Happy 2nd Birthday, little blog

*via squeezeomatic

I've let my two year blogiversary come and go, ignored, like an unappreciated marriage, but much has happened in these two years, and it's been fun to have this place to capture it all.


A few highlights:

• My nail polish collection now fills a big fishbowl in my house. My favorites were designing my own little color collections inspired by movies like Marie Antoinette and The Edge of Love!
• I had a crazy dream.To be a writer. Published, that is. This was the moment of inspiration that started it all. The half-finished, misshapen novel that came out of this inspiration was awful. But I did get this lovely winter playlist out of it: 
• My Fresh Snow playlist. Have a listen!
• I tried a lot of new things. One of them stuck. Crochet.
• I wrestled with what it means to be a blogger and what I want to blog about. And I still do!
• I daydreamed about Paris. It took two years, but I finally got there.
• I went cuckoo for cocoa puffs on chick flicks. And talked about the movies that really moved me.
• I spilled my guts on my journey with "maybe motherhood"... and now my journey into motherhood.
• And I told you my most secret thoughts (well some of them, at least)

What does another year of blogging bring?
I'm still not sure. This motherhood transition has knocked me off my block a bit at times and having never gone through it before, it's hard to know how much is temporary and how much is here to stay. I don't know how that will change things.

I do know that I'm still on the path of a writer, although my steps down the path have slowed. I also know that I still love to share my fleeting insights and feelings, plus the occasional whimsy.

But I'm not sure about other things...

I'm not sure how I feel about documenting my journey through motherhood after baby is born. In a sense, I'm documenting baby's life for all the world to see, and baby doesn't get a say in it. I don't have any radical black and white convictions, but those shades of gray worry me.

And I'm not sure about other aspects of blogging...

The way it puts life on a public pedestal. It's like always looking in the mirror. Does it make me too self-conscious? Is it a good thing? I'm an introspective person by nature, and I don't think that's bad. But what blogging makes me self-conscious about is often not my character, but rather how cool I am or how photogenic or trendy or how exciting my life is or how many people give a darn about what I write. And I don't know that those things are the best gauge of a life well-lived. What worries me is the idea I might come to be more concerned about what anonymous society thinks about me than the people who really count.

Over the years I've gotten so much inspiration from blogs for things like home decor, fashion, food, crafts, etc. I love the fact that (most) blogging is not corporate-directed. It's real people, sharing what they've found and tried and liked. And yet, like magazines, so much of blogging can stir up envy and acquisition-ary tendencies.

"Why doesn't my house look like that? I think it's time to remodel the bathroom"
"I want that moroccan pouf I see in all the cool people's living rooms..."
"I need a new pair of boots"
"What's MY signature fragrance?"
"Everyone else has an iPhone. Why don't I get one? I don't want to be the last one on the block, do I?"
"Oh, I need to check out that Etsy store"

It's not that I think these things are horrible. They're normal and natural and human, but I have enough problems with "I-want-itis" without feeding the beast. I know some bloggers intentionally use their blogs as a force for good (or at least what they believe in) to try to motivate and inspire themselves and others towards higher ideals and maybe that's a path I need to consider.

So I'm not 100% sure what blogging holds for me in the future, but as I've done in the past, I'll keep going a little longer, to see what emerges.


Thanks for reading and coming along for the ride!