I just can't quit you, blog!

So, I have been MIA again for quite some time.

But look! I have updated my blog header with a current family photo, and updated my family's info at the right. And here is my first post of Phase 3 of my blog.

It must be said, I have GREAT respect for any blogger with kids, any blogger who works full-time, and I have GOBS of respect for anyone who can blog on a regular basis who has kids and a full-time job. I know there are people out there who do it - my hat is off to you. Send me advice on how you manage to do it, because I am realizing more and more I need this blog. I miss it when I slack off. I feel guilty seeing the date of my last post. I mean, it's not like I am holding back on sharing really important information (I do not have the solution to gun control or ideas on how to make a amazing calorie-free chocolate cake in my head, sorry to say...). I also know that only 2-5 people actually read this blog. And that's fine.

This blog is purely for me. I'm selfish. I just can't quit my blog, even when I neglect it for over a year.

I need an outlet. When I don't write, I either hold thoughts in my head until they are so bottled up they keep me up at night for weeks. Or I throw up all my bottled-up thoughts into my hubby's terribly patient and understanding ears. So I started a blog in 2008. And I loved it!

This would be a good time to point out that as a teen, I loved to get journals. Beautiful, bound books, lovely covers with swirling, floral patterns, or rich, stitched leather, filled with perfectly lined pages, or hand-made paper with little pieces of twigs and leafs pressed into each delicate sheet.

I would delve into those journals with a passion to detail every event of my days. The love affair would last about two weeks. Then the journal would sit untouched until a new journal was gifted to me, and the affair would begin again. I have a Memory Box in my closet that came from my parents' house when I moved out after college. It contained five such journals, and since then I know of at least three I added to the unfinished pile.

It's funny to look back of these snippets of my life. I always feel a little sad when I read the last page of one. What did I do the next day? Apparently nothing interesting. Or was it something so amazing that I hadn't even had the time to write it all out?

So when I started my blog in 2008, as a newlywed with 3 stepchildren, I was proud of the fact, amazed even, that I was able to blog steadily for almost 2 years! And I was my own most loyal reader. I loved (and still love) that I have a record of that time of my life.

But then one day I stopped. I got too busy. I had a baby. I had no time. I got sick. I got scared. I didn't want to talk about what was happening in my life, let alone write about it.

But I got better, and started the blog again. After a couple of months the entries stopped again.

Last week I tried to access this blog through my blogger account and found I couldn't. I didn't know why, but Blogger would not accept my password. It pissed me off. I wanted to access my blog! My journals never locked me out! I did what I always do when faced with technical difficulties: I called my hubby.

Hubby fixed my account in about 5 minutes - after I had struggled in vain for what felt like hours. Really, it was my lunch break at work one day and a half hour that evening, but it FELT like hours...)

So I am back on the blog. For fun, for my sanity, for my family, but mostly just for ME. Bring on Phase 3 of the Good Stepwitch's Brew.


-the good stepwitch