{What I Learned On My Blogging Hiatus - or mostly Hiatus - What the Heck is a Hiatus!?"}

I have the flu.  It stinks.  BUT I did get the flu shot this year for the very first time, so I am just a "little" achy, a "little" coughy, a "little" hoarse, and a "little" bit loving my toilet -   All enough that I stayed home and in bed today.   I can only imagine what it would be had I not gotten the shot????  Who knows. 

So as I write the word "Hiatus" as the title of my blog post it just got a little weird.  The more I looked a the word the wierder it looked - You've all been there.  After a little while the word Hiatus just sounded nasty like looking at a body part from the inside during surgery or something.  Ick.

I did go on a blogging Hiatus of sorts and it was mostly unintended but it happened and I learned some things.  I had been blogging for 5 years on my blog.  I had a good following of people who had become friends mixed in with some family and it was comfortable.  Then Pinterest arrived in the world and I had quite a few things that were pinned from my blog onto Pinterest, which at first I thought was quite a nice compliment - recipes, Brittany's baby shower, some of the quote's I made for Conference but the biggest hit by far was The Firepit - http://bakowbabble.blogspot.com/2011/08/one-with-fire-pit.html.

And, YES, it is an awesome firepit but it has literally been pinned thousands of times now and my other blog still gets 500 views a day or more, just from that Firepit.  I looked this morning before I began to write this and it was 459 so far today and I haven't written on that blog for like 8 months.  Can you say Crazy.  These are people looking at my blog who were not my friends, people I didn't know.    Then we had Eleanor come into our family and that was when I decided, this is not a good thing.  So I took a H-I-A-T-U-S.  I also took anything personal off of that blog and put it in my blog books.

I had already joined Facebook at that point and that has been fun.  I did do some blogging on, this here, new blog, but I kept it private until now.

Some things I have learned:

Facebook can NEVER be your blog or your journal. 

I see SO MANY wonderful things on FB  that people put out there and I always think - I sure hope you are writing this down somewhere that your kids and grandkids will see it because in that respect FB is useless.  It is social media for the now, not a history.   It kills me to think that when someone writes about a special moment with a child or a parent, or some other special memory, that, that is the only place it will ever be.  So my wish is that most people are like me and have some other place to record those memories that, if not put somewhere special, will be lost forever - blog, journal, etc...

I have never been one to put a huge amount of pictures on facebook because really there is no point for me.  I like to put my pictures into book form for myself and my family to enjoy.  Can I just say over Christmas we laughed SO HARD looking at old pictures in the scrapbooks.  It's just fun!

Occasional updates and a picture here and there are plenty and that is what I enjoy about FB - I love being able to catch up with people and see that someone had a baby or moved to a new house or their child is off to college, or telling me that they just saw a good movie, or a bad movie.  I enjoy the small, essential updates and that is all I put on there as well.  (OK unless it is an election year and then I go all crazy - but that will NOT be happening again this year!!  LOL).

It is a fun way to connect but it can never be where you put your history or your personal journey in life.

Not Blogging Publicly for 8 months and transfering to a new blog has allowed me a fresh start.

I admit that there was a point that my blog became a little too all consuming.  I was living my life in part, by always asking myself - What will this experience look like on my blog?  Or, I have to take pictures of this for my blog?  Everything I did was about putting it on the blog, and as much as I feel it is important to record my life and journal and keep a record I remembered during my HIATUS that life is about living!!!  My relationship with my husband is personal and I like it that way.  We are in love, we have a great marraige and a great life, but every single thing we do or say or feel does not need to be written down.  Most things are just us., not for public consumption.  Life is the same way.   MOST TIMES you just need to live life -put the phone away, put the camera away, and go for it - every single moment does not have to be in pictures or words.  I did alot more FREE LIVING on my HIATUS because I wasn't thinking "I need to put this on the blog". 

The other thing is that after blogging for 5 years I was able to clean up and clean out my blog lists a bit.  After 5 years there were people that I just didn't "click" with but you've been reading each others blogs so long you feel kind of obligated.  I like a fresh start to just go to those blogs I love to read and I hope only people who like me will come here.

PICTURES:  

 I found a way to keep my pictures private.  So I am hoping that this blog will not find it's way to Pinterest.  If I feel like I have something to blog that is Pinterest or Sugardoodle worthy (I was also featured on Sugardoodle - same story) I will blog it on my other blog - which is still functioning I just don't us it.


The best lesson I learned from my blog Hiatus is that when you have your priorities in place you get more done and you are happier!

 I know that it is so easy to get caught up in Facebook or Blogging or Instagram or Twittering.  It is human nature to want to have recognition for our thoughts, our pictures, our actions, etc...but it is also dangerous to desire this all the time.  There has to be a balance.  We each have to find our own balance but it all starts with priorities, service, and unselfish living.  I figure that out more and more the older I get and the wiser I become (wink).  Being away from my blog - and living through the experience (I Jest) - showed me that it is not the end all.  The world does not stop rotating, my friends do not disappear, if I am not blogging constantly or sharing every little detail of life on FB I actually get other things done.  It's true!  Life goes on and it is real!!