Why I Blog

Totally unrelated, rediscovered gem

I really got onto the blog bandwagon while breastfeeding Clare. Lots of hours to fill, and blogs turned into the perfect thing to fill them. I had read some blogs here and there over the years. I had even had a blog or two (including the first incarnation of this one), but I had never seriously gotten into it. After the newborn craziness, I decided that I needed a hobby. I've always like writing, so the blog was (re)born.

I wrote for my high school newspaper all four years. Yes, I was that brand of geek. Anyway, I wasn't particularly good at reporting. I was high-school good at page layout and design. I was, to be honest, a pretty darn good columnist. Occasionally, I'd have a writer's block month where I published drivel, but I published a lot of things I can honestly say I'm still proud of, too.

When I started to blog again, I didn't have a particular "theme" or "plan" in mind. I just wanted to write. I did have an audience in mind: myself.

I've relished having a place to write. Most of the time, I write drivel. I cast of little ditties about my day or week or I participate in a fun link-up. All of those things are well and good. I know that the substantial portion of my family-followers enjoy and appreciate it. Honestly, if you want to know what's going on in my life, this is the place to be. I have created a record of my life in a medium that is more rewarding (for me) than a baby book or scrapbook or whatever.

Occasionally, though, I find the real writer itching to get out. I love that having the blog gives me a place to placate that part of me. Occasionally, I even turn out interesting pieces, like this one, or this one, or this one, or this one.

Every few months it seems, the mommy wars turn into mom-blog wars, which is silly. No matter how big your audience is (or isn't), blogging, for most of us, is (or started out as) something fun. Regardless of what I choose to document or what someone else chooses, at the end of the day, our lives probably aren't so different. We're moms trying to raise our kids right (and for the Catholic mom blog subculture, get them to Heaven; and let them get us there in the process). We all have strengths and weaknesses and hectic moments and stresses and fears and worries and problems.

I blog because it is my voice. My memories. My reflections. But it is me. And of that, I am proud.