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by Ashley

I followed the same path that most of my friends were on at the time: got married during college, traveled with my new husband, and worked full time. Then it seemed the time was right to have a baby. Soon after, we welcomed a beautiful boy into our home. It seems my girlfriends had the same idea too because I would hear news about all of them having their first babies! Then came many more firsts: diapers, car seats, bottles, binkies, night feedings. I remember thinking how nice it would be to talk about all these firsts with my girlfriends who were experiencing them just like me.

Around that same time, I began to hear about blogging. What’s a “blog” I thought to myself? My sister happened to have a blog so I remember hopping online and looking at it one day. She would write about the every day moments with her family and post adorable pictures. Underneath each of her entries were comments left by friends and family who kept in touch with her by reading her posts! Genius! Light bulb!

I started my blog in the beginning of 2007 (right when blogging was becoming popular). I was happy to see that almost all of my friends decided to start blogs too! I would literally check in on my friend’s blogs every day to see what they were up to! They would write about their new baby, how they felt about breastfeeding, when is the right time to potty train, or details from their most recent vacation. What I loved most about the “blogging social network” of that time was that people would post more than just a picture and a few brief words. They would write details about sights, sounds, and smells, of their memories. It was more than just a snapshot, it was a story.

I was writing stories too! Blogging was my therapy as a new mother. I would put my baby boy down for a nap, and hop on my blog to see who had shared anything about my thoughts that I had posted the day before. I remember writing about the struggle I had with taking away my sons binky because he was becoming too attached to it. He had a hard time giving it up and I needed advice on how to help him with the transition. Many of my friends gave advice and I was able to help him successfully. I wrote about all of the details of my family life. I wasn’t worried about how many “likes” I would get on a certain post because it was “MY BLOG” I could do with it what I wanted. I also never had to worry about posting “too many pictures” of a certain event because I wasn’t clogging up anyone else’s news-feed. This was my little online journal.

It seemed like this blogging thing would last forever. I hoped it would. But then, all of a sudden, people started making their blogs “private” which means that only friends who were invited could view them. This made it more difficult stay in touch. On top of that, Facebook started to take flight and people jumped on that ship because it was a faster more efficient way to communicate with multiple friends at once. I get it, I jumped on that ship too. I immediately started finding friends on Facebook. I started sharing pictures and funny little thoughts. It was fun!

However, in all the hullabaloo, something was getting lost. The details. Those tiny moments in life that add the spice and color. Perhaps there was a song you were listening to when you had your first kiss, what about that funny thing your daughter said when you where playing dress-up, and you don’t want to forget exactly what you felt that day in the hospital when you held your grandmother’s hand for last time and told her how much you loved her before she took her last breath… These are the details.

I took a year or two “off” from blogging. That was to my detriment because there were many details of those years that I wish I would have written down. The bottom line is that it’s difficult to find time every day to sit down to the computer and write your thoughts. This is why I was SO HAPPY to see that there is a new Blogger app for phones!! I have my phone with me constantly, and that’s also where all my pics are stored so I can just take a few minutes to add my photos and write about them when I have downtime.

I am happy to say that I have dusted off my little blog and started writing again! And while my friends may not come to look at what’s happening on my blog anymore, that doesn’t matter to me. I have changed my outlook on what blogging is for me. It’s my journal. It’s a safe place for me to log thoughts and photos of my family. It’s a guilt-free place that I can post picture after picture of my child eating spaghetti. And in the end, that’s really all that matters.

“Every man’s life ends the same way. It is only the details of how he lived and how he died that distinguish one man from another.” Ernest Hemingway