Why I started blogging

The end of this month marks 3 years since I started this blog. But this is not the first time I've ventured into this realm of online writing. Years ago, I had an online journal, which I wrote in for a while but got quite bored of it when it was only myself writing to myself. I had tried to write it so my family could read what was going on, but who was I kidding, my family just isn't that internet savvy (at least back then). So, that little project of mine sputtered out.

Then, while I was head over heals into posting on iVillage's message boards, they opened up a social media platform that was called iConnect and quite a bit like blogging. I started writing up a storm! I loved it there. All of my friends I chatted with on the message boards were there. They were writing on their own iConnect spaces, commenting on mine and we had so much fun. Then iVillage went and changed it all and closed down that platform. I saved all of my posts from iConnect because they were so much a part of who I was at that time. Plus, I didn't want to lose my good words. Looking back at those posts, I can see that the closing of iConnect coincides 100% with the start of my Blogger blog.

So, that leads me to where I am today. Here on Blogger, blogging away. But that doesn't really answer the question of why I started blogging. My main reason for starting to blog to just have a place to write my down. A close second for why I started blogging was in hopes that someone would read my ramblings and connect. I had hoped people would connect with my words, my situation, my thoughts and me.

Somehow, someway I did connect! During the first 2 years here I didn't post much, nor regularly and I only had 3 or 4 followers. But I loved the fact that I had followers! It didn't matter how many I had, it was just so cool that someone was reading my words. Then during the early part of 2010, after I had been going through IF treatments for a few months, I really needed somewhere to put my thoughts. I started writing here more and I attracted a couple more followers (how cool!). Finally, earlier this year, I ran across a post by Mel at Stirrup Queens and that is when I really felt like I found my place in the blogosphere. I have found so many wonderful women, unfortunately and fortunately, going through the same things I am. I follow their blogs and by golly, more people have started following me! At this moment in time, I have 19 wonderful followers!

So, I think I have achieved what I wanted in blogging. I get to write my thoughts down, others are able to find my words, read them and comment if they feel like it (I do love comments!).

May's ICLW

This is my first time participating in the International Comment Leaving Week (ICLW). I found Stirrup Queens' blog and everything that is attached to it about a month ago and it has been great! I am so glad I found this online community. It has been such a relief and comfort to finally find so many others out there like me. Before I found Stirrup Queens I was really feeling low and like there wasn't anyone out there like me. I know that isn't so, but when you don't know anyone who is truly going through what you are going through, this is such a lonely path. I have belonged to other online communities before (iVillage.com, for example), but have since left them for one reason or another. This community though, I feel it has so much to offer me right now and I hope to stay put.

I just recently shared condensed blog post about my TTC timeline and you can find the longer version from the tabs at the top. So I won't go into that in this post. But, while out fulfilling my ICLW duties today tonight, I did see someone had posted some confessions about themselves and I liked it, so I'm going to copy her.

Some confessions of me:
- I really enjoy getting to the end of a product, such as finishing a whole tube of chapstick, using a pen until it is gone, using the last of the dental floss.

- I collect my cat's whiskers when I find them laying around. I never pluck them from the cat!

- I am American by birth and Finnish by application/naturalization.

- I don't really miss living in the USA, but I do miss my family some. I just wish they'd contact me more instead of me being the one to initiate calls and such.

- I love my husband dearly and I will spend my life with him, but I'm not sure if he is my best friend. And I feel guilty about that sometimes.

- For years, I would collect my used contact lenses in a little jar thinking that I would turn it into an art project called "lost vision". I just recently threw it away and then this weekend when I was at the Night of the Museums, I realized that my 'vision' wasn't so far out there.

- I never really knew what I wanted to be when I grew up (I still don't). I started out college with art classes, but I never really felt that I was an artist, but more of a crafts type of person. I ended up getting a degree in International Business. I don't see myself as a business person either. How much farther can you get from one ends of the job spectrum to the other?

- I've won gold in a Taekwon-do competition for my belt level & weight class.

- I love love love reading. Especially Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series, vampires and other horror (not scary stuff though) sci-fi, fantasy and fiction. But I must read books in order. Nothing drives me more crazy than reading books out of order.

- I am easily annoyed, just ask my husband. LOL (edited to add some examples of what annoys me: repetitious noises (ping ping of the computer each time someone in the office does something or the damn baby seagulls on the building roof next to us going "peep peep peep peep peep peep" 24/7), someone chewing their gum like a cow, etc)