Pages

Wednesday, August 14, 2013

Flip-Flops of Blogging

Hey! Check me out! Sitting at the computer and blogging and whatnot like a big girl. I've been avoiding looking at my blog because I knew it had been a while then, yesterday the Big Sister said, "Mom, you need to do some blogging." Six weeks. It's been six weeks.

I've mentioned before how I've got this commitment allergy, but I'm wondering if it really isn't more of a Label Allergy. I'm loving the labels of the the world less & less. And, that's because I'm so non-committal! I'm flip-floppy (schizophrenic) about stuff-- scheduled homeschool, relaxed homeschool, oh my word, where is the closest school?!?; carbs, no carbs;  herbivore, carnivore, omnivore; aspartame will kill us, embrace the aspartame (I don't need the sugar!!); Baptist, Pentecostal (I prefer Bapticostal, or better yet, just Christian!) gym every day, meh (1 Timothy 4:8). Depends on the day or week.

So, see here? Labels don't work with me. They don't stick.

It just hit me. I'm a GIRL! Doesn't that mean I reserve the right to change my mind?!
Shania Twain, anybody?
My ceramic flip-flops I painted. I like flip-flops.
Blogging has flip-flops, too. There's two sides.

~~You have a blog! Yay! It's nice to have a space on the interwebs to connect with people, engage the culture, and have the occasional rant. Blogging can be such an encouragement to the writer and the reader. Blogging is a community all on its own, even smaller when you factor in the niche bloggers. It is a also nice outlet to get out your allotted word count for the day.
Flip-flop.
You have a blog. So, ideally, one would post to the blog. It's kind of like that gym membership. You have the card to get you in, you should go, right? Also, like the gym, the more you do it, the more you want to. If you're like me, when you don't post or go to the gym, you feel like a failure because you know you should. (Extreme, much?) I currently have eleven drafts waiting to be completed, edited, or deleted.
Depending upon your goal, being a consistent blogger may matter.

~~For personal or family blogs, you can share what is going on in your life. Blogging is an effective way to have a digital scrapbook. So fun! You may share what the Lord is doing in your life or personal convictions or goals.
Flip-flop.
Now you've shared. Brilliant. As a chronic over-sharer, I can't count how many times in my baby time of blogging that I've said, "I so wish I wouldn't have told anybody!" That's not to say we shouldn't keep it real. The world is seeking authentic Christians. Be real. Because I believe in this authenticity and I'm committed (really, not flip-floppy on this one) to being real, I will most assuredly say again, "I so wish I wouldn't have told anybody!"

~~People read what you write. This is so amazing to me. I am still blown away that people read my shenanigans. There have a been a few posts that I really believed in and hoped would get shared, but few. Mostly, it's shenanigans. And people read it! Gah! Jokes on you!
Flip-flop.
People read what you write. There have been conversations or interactions that have inspired me to write, but I have to wait a while to post it because it would be obvious to my friend who reads my blog that I'm piggy backing on our conversation. I don't really want to capitalize on my friends like that. Now, I'm not talking about the ones who tell me, "You need to blog about this!" I get that on occasion. :)
I've also had a few stories that I couldn't share because the situation involved a possible reader. When you know your readers, you can't very well go using their parenting fail that you witnessed with your own eyes in your blog, now can you? I'll have to stick to my own parenting fails, there are plenty.

~~Blogging helps kill some perfectionist tendencies. I still have issues publishing a post before it is "perfect", but I'm working through it. I'm getting better. There is no perfect. No perfect content. No perfect grammar. Too many commas. Sentence fragments. All that jazz. I'm letting some of that go because of the conversational style of this blog. I never want it to sound fake, but like my voice. One of the biggest thrills is for someone to tell me, "I hear your voice when I read your blog!" Love.
I also read on another blog somewhere (I can't remember) that it's better for 10 people to read an imperfect post that may inspire them than for no one to read it.
Flip-flop.
Blogging kills some perfectionist tendencies. I still can't stand it when I find a mistake in a published post. Gag.

There you have it. First post in six weeks. What are some things you are flip-floppy about?

2 comments:

  1. I think you are pretty dern perfect!! I miss you, your tan, your spouse and your girls!!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I needed this!!! S and I were just having this convo... I'm in the 'if I can't devote more time to it then I'm gonna quit it all together phase" blah! I put so many labels and mandates on things, I needed this to check myself and realize that I'm the one setting the rules that I'm finding hard to live by not anyone else.

    Thanks for the wake up call and reality check.

    ReplyDelete