A Strange Little Band: Blog Revamp

"The family. We were a strange little band of characters trudging through life, sharing diseases and toothpaste,  covering one another's desserts, hiding shampoo, borrowing money,  locking each other out of our rooms, inflicting pain and kissing to heal it in the same instant, loving, laughing, defending, and trying to figure out the common thread that bound us together." - Erma Bombeck

It was back in 2009 when I read those words for the first time and I have to tell you, they were like honey to the lips. These were the most beautiful, powerful, fitting words for my life that I have ever seen - and I don't even remember how I found them. What profound love spilled through this quote.

I'll be honest, I've never read a Bombeck book. Titles like "When You Look Like Your Passport Photo, It's Time To Go Home", or "Eat Less Cottage Cheese and More Ice Cream: Thoughts on Life" are appealing to me - so I'm sure, one day, my shelves will be filled with her works.

But for now, I owe three years of blogging to this woman because it was her that really knew how to sum up my thoughts, beliefs, loves, fears, and truths on family.

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The last year of my life has been filled with more love and laughter and tears than I could have imagined, all thanks to my family. I've been cleaning poop off my dresses, yelling over Thanksgiving dinner, practicing gentleness (often to failure), learning to cook, learning to write, learning to edit, learning to paint my nails, and paying a visit to the old hard-lined feminist Sam once in a while, too. I've had little time to really reflect on not only who I am but who I want to be - and by extension, what my blog is and what I want it to be.

In the last year, I've prayed for discernment of whether I should even be having a blog. (The answer was a strong yes.) I've taken classes on how to effectively communicate through your blog. (The secret is to keep your diary in one room, and your computer in the other. The public does not need to see my dirty laundry. That's what a porch is for.) I've stumbled around to find vision, creativity and direction as I've learned to discover my voice and my dreams.

I'll be honest with you here: I have a long-term writing goal. There is a Master's program in creative writing that one day, when I'm in my thirties, God-willing, I'd like to take. If it still exists at the time. I like to write because I like to reveal what I'm learning, and I like to be honest and real: to foster a community of inclusion, a reassurance to those like me that they're not alone - and maybe that I'm not alone either. If I can continue to do this through professional means - well, that would be my dream. For now, my blog is a stepping stone to the path I one day want to build.

So, late one night, with all of this in mind - the last year and the future - I pulled down my blog. I kept my content but I otherwise started from scratch. I prayed that what I emerged with would reflect who I am and who I want to be and there were a few key elements which cropped up:

Femininity.
Honesty.
Faith-filled perspectives.
Imperfections.

Femininity.
For those of you who have been with me in the blogging journey since day one, you'll know that I started this blog because I got married and I couldn't cook. I was a feminist, and a free woman, and an independent thinker, and a man can damn well cook for himself. I was going to be a high-earning, high-achieving, highly-educated woman who happened to be married because she found the love of her life. Well, as it turns out, an independent-thinking-free-woman-feminist still wants to cook for her husband once in a while and when that's not possible, what do you do? You blog. You learn. You burn the rice and under-cook it at the same time.

In no sense did 'femininity' describe who I was. But since beginning my blog, embarking on my twenties and growing a family, God has brought out the lady that's inside. She's rough around the edges and she doesn't stay silent, but she's there. She now wears dresses and cuts her hair on a bi-annual basis. She bakes things and she also breaks things. But she's there. There is a feminine side of me and I wanted to reflect this through my blog. Hence the overwhelming pink. Sorry, male readers. Please stick with me.

Honesty.
I recently had a miscarriage. It was agony. For weeks, it was heartbreak and sadness. But there were moments of hope and the underlying message that God wanted to communicate with me was that He is still good. Still good. Was good, will be good, is still good. This message was bursting through me and although I couldn't do much else and was on a barely-function basis, I felt I had to blog it. And am I ever glad I did: messages, love, support, questions from those in similar situations, poured out of cracks in the log that I never even knew existed. Readers came from the woodwork that I didn't know took the time.

Family is more than blood. Family is community. And through honesty, we can all find community together.

Faith-Filled Perspectives.
I'm blessed enough to be surrounded by those who share a similar faith to me, but I'm aware that voices of hope and healing are seldom heard in this world. When Toyota Prius unleashes such catchy commercials you could sing along to all day, why would you take the time to listen to quiet voices of unseen faith? If I can use my small platform to share the amazing things God does in my life, I will. This is probably dangerous to type, because He'll take me up on it, but here I am. God is welcome to work in me and I am going to share it. I pray that He always protects myself & my family, and grants us with safety,  hope and love - and I am excited to share our journeys with you.

Imperfections.
I don't want you to get the wrong message here: my family is not perfect. Including the in-laws, I've got four parents, three brothers, and two sisters. I've got a husband and a baby girl. There's grandparents, great-grand parents, aunts, uncles. There's plenty of love, a little division, and always room for restoration, healing and forgiveness. Much of that is not appropriate for a public domain.

But some is.

When it comes to me and my heart, and the journey my husband and I are taking, we're going to be real with you about the imperfections in our lives. We do not have it all together. Because this isn't a diary, it's not appropriate to use my blog as a place to rant about dirty socks on the floor. But where there is full healing and restoration, I will use my blog as a place to share our journeys of hope. Like how we are getting out of debt we should never have found in the first place. Or how we're turning unhealthy lifestyles into healthy ones. Mediocre recipes that sort-of worked. DIY extravaganzas you might want to try. Things like that.

So I hope you'll take this new road with me. It's the same blog but it's got a fresh look, a renewed vision, and a clarity and peace-of-mind in knowing the direction I want to take. As readers, I don't know if you'll see much of a difference, and that's okay. My heart is directed and my mind is focused and that's what it takes to write well.

As Ernest Hemingway so accurately said it,
"There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit at a typewriter and bleed".