I have succumbed

Okay, I finally succumbed. I started a personal just-me blog. The URL is

casadelcaudle.blogspot.com

I started it mainly for a writing project I want to do about being a mom. I've tossed around an idea of writing a book with my friend Jackie, and I have a very vague idea of how I want to focus it. The words aren't quite there for it but the general idea is - I'm baffled by women who say that they don't want to stay home with their children because that would prevent them from being "self-fulfilled." I thought having children at all WAS part of being self-fulfilled ... but what do I know. I'm naive and brainwashed by the evil patriarchal Mormon society. Right? Har har. Anyway - that. I'd like to somehow address that. I don't know how, so the blog is for free writes and other random thoughts on being a parent.

The other reason I started it was because of a speech given by Elder M. Russell Ballard (text HERE) at the BYU-Hawaii graduation in December. He said essentially the same thing at a business leaders dinner here in DC that some of my friends attended, and they told me about it. Basically, the point is that there are a lot of conversations going on in the media and on the internet about the Church and Salt Lake can't answer every question itself. The members of the Church need to be engaged in the "new media" - including blogs - to share our testimonies, how the gospel brings us joy, clarify doctrine when the situation arises, etc. I saw the speech in an LDS News email a number of weeks ago, and my friends just told me this past weekend about the dinner. That was finally the nudge that pushed me into starting the blog.

Since I want to write about being a mom anyway and maybe publish it ... why not see how it goes in a blog at first. I'm also going to put little "here's what we did today" blurbs here and there so it's not so heavy-handed. I want to encourage people to enjoy parenting partially by showing them that yes, it can be fun - showing by example and not beating them over the head with it.

And for you ... there are pictures on the blog of the girls. Since I still haven't gotten around to learning how to put pictures on the regular webpage, I'll stick them there since I don't really have to do anything. I have plans for the regular webpage still but that's apparently going to take even longer now. *sigh* I have a rather extensive list of things I'm in the middle of working on. I need to just settle down and take it one project at a time to actually FINISH something for a change.