Launch.

I have been toying with the idea of writing a blog for a while now, and I finally clicked on that little "Get Your Own Blog" button in the corner of someone else's blog. It reminds me of that old TV commercial for chips that said "Get Your Own Bag!" I always thought it needed the word "Damn" inserted before "bag." It just didn't have enough oomph.

The title of my blog came to me, just like my husband said it would, when I tried to describe my life in a short phrase. Stay-at-Home-Mom isn't quite right, because I almost never do stay home. Home-schooling Mom isn't quite enough, because I've only just begun, and I don't feel like it defines me. I am neither left-wing nor right-wing, Christian nor anti-Christian. Home-birthing, breastfeeding, co-sleeping and attachment-parenting used to describe me, but my babies are bigger now (4yrs and 6yrs), so that doesn't quite fit, either. Some of my friends call me a health nut, but the real health nuts I know know that isn't true. I like to run, but I'm definitely not a runner.

I have given some thought to what I'm going to write here. I read voraciously, and this would be a great place to work out my responses to the books I read. I think this is the perfect spot to put all the stories and ideas that I don't want to bore my husband with, and that I just don't have time to chat with my friends about. It is still hard to have good conversations with babies and toddlers crawling around. They're all getting bigger, though, so hopefully good conversations will happen more frequently.

I guess I see this as another avenue for personal growth. It's like a diary, but more public, so I have to put a little more effort into it. I see myself doing some kind of writing in the future, so this is an opportunity to improve my writing skills. (By the way, I am open to suggestions.) This is all completely new to me. Will I have to be careful about what I say? If my parents or my in-laws read this, will they be shocked, surprised, or offended? Maybe they'll learn something.

Maybe I'll learn something. If so, then this will be a useful exercise.