Comfortable With My Blog

It's a funny thing, this blogging.  I think that I'm just now getting to a place where I am comfortable talking about my blog.  Doesn't that sound awful?

This is what I'm talking about: I've filled out several forms and surveys in my life that ask me my hobbies.  For the most part, I haven't had any.  I never had good answers.  "Hanging out with friends" doesn't seem to fit the hobby department, but I would write it down anyways.  As my hobby.  Without anything else.  Sometimes I might write "babysitting."  In the past few years, I just started to develop hobbies.  It happened after I got married.  I think that it might have something to do with being married to the most stable person I've ever met to free me up to find things that are fun.  Stability is freeing to me.  That's not really where I'm going with this-that's just a little bit of personal perspective to enjoy.

About a month ago, I had to fill out another survey.  Hobbies showed up again.  I listed some of my official hobbies: running, reading, crafting.  And I did it.  I proudly wrote down "blogging" on my list of hobbies.  It felt normal and right and good at the time.  After the survey was submitted, I started thinking about the fact that I listed blogging as a hobby.  

I don't like that because there is a stigma around anything online.  It seems that anything online (facebook, blogs, email, etc) is only valid if it's very sparingly used.  "I'm hardly ever on Facebook" becomes a statement of pride.  Well, guess what?  I'm pretty much always on Facebook.  I'm not sitting in front of the computer all the time, but it's open and I see it from afar if I'm in the room.  I'm a people-person through and through and giving me another tool to connect with people is stellar.  I spend time with people face-to-face on a regular basis and my life goes on outside of Facebook, but it's great to see pictures, read what's going on, and post videos.  My cousins and I even have our own little Facebook page where we post funny stuff and inside jokes and it's great because we don't live in the same place but we still connect.

Blogs are great too.  For this stay-at-home mama, I can find blogs on parenting, mothering, nesting, dressing, crafts, marriage, and other little stuff that interest me.  It's a great outlet and I can honestly say that it's been helpful to me to read and see other things that are out there.  My parent's generation had magazines, which are like blogs but more polished, more formal, and less real.  

So, here I am with my little blog.  My little way of enjoying life.  I like to talk about the things that interest me: making things, my home, funny things that happen, stationary, food, adventures, and my family.  John, Burl, Fern, and the extended family.  Writing about it helps me process my thoughts and remember my life and have fun along the way.

And I'm going to be honest, it helps to know that a few people show up and read my blog and give me feedback.  That's very exciting for me.  Thank you to all my real life, in person friends who respond to things I post.  Thanks to those few people that I haven't met that do the same.  It's all helped me to become comfortable with my blog, and even more, it's helped me become comfortable with who I am.