why i don't want to be a mommy blogger.

i'm going to preface this post by letting you all know that my intent in this post is not to offend. there are lots of stay at home moms who find real community through blogs and blogging, and i think that is a real success of the internet, and the ingenuity of women who are using it to reach beyond the four walls in which they find themselves. 

now that i've put that disclaimer out there, i think the main reason i don't want to be a mommy blogger (and by that i mean making my blog primarily about my kid/s) is because of privacy.

first of all, i still work out in the world, and keeping my family life safe from my professional life is a balance i work hard to strike. whether it's my life choices or my closest relationships, i don't like it all to be available for the scrutiny of those who decide on my employment and salary. and i say that having one of the greatest, fairest bosses in the world. i just like my home to be a sanctuary--and part of that sanctuary is not sharing my blog with coworkers, and blogging anonymously. and beyond that, i still don't share everything i've ever thought of on here. because in the end, this is a public space, whether i like it or not.

secondly, in mommy blogging, it's not just my story i'm telling any more. maybe i'm over sensitive to this, but as a daughter who often wished my mother kept my teen-ager secrets to herself and didn't share with friends, i don't want to infringe on my kid's privacy. now, does that mean i'm never going to share a photo of our kiddo on here?? i think that would be borderline impossible. however, i would hate for my kid to get to 4th grade and some other kid in his class to stumble upon an online journal of his every diaper change and mis-spoken phrase that his mother finds uh-dorable, and his classmates find hee-larious. it's like a ready-made kit for bullying. we're all embarrassed by our dorky school pictures as a kid--imagine if there was narrative from your mom to go along with all of it?? yikes.

and thirdly (and most controversial), i started this blog to help me keep balance and perspective in my life. originally, that was to help me keep balance between work and self. and heading in to motherhood, i hope it helps me to keep balance between taking on the role of mother, and remaining a person who exists as more than just a mother. again, i may be showing my own baggage here, so please don't take this to mean that i believe all mothers are this way ... but i see a growing trend in our culture to give more value to mothering and i think that in some cases, it can be taken to an unhealthy extreme. i do believe that caring for and nurturing another human being is a very high calling. however, i've seen how for some women, it becomes all that they are. and this becomes problematic when they begin to look to motherhood as their main source of satisfaction. because at the end of the day, no other person can fill that need in your life. and it's not only impossible for them to fill it, it's unfair to them to expect them to fill it. i hope i never place that kind of weight on my child. and theologically, i hope i never make a god of my child or my role as a mother, putting it in a place in my life that only God can fill.

so that's it in a nutshell. hopefully i haven't made anyone feel like their mommy blog is a bad thing--i really do see mommy blogs as a great way for mothers (stay at home and otherwise) to network and knowledge-share. these are just the choices i plan to make, and my reasons behind those choices.

an explanation.

i always feel like i need to apologize for not posting. and then i remind myself that this blog is supposed to be for me. [no offense. believe me, i love  that you come.] so this isn't an apology. it's just an explanation.

we found out we were preg at the very tail end of sept. but, because i'd already brain-stormed topics and posts, and even begun writing about 21 posts, i decided to go full steam ahead with the 31 days idea. and i really think it would have worked, had i not been slammed with fatigue at week 6 of my pregnancy. like whoah. like if i didn't know i was pregnant, i would have thought i had mono. or depression. or both.

so i tried to keep up. but i really felt like i didn't have the energy to put in to finishing all the great ideas i'd started. i'd also planned to wrap up a few projects and highlight them in specific posts. yeah ... those projects remain unfinished, almost 2 months later. so i jumped ship. with no explanation.

and when the nausea decided to join the fatigue, it was hard enough to keep up with my real job [you know, the one that pays me, in real money], let alone a side-job that's compensation mainly comes from within myself.

there have been so many ridiculous things that have happened, but most of them are preg-related, so i held back from writing. and now that you all know the secret, i'm feeling like if i told you all of them, i'd suddenly be a mommy-blogger. and i'm not gonna lie, i have never really wanted to be a mommy-blogger. [that's a whole 'nother post. maybe for tomorrow.]

and truth be told, i'm still in the 1st trimester, so i'm still tired and nauseous. and in a fairly short time, i'll have an actual baby to take care of, and i'll still be working and the whole nine. so who knows what will happen to the prose? i'm just taking one day at a time, for now.

lately...

we put this up on facebook for all the people we know in real life over the weekend. so i figured i'd go ahead and put it up here too...

you might have already seen it on pinterest, if you follow me there :)

if it's too small for you to see, i apologize. i'm struggling to figure out how to make it bigger and i'm too tired and slow to figure it out :) it's slightly larger on pinterest, so if you click over there, you might be able to read it better. spoiler alert:: i'm pregnant :)

the day the computer died.

two weeks ago, my hard drive gave out. everything was backed up on my external hard drive (yay me!), and so it just became a matter of dealing with the laptop & making it work again.

and of course, in the middle of last week, i had to travel to a conference (thank goodness i wasn't presenting, otherwise i don't know what i would have done). so last week i wasn't able to do much other than get things diagnosed. the prognosis was not good. i needed a whole new hard drive.

this week i worked with a dell tech support person named neil. he has practically become my best bud. i even know when his days off are. (thurs and fri--but in a couple of weeks, he'll get to request the weekends off instead.) i was able to put the new hard drive physically in my computer, and even turn it on and get to the boot drive (you know, like in the old days, when you started your computer and you got the C drive prompt and had to type in WIN to access windows). and i've spent two mornings sitting in the local fedex, using their computer terminals to download operating systems and such.

it's been pretty aggravating. there have been a few times this week that i've thought "oh! i've got eveything i need! the computer will work again!!" and then i get on the phone with neil, try a few steps, and realize i have the wrong file. or that the files won't burn to the cd for some mysterious reason. fun, i tell you. lots and lots of fun.

and what is most frustrating is that i'm nearing the point that if we add up all the hours i've lost or wasted because of this hard drive issue, and we compute an hourly rate for my time, it would have been more worth it to just replace the dang thing two weeks ago.

so if you're wondering why there aren't any words of wisdom from my life lately, it's partially because blogging on an iphone is a special form of torture reserved for terrorists. it's right after replacing a hard drive when you have no earthly knowledge of IT.

intimate conversations with a philosopher.

last night, steve was tucking me in to bed, (he stays up late most nights, studying and reading), and i thought you all might enjoy a short sample of our pillow talk...


steve: being married to you is better than not being married...

me: {awkward pause} um...

steve: being married to you is also better than being married to anyone else. what?? they're both premises!!

me: well, you could at least rank them!

{laughter.}

me: i love you more than hitler. {pause for dramatic effect} and i love you more than anyone else.



welcome to my marriage. where logic invades intimacy.