2014 Blogger Challenge!!

 

 

 

The lovely Ms. Gaby over at Another Girly Blog is putting together the 2014 Blogger Challenge and we all know that I can never turn down a challenge! There will be two posts a month on a given topic shared by over 140 blogs (and growing!) It’s a nicheless challenge, so anyone can join regardless of what kind of blog you write.

You can email Gaby at anothergirlyblg@gmail.com. Include your name, email address, and blog URL to join in on the fun!

Coming Out of "Blog Retirement"

Years ago, I was an avid blogger. Well, I guess officially, I was an avid LiveJournaler. My LiveJournal contains over 1200 posts from a 10 year time period. I wrote daily, sometimes multiple times a day. I disclosed everything to my small, but tight knit "friends list". I wrote about what was happening in my life, about my relationships, about bad dates, about the life lessons I was learning, and the things in my life I was excited about. It was a diary, of sorts. Mostly, it was a community that I held near and dear to my heart. I stopped using LiveJournal when Facebook became all the rage, because most of my friends transferred over. There are still a few diehards that I log into LiveJournal to check up on, but for the most part, it's a ghost town. And I miss it!

 So, I head back to the idea of blogging. And I start up a blogger account, or a new Wordpress blog. And then I start jumping around the blogosphere and I'm disappointed.

Don't get me wrong, there are some wonderful bloggers out there. Blogs that let me look into lives and truly get to know their writers. But for the most part... Well, let's just say that if I ever have a spare armoire sitting around I'll know fifty ways to reuse it and I could build an entire home of furniture if I ever stumble upon a treasure trove of pallets. They all seem to be linking to each other, and most of the "link parties" are the same 100 posts on the same 100 blogs.

 *sigh* I am so incredibly impressed by the amount of creative, crafty folks out there, but where are all of the LIFE blogs? Is there still a community left in blogging? Is the only way to connect with people to throw another "that's awesome" into the comments on yet another DIY project?

This blog thing has eluded me for years. There was a time when I blogged daily, multiple times a day even.  I wrote about everything. My life was quite literally out there for anyone who wanted to look for it. And then I had the freedom of writing stolen from me when the entire contents of my LiveJournal was presented (and rejected) as evidence in my custody hearing. Hundreds of entries printed and photocopied and presented in court. Entries I had assumed were safely tucked away from prying eyes because they were marked "friends only".  The story of how that privacy setting was breached is long and sorted and really not as interesting as it would sound. To say the least, it gave me a very strong fear of blogging, or at least of blogging honestly.

And yet, here I am again. Blogging. I love to write. I love the process of developing a post in my head throughout the day and keeping phrases tucked in the recesses of my mind until I have the opportunity to sit down at the computer. I giggle to myself when I'm snapping pictures to go along with a mediocre craft project or a failed attempt at cooking.

Maybe now that I have a stronger sense of boundaries and a less dramatic life, I can feed the little blogging monster in my brain.  I won't be putting it *all* out there this time around, but at least I can put it out there.