Hello December! I unintentionally took the entire month of November off of blogging! I logged in one day to a repeated error message- my blog has run out of storage! I know that the easy fix would be to call WordPress and get an upgrade or have them somehow fix the problem through the back door (I do pay a ridiculous amount annually for hosting, after all). But, instead, I decided to begin a process that is long overdue- curating and deleting old blog posts. I’ve had this blog since 2013, and nobody needs to read about what I wanted for Christmas in 2014. Throughout the month of November, I have been going through old (ancient) blog posts and deleting them from the internet. I am keeping a few highly important ones- and don’t worry- I am copy/pasting alllll of my posts into a google doc to keep for myself. Having this blog has been a journal, a scrapbook, a treasure trove of memories for the past 12 years, and I would hate to just delete it all. Instead, I’m compiling it and maybe will print it as a book for my kids to look at and read through. But it really doesn’t need to be on the internet anymore, you know what I mean?
Doing all that has made me highly introspective. All of my life was recorded on this little platform here. I was so eager, so earnest, so innocent and so honest at the beginning. I put it ALL out there. And for awhile, I actually started to build a community and a following. I put a lot of time and effort into it, and I had big dreams of being a published author or maybe even a speaker at some women’s conferences somewhere. I truly wanted to encourage other women and Moms through the words that I wrote. I hustled really hard for that goal for a couple years- and I loved it. But nothing really came of it, and I started to get busy in other areas of my life and couldn’t really keep up with it. Now, I feel like my blog is more planned, more curated, more filtered. I’m more afraid of what people on the internet will think of me. I have to be careful what I say. I have older children who don’t need to be blasted all over the internet, every detail of their lives up for grabs. Blogging isn’t “in” anymore, and it can be discouraging to pour time and energy into it, only to have 14 people read it and zero comments or acknowledgement of it at all.
And, yet…here I am. Still writing. I can’t imagine not writing in this space anymore, and in the deepest corner of my soul I would still love to be a published author and have my words reach the eyes and hearts of women who need some encouragement. In the meantime, I’m cleaning things up around here and will probably continue to take a break through the month of December.
As far as life- there isn’t too much of an update! We have started basketball season and it has gotten COLD. We had a lovely Thanksgiving break, although illness kind of got us down for a few days there. December will be full and a “sprint to the finish” before Christmas break!
Cuuuuute picture of your four!! I’m sure it’s fascinating to read your past thoughts and consider how you might respond to similar events now. Praise the Lord for what He has carried us through, and also that He builds our capacity.
Maybe God intends for your words to *only* impact or change the lives of one or two readers. That would make your writing all worth it! Plus, like you said, you have hundreds if not thousands of memories recorded here. You don´t want to keep not documenting!