A New Start

How to begin a new blog? I suppose the best way is to figure out for myself why I'm writing it, then just dig in and get started.

After three years (give or take a bit) of regional and political blogging, I think I've finally figured out why I kept starting and stopping, taking off for weeks or even months at a time. While I really enjoy the challenge of trying to write on a regular, if not daily, basis, I often found myself dreading the task of rifling through dozens of news articles each day to find something interesting and/or important enough to blog about, then discovering that (1) everyone else in the blogosphere is posting on the same subject, (2) I haven't done my homework or bothered to think the topic through sufficiently, or (3) only a handful of people are going to read what I spent so much time researching and writing — except for the rare occasions that someone from the other side of the red-blue divide takes notice and begins a campaign of harassing comments, hate mail and attempts to get the blog banned or shut down for one reason or another.

Instead, I want to write about what I know best: life. My life, in particular. And my family, and our interests and foibles and fun. Basically, about what goes on in our seemingly insignificant little corner of this world. And the goal isn't to rank high on Technorati or the TTLB Ecosystem with high-profile, controversial posts. Or even to gain record numbers of daily readers.

My main goal here is simply to take a few minutes to write and to share. And if I get a few hits each week just from family members or friends who are wondering what we're up to these days, I'll be happy and count myself blessed.

I can't promise that politics and current events won't ever enter into discussions here, but I expect those posts to be few and far between. Mostly I'll be writing about family, food, photography, and whatever else I may stumble upon as the mind wanders.