Why

A lot of you have asked me what finally made me take the step of privatizing my blog. I've really been meaning to do it for months, and known that I really should- simply because it's a scary world we live in, and so much of our family is just "out there" with this blog. I'm a little irritated with Blogger because it will only allow 100 readers, and we have more friends and family than that who would probably like to read it as a way of keeping in touch with us... but truthfully, we really can't be too careful with our personal information. Especially a blog like this- I share so much of my heart and emotions and self and stuff here that it would be ridiculously easy for a creepy person to use that for bad purposes.

We met a person of that sort recently. We call him "Creepy Charles." I will spare you the long story that really isn't all that interesting- but a man stopped by our house a couple of months ago to look at my sister's car that had basically died in our driveway... he was interested in the car but didn't want to pay as much as she wanted to sell it for. A couple months passed and the car was still sitting in the driveway, and it just sort of became more work than we wanted to deal with, so my sister decided to sell the car to CC- who didn't seem quite so creepy until he started asking questions like "are you married" to a woman quite obviously almost 20 years younger!

Somewhere in the middle of the transaction, we learned that Creepy Charles is actually a sex offender who was just released from parole- moreover, he has an extensive criminal record (mostly from the 1980s) of theft, including one count of breaking and entering.

So, all in all, we decided that beefing up the security of our home and our family was in order- not just because of the creepiness of Charles, but because he was a stark reminder of the ugliness of the world we live in... and it's more important now than ever to safeguard what you can.

I did struggle with the decision to privatize the blog- that was a big part of the reason I didn't do it for so long... I really like connecting with people I don't know in real life- coming together on issues like motherhood, and learning to trust God with our lives- that so many people encounter. I have met "friends" on this blog that I value quite as much as many people who are in my personal face-to-face life. And let's face it- I once had a dream of being a "famous blogger." Sometimes it made me feel like the struggles I have had, especially over the past year, have been more worth it because they've helped encourage others going through the same things. And now I'm a bit sad because my blog must be restricted to 100 viewers or less... but all in all, my family is more important, and I am glad to have taken this step.

So welcome to the now-private world of my blog... I hope to continue writing here simply because I love to have a record of my thoughts and of this wonderful, joyful, fun, challenging season of life!