{"id":3461,"date":"2012-03-13T11:41:21","date_gmt":"2012-03-13T18:41:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/?p=3461"},"modified":"2025-11-02T17:36:43","modified_gmt":"2025-11-03T00:36:43","slug":"been-an-intersting-ride","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/?p=3461","title":{"rendered":"Been an Intersting Ride"},"content":{"rendered":"

I can hardly believe it but in about 2 months I’ll have been blogging for three years.\u00a0 Yup.\u00a0 Floors me.\u00a0 This is blog #444 and I’ve spent the last few weeks going over every blog (again) to password protect any that can be used to harm those I love.\u00a0\u00a0 Basically, my kids.<\/p>\n

I’m not worried about my Ex or of the disapproval of others.\u00a0 I’m not ashamed of who I am or what I’ve done in my life.\u00a0 Quite proud actually, of my growth journey.\u00a0 No, I hide my material from the peers of my kids who might use the information to make their school lives miserable.<\/p>\n

Although amusingly I find that fact pretty improbable.\u00a0 Especially as I get down to the first few original blogs.\u00a0 I know I’m probably the ONLY personal anal-retentive-compulsive enough to read a blog that has become a favorite from the very beginning.\u00a0 But then again, I read book series and absolutely refuse to start in the middle!<\/p>\n

When I first started blogging it was a place to store my humor and stories as they occured.\u00a0 Kind of a first draft for stand-up, should I ever go that route.\u00a0 Probably not until the youngest is at least high school.\u00a0 By then my kids will know more of the real “me” and be adult enough to handle it or not my problem if they can’t.<\/p>\n

And the same goes for unblocking all the password stuff.\u00a0 I’m going to enjoy the freedom of making all the visibility public once the kids are older.\u00a0 I never wrote them for private reasons.\u00a0 At my core I am a public personality.\u00a0 An open book of who I am, like it or not.\u00a0 Hiding myself feels JUST a little like a betrayal.<\/p>\n

I look at others around me as they get all bent out of shape to keep their private lives private and wonder why?\u00a0 Why go to so much effort to hide who you are?\u00a0 Fear of disapproval?\u00a0 Fear of getting fired?\u00a0 Fear of being attacked?<\/p>\n

I ask….\u00a0 are you ashamed of who you are?\u00a0 Is any friend\/job\/relationship worth burying your true self for?\u00a0\u00a0 This is the USA, you shouldn’t be attacked or harrassed for being who you are.\u00a0 Okay, well, maybe in SOME states that might happen.\u00a0 So don’t be foolish about it.\u00a0 Don’t move to a country that persecutes someone for being a Christian and then start preaching!\u00a0 Then again, if you are dumb enough to do that you deserve the consequences.\u00a0 After all, “the people” these days probably have access to texts (as in books, I’m old-school) or movies or rumor or maybe even, *gasp* the internet!\u00a0 The word is pretty out there, it doesn’t need you putting your life on the line for you to tell them in person.\u00a0\u00a0 Or for ME to pay so you can do that.<\/p>\n

Ooops…\u00a0 got off topic onto my personal pet peeve of Evangelicalism.\u00a0 Sorry.<\/p>\n

The point being is people should be themselves.\u00a0 They may not be accepted for it, but they will, no doubt be happier for it.\u00a0\u00a0 I like to think America and even more so the Internet is a place to be yourself and maybe even celebrate it.\u00a0 A lot of people use it to journal their lives, something that can be inspiring to others.\u00a0 Or just amusing! Ha!\u00a0 I know it has become something of both for me.\u00a0 A form of expression.<\/p>\n

Although sometimes it seems more a duty than a joy!\u00a0 When I first started blogging I tried to do one blog per week in each category and posting a blog a day.\u00a0 LIFE put a kibosh on that after a year.\u00a0 It was such a job!\u00a0 And it took an entire weekend day to write up 7 blogs for the week!\u00a0 In case job and kids got ahead of me, I wanted to be prepared.<\/p>\n

After a year I dropped it down to 3 blogs a week, Monday, Wednesday and Friday.\u00a0\u00a0 And still I felt “pressure”.\u00a0 But by then I was dating, doing the single Mom thing and trying to organize my time.\u00a0\u00a0 I had a lot of materiel and so little time to write it!<\/p>\n

By now I’m down to two blogs a week.\u00a0\u00a0 Tuesday and Friday and sooooo much of my past stories have been posted I’m down to the dregs.\u00a0 Although in a lot of ways I blame Facebook for that.\u00a0 When humorous things happen with the kids, I do a quick, cute little FB post instead of a long, expanded version of the story for the blog.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Best Birth Announcement EVER!<\/p><\/div>\n

So Facebook, time management, my Ex and using up all my “good” stories are to blame for less of my personal blog.\u00a0\u00a0 I like to think when I’m more free to be shocking and adventurous I’ll have more drive to be clever on the Internet.<\/p>\n

Until then, you get this.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I can hardly believe it but in about 2 months I’ll have been blogging for three years.\u00a0 Yup.\u00a0 Floors me.\u00a0 This is blog #444 and I’ve spent the last few weeks going over every blog (again) to password protect any … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-just-ramblings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3461"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3461\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3483,"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3461\/revisions\/3483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}