community

I'll be honest: I really wanted to win this month. Win the big competition. You know, the one with myself, where I'm competing to have the most blog posts in one month? Yup. This was my month. I needed 12 in order to beat my previous best of 11 in April of '09. Which is why it's March 31st and here I am, posting two days in a row. 

I'm committed to winning. Have I mentioned I'm a first-born? I blame my competitive nature on that.

But now that I think about it, I don't know if more is necessarily better when it comes to blogging. Some people blog too much, you know? Like...I ignore their posts when they show up in my reader because you talk too much and I can't handle it!!! But then, some people don't blog enough. I feel sad every time I open my reader and they still haven't blogged. I miss them. So there's too much, there's too little, and then there's just right. Just like Goldilocks. What's the "just-right" zone? Twice a week? I don't know. Suggestions welcomed.

But anyway, that's not even what I was going to ramble about today.

Today I was thinking about community. I love me some community. When I think about community, I think about living around people who know you and accept you and like...make you laugh and stuff. And you can borrow stuff from them. (I know, I'm a very deep person.) And then I think about how blogging and social networking and all that plays into community. In my opinion, it makes it better. I feel like my personal sense of community is greatly enhanced by this little online bloggy-friend-world thing I participate in.

Ugh. I just typed and retyped a paragraph like 20 times and then just deleted it because I still don't know what I'm trying to say. Which leads me to ponder: should I even keep writing if I can't figure out what I'm trying to say???

No, because I must win, and today writing=winning. (WINNING!!)

I guess I just wanted to say thanks. Thanks for giving me an outlet to whine. Thanks for giving me support and prayers and comments and advice and reality checks when I need them.  Whereas in my real life I am often hesitant to dive into my emotions and really let it all hang out, here I do that and you guys don't run away or make me feel awkward. The internet has allowed me to "surround" myself with a group much more diverse than anything I could have found in my real life: here I find friends who are going through what I'm going through...who have been through what I'm going through...who are going through things much WORSE than what I'm going through (helps keep things in perspective)...who inspire me to be better...stronger...craftier...wittier...bolder. But who don't make me feel guilty if I don't accomplish any of those things at all. 

Is this like the cheesiest thing ever? Well, it's probably better than listening to me whine, right? That was your other option for today. :) You're welcome.

But seriously. I just feel really thankful sometimes. And even though Matt makes fun of me for spending all my spare time in "the blogosphere," I think I'm better off for it. And it's not all my spare time, anyway. I spend plenty of time doing other important things, like gardening. And Facebook. And watching awesome reality TV shows (new fave: Storage Wars. AMAZING!).

So, that's all here, and now I have officially WON the most-blogs-in-a-month competition versus myself, so BOO-YAH, self! Also, thanks for all your "support" for seeing my really embarrassing middle school pictures. After my bold promise to show whatever you want...I'm wishing I had been crossing my fingers or something. Seriously?? Middle school? I'm going to have to sandwich it between several very cute baby and wedding pictures so that you don't judge me too harshly. At least I have 6 more days to gear myself up for the humiliation. 

Time to stop ignoring the fam (aka Matt and Lola). Goodnight, blogosphere!!