Blog Reboot and Reminiscing my Pink Nokia

Sometimes I click on my blog to read posts from years ago. The other day I was reading a few and noticed far too many typos and unintentional grammar mistakes caused by auto-correct and brisk typing. It was driving me nuts, but I wasn't sitting at my computer so I couldn't easily click back to edit. I also noticed how boring and meaningless many of the posts were. I was writing 7-10sih posts a month for a while! They were all about the day-to-day happenings of our mundane lives with a sprinkling of my thoughts here and there. Yet, I would constantly get comments from people who loved reading and would complain when I'd take a hiatus. Being a stay-at-home-mom of non-school-age children can be incredibly lonely. At the time, blogging was a catalyst for having presence in a world from which I felt isolated...embarrassing typos included.

It's been almost a year since my last post. What happened? Besides the obvious "my life is too busy" answer, I think that Facebook captured and ultimately satisfied the world's curiosity and need to be heard. Who wants to read a stale mommy blog when you can engross yourself amongst the lives of 500+ "friends?" For me, Facebook spiraled into a craving...an addiction. It was actually starting to cause unnecessary stress and anxiety. Once I recognized it, I reevaluated my priorities and set myself free.

Facebook is an incredible tool. As long as it exists and is used for positive purposes, I will participate. Scheduling events, sharing useful and thought provoking information, catching criminals, and encouraging friends are all excellent reasons for staying connected. However, strong opinions and agenda-pushings have caused separations among friends. The internet has become a smorgasbord of manipulation, misinformation, and misinterpretation. Personally, I carry an ample dose of empathy and a giant pink Himalayan salt crystal with me to every article, status, and blog I read. If I don't, then I might allow myself to exclude some of the people I actually hold very dear to my heart. Maybe more of us should reexamine the reasons why we participate in social media and how it affects us? Once I started thinking about it, I was having a hard time remembering what life was like without it. I now yearn for the days of Nokia phones and incessant email forwards. Ponder that!

So, back to my original thoughts...

I suppose with the distractions of my life today, I had forgotten why I started blogging in the first place. Boring, meaningless, mundane. If that is my life, so be it! It wasn't my intent to please an audience, ruffle feathers, or even boast successes. I think Facebook does a first-rate job of fulfilling those objectives. This writing was meant to document memories for my family and to be an outlet for some of my thoughts. It's a public journal, and you all are welcome to read it. If you are encouraged by it in some way, then I am thankful.