This Blog and What it Means to Me

To ring in the  new year  I thought I would try to encapsulate a little about what blogging means to me.  I started blogging more than 7 years ago and have been posting a couple times a week, almost without fail, since then.  Sometimes I  marvel that I  enjoy blogging as much now, if not more,  as I did when I first started.  Nearly all of my blogging friends have since fallen by the wayside, most of them posting only infrequently or in spurts and I wonder if there will come a day when I grow tired of it as well.  Yet, for now,  I still love to blog, even when I am tired, busy, and have nothing to say {sorry}.

I have gotten far more feedback (and notoriety) for my other blogs, but somehow slowly through the last couple of years they've started to  feel less and less important to me.  I still love to cook and I think it's great having all my favorite recipes in one spot, but I can clearly see that I have never actually contributed that much to the world of food.  Why do I need to push myself to post a new recipe a couple of times a week, when the vast majority of the recipes I post are readily available from other sources?  Most days I'm happy enough to scrape together a respectable meal for my family, and even the thought of trying new recipes on a regular basis, taking pictures of them, and taking the time to post them on the blog, just seems completely overwhelming to me .   Throw in the fact that the most popular recipes on my blog are consistently not even my own recipes, but those of my blog partners whose recipes consist of less than a tenth of the total recipes, and I am not sure that I'll ever be drawn back to blog about food regularly again.

I feel like my FHE blog is far more of a contribution of originality and good to the world wide web than my food blog ever will be, but alas it too has lost its luster.  In addition to not having enough time to devote to digitizing lessons or writing meaningful articles, I also just feel like I have less to say now than I used to.   I used to have  all these grand and idealistic ideas about raising kids and while I still believe what I wrote, now that my kids are growing up into wonderful, albeit imperfect adolescents, it somehow feels disingenuous for me to give advice on parenting anymore.  The older my kids get, the more I realize that every kid is totally unique and dang-it-all, I know all too well that there simply isn't a one-size-fits-all approach to parenting.   Other than loving them unconditionally and living the gospel every day, I think almost everything else about parenting is left open to individual inspiration.  And even when we give parenting our 1000% effort, the fact doesn't change that  kids will grow into completely their own people, who make their own choices, and while we can hope and pray that they incorporate a little of the wisdom we've gained through life experience  into their own lives;  we can't force them to.

This blog is different though. 

I know that what I post here normally isn't very earth shattering or probably even all that interesting to most people, but it's 100% me and it's a piece of sanity that I cling to.  I joke that it's my free therapy, but I'm not really joking that much.  I've always expressed myself better in writing than I do in person and writing about my life helps me to process it in a way that I don't do as comfortably or as thoroughly any other way.   And having a tad bit of an Eeyore personality (thanks mom and dad!), I appreciate that the blog helps me to put a more positive spin on things than my brain would do otherwise.   I've blogged my way through an awful lot of difficult experiences over the years--Ellie's epilepsy, Spencer's bout with aggressive leukemia, struggles with friends (mine and the kids'), emergency room visits, and numerous other "crises" and adventures that we've faced.   And this blog has helped me keep my sanity (at least at a minimal level) through it all.

Besides just being my outlet though, one of the other most meaningful aspects that I love about this blog, is what it means to my children.  I read a study one time that showed that children who feel a connection to their past, who know their family stories, grow up to be all-around happier,  healthier, and more successful people.  And family stories are one thing that my kids have in abundance!   They will know some of the silly, the boring, and  the serious that made up our days.  My only regret with the family blog is that I didn't start it any earlier as I would have loved to have had a better record from when the kids were younger.   Someday I hope to broaden the scope of our stories to include more memories from the past.

I know a lot of you readers originally came to this blog as a way to check in on Spencer when he was ill {thank you for your prayers and support!}.   Since he's been in remission, though,  I  sometimes wonder how there's anyone left besides my family who is even still interested in reading through the mundanity of our very average lives.   We're not rich.  We're not famous.  I am not a great writer or photographer.  I'm not full of creative ideas.   Pretty much I'm just an average mom, who just happens to really enjoy blogging about her family.

For all of you who have stuck around, thank you!  

Here's to many more adventures in 2015…one day at a time!


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