Easily Intimidated

I am, I will admit, easily intimidated. That is part of the reason that I have been away from my blog for such a long time. I started to blog one day when I was sick (and so had time on my hands to sit) and wanted to try something new. Then someone else actually read a blog entry or two and I got scared. I started reading several excellent blogs and knew I would never measure up. All of a sudden, I felt like everything I wrote had to be perfect. I couldn't live up to my own expectations. It was somewhat paralyzing.

Today, I decided that I have been silly, so now, I am back to blogging for myself. I need practice writing ... I need practice thinking ... so I'm giving myself the assignment to write something every day. (We'll see how long that lasts!) I will say that even though I haven't been writing much, blogging has been good for me because I have been reading a lot more non-fiction and thinking about things a lot more than I did before. (You would not believe the number of blog entries that I thought about writing!) Until this summer, I read a lot of (mostly inspirational) romance novels (*blush*). I think I was using reading as a way to escape my everyday world. Once I started blogging, or at least thinking about blogging, I became excited about exploring new ideas, and I found that reading to learn new things is a lot more fun. I think I'm ready now to study and gain for myself the education that I was not mature enough to appreciate when I started college fifteen years ago.

On another note, the other reason I've been away from blogging for a while is that Drew started walking (running might be more accurate) a month or two ago. He is able to get into trouble so much more quickly and easily than he could before. I remember thinking when Gracie was a baby that it shouldn't make much difference if she was crawling or walking. After all, she would be mobile in both cases. I hadn't realized two things: (1) With crawling, her hands were mostly occupied so she couldn't carry things easily from one place to another, and (2) once she could stand up, she could reach higher and therefore get into more things than she could from her hands and knees. I already knew these things this time around, but somehow Drew's newfound ability to get into things still took me by surprise. During the day, I only get a few minutes here and there to check my e-mail or read a blog entry or two. I have to wait until after the kids are asleep to get any real time to sit and think ... and write.

Until tomorrow ...