Journaling...

"Evan and His Sticks"

Sooo, I'm realizing that I'm not quite as interested in my blog as I used to be. When I started it, there was no such thing as Facebook, and I didn't have 3 children. Short little status updates fit this stage of life better.

But also, I'm realizing that I'm tired of self censoring. I worry that if I get really excited about something about homeschooling, the non- homeschoolers may take it the wrong way. And I'm not interested in fighting that mommy war. And its not just that... there are many other ways I can self censor. 

I don't want to subject all of you to the mundane of my every day, I guess. I repeat myself a lot. And I don't want to wonder whether or not you think my mundane is interesting before I start typing. 

My memory is horrible. David remembers far more of the details of our last 12 years together than I do. I was disturbed the other day when he remembered a children's ministry training we did when we were in AL that I had absolutely no memory of. 

So I'm going back to the old fashioned journal for some of my chronicling of life. I don't want the tiny moments to slip away from me, so I type them quickly into a Word document. My plan is to print it out in 1 year volumes and put it in 3-ring binders. And it'll be password protected on the computer as soon as I figure that out.

I feel like I've gotten so deeply into blog sharing and social media that I haven't thought about the value about having something just for me. It's been years since I kept a journal, but looking back on those, I find out so much about "younger Ellen." I find that I now crave someplace where I just write down what I want to remember for me and no one else. No self censoring. I need an outlet for my grumpy thoughts, my potentially judgmental looking thoughts, and my very tender thoughts.... and this ain't it. 

We'll see what this blog becomes. Maybe doing this will free me to write differently and better... and maybe it won't. But if I become more scarce around here, you now have a clue as to why. :)