Bloggin' Mommies

I googled myself this morning. I did it mainly to check my on-line privacy. I never worried too much about it but recently it has. Just a thought pecking away at my brain. What if, what if, what if. Mostly I guess, I just don't want anyone I personally know (except my hubby) to be reading this. Especially family. Once upon a time, or at least 3 years ago, is when I started blogging with Bravenet. I didn't realize that the personal info that I filled out ended up in my profile. So my first and last name did float around for awhile. But once I changed that, most of the links and other things with my full name on them changed as well. And I am pulling the link to my blog off Daniel's Angel Site, because family do occasionally visit there. Also I pulled the city I lived in off my profile. Not that I haven't mentioned these things in posts, so they still are linked, unless I delete my old blog. It will just make googling me a little harder, hopefully. Do you think that I should delete my old blog? I don't use it anymore and the only reason that it is open yet is for archives. Am I over reacting? Is it that big of an issue?

Also, googling my name just proved that there aren't any other Stephanie *****'s on the web and that I am that boring.

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Now to what I have been waiting to post about all weekend. I got my April Baby Talk magazine Saturday. One of their cover stories was about mommy blogs. All about how popular they are and how they are keeping moms sane. It was quite interesting. Read it here. For me, blogging is a release. Here I can say whatever I want about whatever I want. But more so I do it for the friends. I don't have any friends currently in real life, besides my hubby and family. And being a SAHM doesn't provide me with a lot of opportunities to meet some. Plus I hate trying to find new friends. I feel so awkward. When we go places like story time at the library, all the moms have their own cliques and I end up feeling like background scenery. And having a playdate with some one you just met is just like dating. If you can't stand that person, how do you end the playdates? Basically if you don't click as close friends and are just 'friends', then you have this whole relationship to dance around and keep up. The whole point of this was to reduce stress.

BUT, with my blog I have found my ever so wonderful on-line friends. It is so much easier to "shop" for friends by bloghopping. And with just chatting a few times, you can make close low-maintenance friendships that mean the world to you. I can visit whenever I want from the privacy of my home. I don't have to drag an over-tired toddler to a playdate or get my house clean because some one is coming over. And it is SO nice to talk to other adults on a regular basis. Blogging is MY thing. It isn't about my kids or my husband. It is 100% mine. And that is a good feeling too. What else is mine in life? I don't know, my collection of wornout t-shirts? My colletion of 100-200 coupons?

The article also named four mommy blogs as favorites. They are:
http://daringyoungmom.blogspot.com
http://mothersontheverge.blogspot.com
http://thebigyellowhouse.blogspot.com
http://morphingintomama.typepad.com
I plan to check them out as soon as I finish posting this. While I was doing my visiting and reading this morning, I found that Life in Mamaland had a post very similar to mine. She had this meme which I decided to answer:
1. Do you blog to make friends with people you will eventually meet in real life? Probably not. Most of my blogroll are people in other countries. Some people create their blogs as a way to communicate with Family, but not me. Half of my ranting is either about family or things that I can't discuss with my family or people that I know in real life.
2. Do you blog for the sake of the B? Do you blog for yourself as a sanity-seeking form of online diary that is really neat cause it can link to all kinds of other things on the fancy Interweb? Yes, I think. I blog for my own personal release, but not to keep a diary. I blog for the interaction of friends and the wide array of topics and things to learn on the web. Like coding. ;D
3. Do you blog to discover people with whom you share a number of opinions about a topic? Yes. Generally I only read the blogs and link to people that share similar opinions, values, and such that I do. Or at least in one main way. But there is much diversity in my blogroll too. I suspect that some of my linkees wouldn't necessarily read some of my other linkees blogs. Much like real life friends.
4. Do you blog to attract readers? And, do you have an expectation of what sort of readers you have? Would you still blog if nobody read your blog? I try to write in an entertaining way. I don't care what they think of me. If they don't like my blog then they can move along. Or if they don't like my post but in general like and read my blog, then don't feel the obligation to comment. I do the same thing. As for the last question, it wouldn't be so much that I would stop blogging as I would do more 'shopping' for readers by bloghopping. If there were no other bloggers in the whole world, I wouldn't blog. Like I said earlier the point for me isn't to keep a diary, it is the friends and interaction.
5. Do you blog to distinguish yourself .. because you think blogging is cool and you think it makes you cool(er)? Yes. First, blogging is my thing and mine only. It is a way for me to learn things that I can teach myself. That my husband or relatives aren't necessarily knowledgeable in. Second, because I am making a claim to a little piece of cyber me. Blogging IS cool. It is cool that I learned enough to do it in the first place. It is cool how other blogs look and what they decide to post about. It is cool to be constantly learning so much about everything. It is cool to be a part of something so technologically 'in'.

So, now that I fell like I have repeated myself thoroughly, I want to thank all my friends (you know who you are). Thank you for the friendship and the sanity. You are much cheaper and go down better than Px drugs. :D

There is homework! You can just leave the answers in comments. Why do you blog? What do you think of on-line friends vs real life friends? Does blogging make you cool? Have you ever Googled yourself?

I am dying to know. TTFN