It is what it is,

my blog.




This week I am tired in my insides.
Just plain old wiped out from it all.
From the effort.
From the build up.
From the moving on.
And from trying to piece it together in my mind.

{I blogged all along the way.}


A year and a half ago, I started this blog.
I never really had a blog in mind.
A friend said, "You should have a blog. People would read it."
And I gave it some thought.
I wasn't sure I wanted to put myself out there.
The internet lays you so bare. Leaves so much room for judgement, critics, and critiques.
I like getting things right. I think, and think, and think, before I act. And it hurts when I hear someone thinks I could have done it better. (I know its true, something always could be better. But it still hurts to hear.) So I wasn't sure I wanted to do this. To walk out into "the public," even if I wasn't sure there would be a public, if anyone would read this.

At first my goal was just to share my projects.
I like to do projects.
I figured there wasn't much room for critique in that. And if it was critiqued, hey maybe I could improve those superficial things.

But then I got pregnant, and I knew it was not going to be a time for projects... at least painting and sewing projects.
It was a time of heart projects and health projects.
I was in control of the health projects (hence the intensity with which I pursued them.)
But I was not in charge of the heart project, for that, I was just along for the ride.

And instead of leaving my blog in the dust, I braved it and typed along the way.
(Scared the crap out of me...these were the critiques that could kill me, if they came on too strong.)

I wasn't trying to change the world.
I was trying to keep some semblance of steadiness in my world.
My whole world was changing, you know.


I've gotten lots of page views since starting this thing.
So, maybe I've change a couple things in a couple ways.


But I always find it surprising when people respond to my blog.

Sometimes people tell me how its helped them, and I am flattered, and always so surprised.

A couple times now I've been invited to speak to a mom's group. And wow I can't begin to say how honored and humbled I am by that.

Sometimes people ask me how to make money from blogging, and I say, "I don't know -- I don't make any." (I had put blogger's ads up at one point, but they like glitched-out and disappeared one day, and I didn't know how to get them back. And honestly even if they were there I doubt I would have made any money yet.) I just do this. It just is inside me, and it needs out.

And sometimes people suggest I do it differently, approach it from another angle, and I get sad. Because I feel like in that they assume my blog is something that its not. And really, it just is what it is. My journey. My lessons. My projects. A bit of my thoughts. A part of my heart.

And sometimes people read what I write {and I don't always write everything fully} and then think that's all that there is on the subject and jump to conclusions. And that makes me the saddest, because it takes away the privilege to converse in person, and share heart to heart. A one way conversation is never enough. It short cuts the interaction, and then in person I'm left back tracking to fill in gaps, and the time is spend too messy, and not what it should be.


In my blog,
I'm not trying to change anyone.
Or give pat answers.
Or assuming that if you do what I do, you will be like me.
The feelings I share are only part of my heart.
And not everything is something I can share on the internet.


I don't know what I am doing.
I am just writing things down as I go.

Photo Credit: Da Vince's Notebook

I'm just kind of tracking where I have been.

But I take the weight of what I write seriously,
I don't take it lightly.
I want it to be helpful.
I want it to be true.
I want to do my best.
But I know my best is still, really just a mess.

And since
and because...

From here, I'm not sure where I am going.

I have a few more thoughts on pregnancy, VBACs and babies I really want to get written down.
And I have some pretty things I want to share -- fun around the house things.
And there is a journey for my heart still underway.

I don't know what I will share, when.

Part of me is just taking a deep breath.
And part of me is wondering what that means for anyone else.
And part of me says, well, I guess we'll just have to see.