to do with the game. Rather, it had everything to do with writing about it, liking what I wrote and genuinely enjoying the process.

Sometimes, I admit, I wonder what I am doing. I mean, I sit here and write my little column every day like a kid playing office in the basement — “Yes, Mom, I mean Editor Jones, here’s my deadline column.”

 I realize there are many, many – MANY – other bloggers out there doing virtually the same thing – writing every day without being paid. Because I was paid to do it for the last 26 years, forgive me for being slightly conflicted.

But here’s the thing. I used to talk to my friend and former colleague Skip Myslenski about the “writer’s high” you get after finishing a story and feeling good about it. Some of that might have had to do with the cocktails afterward. But there was no mistaking it and I am happy to report the endorphins are still there, paycheck or not.

Writing is still a joy. It is my crutch. It is my passion. If you asked me five weeks ago why I loved my job, I probably would’ve said something about the people I was able to meet and the variety of the work. Jerry Brewer wrote about championing the little guy, about re-connecting with his childhood, about traveling to cool places and covering major events. He mentioned connecting with readers and always wanting to be a sportswriter.

For me that stuff has largely disappeared over the last several weeks. But I have found my voice again and I have, in the absence of editors and real deadlines and a guaranteed audience, been reminded why I did what I did in the first place. And turns out it had nothing to do with covering Super Bowls.

 I love the power of the written word. I love to use it to tell a good story, and I’ll tell it from my basement to three people if I have to. Some day, I may be sitting with my computer on my lap and a tin cup in front of me. But I’ll still be doing what I love.

 And for that, yep, I’ll be counting my blessings.