Why I Happen to Have a Lot of Time on My Hands

I just noticed that I have a ridiculous number of posts from the past couple of days.

I feel like I need to explain that I'm on April vacation at the moment (one of the amazing perks of being a teacher), that I actually got my grading and planning caught up before vacation started (this would be a first for me ... by a long shot), and that I realized how much I truly love blogging. While I don't have the most exciting life in the world (between spending my days with a fantastic but at times high-maintenance group of high school students then coming home and enjoying the company of Addie and Belle plus Sonja the hyperactive black lab and Charlie the self-mutilating cat and all the dinner-making/dishes/trying to keep the house clean/blah blah blah), I don't often have the luxury of just sitting here blogging, perusing other blogs, and--I'm just going to say it--relaxing.

One of the things that I spent much of yesterday trying to figure out was what exactly the purpose of this blog is supposed to be. I have a personal blog open only to my friends, and that was where the dirt, so to speak, was supposed to hang out. This blog was supposed to be a place for those who love to think, to engage in meaningful discourse, to exchange ideas with many different people.

Clearly it hasn't worked out exactly like that.

First, I seem to be unable to completely separate my personal life from my blog. I don't even write in my personal blog anymore ... it all seems to spill over here, although I'm taking pains to keep it a bit less personal. What I've done instead is give everyone a pseudonym (even "KLo" is a pseudonym, although there are a fair amount of people who've referred to me that way since long before blogs were commonplace) and tried to keep out anything that is really unpleasant and could be misconstrued as talking about someone behind his or her back.

Secondly, I'm incredibly excited that people are actually *gasp* reading my blog. I've wanted to be a writer since I was about three years old, and the idea that people are reading my words, thinking about my ideas ... it's heady, I don't know how else to put it. And I love comments; one of the major pleasures in my life has become reading comments left by people thousands of miles away that can somehow connect with what I've written.

And I guess that's all for right now. I mean, I hope if you're reading this, you'll read other posts, you'll think, you'll comment, and you'll come back. I'm under no illusions that I'm some great blogger or deep thinker, but I guess the bottom line is, I want this blog to make me a better writer and a deeper thinker.

Anyway, when I'm a famous author, you can all be, like, "I knew her back when she was trying to find the words to express why she hopes we read her pitiful little blog." ; )