Yeah… it has been a long time, huh?   Where do I begin?

I guess with the reasons I haven’t posted in such a long long (long) time.

I can sum it up in 5 reasons:

1) We’ve been busy!  Incredibly so.  I barely have time to check my email most days.  Between work, homeschool, activities, keeping up with Mr. Destructo (that would be my 1yo son), and work, we sometimes feel like we are running on a treadmill.  Going fast but not really going anywhere.

2) I’ve been feeling ill.  Nothing serious.  Nothing that 9 months wouldn’t cure.

3) My camera is on the blitz.  This makes me incredibly sad.  Photography was the one and only thing I had to myself.  My one relaxing hobby.  And obviously family and friends enjoyed seeing pictures of the kids. But certain family members, not mentioning any names **cough** hubby, oldest daughter **cough**, has dropped my camera and now it takes LOUSY pictures.  *sigh*  And of course, with so much going on this year - needing a new vehicle, paying for a birth, and a possible job relocation - buying a new camera is not very high on the priority list. 

4) Right before Thanksgiving, my identity was stolen.  Yeah.  I’ve been online forever and buying online and blogging online, and I had my first (and hopefully last) identity theft.  It took over a month to recover the money stolen but it all ended well.  I have a few suspicions on how this happened but can not pinpoint precisely how they did it.  Needless to say, it was not fun canceling everything they had access to - changing accounts, canceling credit/debit cards, filing a police report, submitting unauthorized purchases disputes, etc.

But it did get me to thinking just how much I share online. Particularly here.  I mean if you dug around, you would know where we live, all of our names, and so on.

5) Plus, this blog has been a mixed bag of sorts.  For example, in the past, my pre/post-partum depression posts have been used against me as a case that I was an unfit mother.  And other posts have caused unwanted… um… discussions… within friends and/or family (is that vague enough? LOL).  (FWIW, I am not opposed to healthy disagreements. It is just when something I say causes another to say or do something like argue, lie, etc.)

Anyway, lately I feel I can not express the things I really want to say sometimes - about our life, our beliefs, our views on current events (and man I have alot to say there!) LOL

So I have been pondering what to do for the last few months.

Do I just “clean” this blog up  - removing all mentions of names, specific places, etc. - and keep blogging here?

Do I have 2 blogs?  One for the “feel good” news (but cleaned up with no specific names, etc.) and one that is anonymous where I can say what I really want?

Do I quit blogging completely?  (but that would suck because this is the one major way friends/family keep up on news with us)

Do I quit this blog and set up an anonymous blog only?

Decisions, decisions…

This is your day!

This is your birthday!

This is the day that Jesus sent you to the Earth!

And we rejoice! We come to celebrate

‘Cause we love you and we thank Him for the blessing of your birth!

One year ago, Joshua Michael was born at home, caught by daddy!

Happy Birthday, Little Man!!

* song from the “Grow, Grow, Grow” CD:  “The Birthday Song” by Karyn Henley (link to webpage with the MP3 file)

In Pennsylvania!   So close to Kate, too, but still too far away from her at the same time! 

This past week was CRAZY trying to get ready for our mini vacation (I was up every night until 3am getting the house ready as well as ourselves) but here we are.  We haven’t been on a real vacation in 3 years.  It is so nice being in a hotel where someone else does the vacuuming!  LOL  Tonight, we are going to a 50th anniversary party for Bryon’s great aunt.

I’ll try to blog later tonight but the internet is crazy slow at the hotel.