{"id":4258,"date":"2011-09-27T15:14:24","date_gmt":"2011-09-27T22:14:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/x.jimanddoni.com\/?p=4258"},"modified":"2011-09-27T15:14:24","modified_gmt":"2011-09-27T22:14:24","slug":"the-things-i-hate-about-blogging","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimanddoni.com\/?p=4258","title":{"rendered":"The Things I Hate About Blogging"},"content":{"rendered":"

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(Troy and Grandma)<\/p>\n

All shots above taken on September 13th – Troy was almost 1 month corrected and 2.5 months actual.<\/p>\n

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I have had this website for over 10 years now and I don’t plan on abandoning it because I love the many records I have kept of my children via blogging.?? Sometimes though, I really hate the fact that it creates a one sided conversation and often may come across with a lack of authenticity in regards to the woman I am.<\/p>\n

I’ll give a couple of examples that will illustrate my frustrations.???? A few weeks ago, I ran into a friend in the grocery store.?? We had not had the opportunity to chat for quite some time.?? She referenced so many current events in my life (because she reads my blog) yet I knew very little about hers.?????? I felt embarrassed to tell you the truth.???? Made me wish for more real and authentic chat time with my girlfriends.?? Made me resent a culture where we rarely get visit time face to face and then cultivate relationships the best we can through electronic media.?? I should be grateful for what we have (and to degrees I am) but I also suspect we have lost something pretty important too.?? I am the last person to know how to fix this in my own life either because raising my children and keeping up my home is about all I am capable of most days so “living in community” is not something that comes easily for me.<\/p>\n

The example of the second frustration is as follows:<\/p>\n

A friend calls me and amidst the details of the conversation she lets me know that she keeps up with me via this blog and then commented on how I “have it all together”.<\/p>\n

WWWWWWWHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAATTTTTTTT?<\/p>\n

I wanted to cry in that moment.?? I felt like a fake.<\/p>\n

The truth is, there are many reasons why I choose to avoid too much lamenting on my blog.?? In the first place, these are records for my children so I want to be wise about how I journal something so public.?? In the second place,?? I know that I knee jerk when reading too much of the “whinies” when reading other blogs or facebook so I try to avoid it myself.<\/p>\n

I love my husband.?? I love my children.?? I love homeschooling.?? I love being a mom.?? I am happy with my life.?? I am happy period.<\/p>\n

HOWEVER…there are still a lot of hard days in between.<\/p>\n

I am almost always depressed in September.?? October is my favorite month of the year but I am starting to wonder if that is in part due to a celebration of surviving September.?? That first month back to school is a doozy for me every year.?? This year especially because the demands of the kids are greater.<\/p>\n

I am also really struggling with trying to figure out how to parent a child with disabilities.?? It is lonely.?? I am frustrated.?? I have no idea what I am doing half the time.?? I cry a lot.?? A whole lot because I don’t know how to “fix” any of it and I don’t know how to really help and I worry about the future and I argue with my husband about what works and what doesn’t and I wonder if any other mom is going through the scenario that I am and what she is doing and how much further down the road she is and I wonder if I am going to do more damage than good in the long run.?? (And yes I know that was a terrible run on sentence).<\/p>\n

I read a book last week called The Oak Leaves by Maureen Lang (you might still find it for free on your Nook and Kindle – it was free last week).?? It is a fictional story about a family whose child is diagnosed with Fragile X.?? The author’s son has Fragile X and I heard so much of her heart in this fictional story.?? There were several areas I highlighted in her book that inspired and challenged me.<\/p>\n

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I had the opportunity to go to Women of Faith on Saturday only (thank you Kelly for that ticket!) and that was such a blessing.?????? You can’t even imagine how excited I was to be within 15 feet of Amy Grant.?? First time in my life I have ever felt honest to goodness star struck!?? I have loved her all my life.?? That was awesome all by itself.???? I also enjoyed the speakers this year.?? I didn’t get to hear Brenda Warner (Kurt Warner’s) wife but I did just buy her book.?? I know she is a mama to a kiddo with disabilities and she is a “be brave and wear combat boots” kind of person so I thought maybe her book could inspire me.?? I don’t feel brave right now.<\/p>\n

Lisa Welchel talked about friendship (which increased my guilt where this blog is concerned by the way).?? One thing she said that stood out to me was that if you find another woman who as it all together, RUN!?? She said that if another woman has to work that hard to live up to a standard of perfection, she will hold that same model over your head.?? Boy is that true and I KNOW I have BEEN THAT WOMAN and God help me I don’t want to be her ever again.?? That is why I crashed a bit when a friend thought I had it all together.?? I wanted to tell her, if that is true then run from me.?? Run right now.<\/p>\n

I could write for quite some time today on these subjects and more but the fact is…I don’t have enough quiet time in this day to concentrate long enough.?? My window has already expired.?? If this post sounds like I am down in the dumps, sorry!?? I am not.?? Just being contemplative and honest and felt the need to say “I do NOT have it all together.”?? I don’t even know what on earth that would mean.<\/p>\n

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(Troy and Grandma) All shots above taken on September 13th – Troy was almost 1 month corrected and 2.5 months actual. ************************************************ I have had this website for over 10 years now and I don’t plan on abandoning it because I love the many records I have kept of my children via blogging.?? Sometimes though, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mamas-diaries"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimanddoni.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimanddoni.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimanddoni.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimanddoni.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimanddoni.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4258"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jimanddoni.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4258\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4265,"href":"https:\/\/jimanddoni.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4258\/revisions\/4265"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimanddoni.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimanddoni.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimanddoni.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}