Is This Blog Dead?

Growing Sound Roots. They've grown. After 8 years in Seattle area and 10 in the Pacific Northwest and outside of my native and beloved California, I think I'm planted. The whole idea behind this blog was to cover our journey as new Pacific Northwesterners living on the Puget Sound. The day to day lifestyle, the travel log, the journey of pregnancy and new parenthood. I loved every minute of this space for the first few years. Then I got side tracked by your wonderful comments that gave me hope. They gave me the desire to turn this into something bigger. To make a name for myself. To have more than the 15 minutes of fame I earned after meeting and almost stalking Young House Love. The blog post I did about that experience earned me an amazing and whopping ....thousand clicks and page views. I was obsessed. I am embarrassed to think of how many times I clicked refresh while viewing my stats. When really my intent for this space had nothing to do with the general public or stats or page views or clicks or advertisements.  

My initial intent was to follow in my Gramma June's and Papa Howards footsteps and document life and family. To be a way to process my life as I live it. To be a place that I could always return to as my memory failed me. My intent for this blog was to share with family and friends who live further away, yet want to know us and our little family and remain close to us. My passion has always been photography and has more recently become writing, so this space gives me an outlet and a place to practice and nurture myself. In Micah's first year and a half this blog gave me mental health and the baby book I never needed to make because it is all right here. But here I am now. A Kindergarten and First Grade Instructional Specialist. A mama of a three year old (almost three & a half year old) who mostly prefers his daddy. A wife to a full time college student. A girl who lives with her mother-in-law. A temple member. An essential oil lover and distributor. A podcast listener. A preschool parent. A long distance daughter and sister and sister-in-law. With all of these things I have become a little less outgoing, a little more cautious, a little more humble, and to be honest, a lot more unsure of myself. Am I living my life intentionally? Am I being too selfish? How am I serving others and making them feel important? What am I doing to rip down systems of unequity in public education? What am I doing to instill compassion and patience and a growth mindset in my son and in my teachers? What am I doing to listen to my faith and grow my spirituality? How am I taking risks and not just waiting on others? How am I not a hypocrite? The list of questions spinning around in my head during the last year have been endless. I've taken the time to filter my thoughts a little more than usual perhaps because I used to be confident in my actions and in teaching others and now I have more questions than lessons and answers.

 

Some of my questions involve this little blog. Should I continue this blog? Should I start a new one to share my random creative writing pieces? Should I instead create one about the education system or about early literacy? The thing that's tough is that I know that I'm not an expert on any of this. I'm a life long learner. I'm also not a very good questioner...yet. I'm practicing. So, after all that rambling. Stay tuned. There may be more. There may not be. There may be another blog. There may not be. I definitely won't stop writing. I am a writer. I am a photographer too, so there will still be photos. Whether I have a central focus has yet to be determined. Maybe I don't need one. Maybe I'm my own worst critic. If you are still reading this, I'd love to know...why (and thank you. thank you so very much for being a part of my life).