Good grief. A week ago I had nothing to say. Now you can’t SHUT.ME.UP.

I have been meaning to write this post for some time now. I read quite a few blogs. Some I try to read every day, others I read on a weekly basis or as my mood fits. My blog list is varied indeed. I don’t link all of them because frankly, I don’t have room.

My favorites are listed in my sidebar. Bar none (no pun intended), these are the blogs I tend to read the most. A few people on the list don’t post much at all anymore (like pod). Because my particular sidebar can’t hold more than a handful of favorite links at a time, I sometimes add some while subtracting others that just aren’t posting that much anymore or are just not of interest to me right now. Call me fickle if you want to. But if someone only posts once a month or only sporadically, I tend to lose interest. If someone I read never visits my blog or leaves a comment, well ... it would be easy to get in the “well, if you won’t comment on my blog, then I won’t comment on yours” mode. That just isn’t right. So, I try to comment on the blog posts I find relevant to me whether or not these people ever visit my site. If the spirit moves me, I comment. I think people are much the same about my blog. Some people relate to some blog posts more than others. I have to admit though, if someone comments it prompts me to comment on their blog.

I have seen a trend in some blogs to write what the reader wants/needs to hear from that person. Does this mean I want to skew my blog to garner more comments? Nope. Absolutely not. This blog is about my life. Mine. What you see here is what I really am doing on a daily basis. This is me. Love me or leave me. Period. I have never been good at subterfuge. If I tell a lie my face turns bright red. Really, I am not good spy material.

Other people I am not so sure about. One blog I read you will not find in my sidebar, and neither will I give you a link. It’s my guilty pleasure since I never watch soap operas on television. Frankly, I don’t believe a word of what she writes. No one’s life could be fraught with so much turmoil and live to tell everybody about it. It’s a soap opera! She tells a good story, I’ll give her that, but none of it rings true. She never backs anything up and the photos she shows could have been taken anywhere. I catch her all the time in inconsistencies in her blogging. I think I might be addicted to her lies. Not just to her lies, but to proving to myself that what she is writing is not true. No one else but me (and maybe one other person that comments on her blog) even seems to to notice. Are most people that gullible? And, really, just why should I care?  Good question. She had a donate button on her blog (which really pushed my buttons!) where you could donate any amount of money you wanted to save her broken-down-fixer-upper-house-in-the-middle of nowhereville (if it even exists), then she finds someone to buy it (because she can’t afford to keep it and the bank is about to foreclose), and the next thing you know she’s showing us a 4-acre piece of land where her new cottage is going to sit. And, she’s going to build it herself. Anybody got a shovel? Or maybe I should tell her to be sure and wear her boots. But yet .... I keep reading this drivel!! Go figure. Maybe I need a life. What can I say? It’s like those cliff-hangers on the daily soap operas—you never know what’s going to happen next or just what she will come up with, so I keep tuning in.

Besides the guilty pleasure blog, I read blogs about food. About knitting. About photography. About people struggling with very small children. About people renovating old train carriages and making them into homes. About just day-to-day-life in different parts of the country and world.

Pretty amazing, isn’t it? Yet you have no idea if that person is really who they say they are, and if what they are blogging about is real or fabricated. It’s so easy to do when someone sits at a computer where nobody knows them. Me? I can’t hide. My neighbors here pretty much know about the blog and my life is their open book. Sometimes I am taken aback that they all know what I am doing on a daily basis and then I remember the blog. (Like the other day when I was going out for a walk in the woods and I passed neighbor Luke coming out of his house. He said oh yeah, I saw you blog this morning and figured you’d be heading out. And by the way, I did get some pretty cool photos on my walk in the woods of weird mushrooms and other things which I will be posting soon!)

C’est la vie! Non, c’est ma vie!

Note: After reading over this entry I’m not sure I’m making any sense! I’m going to post it anyway since I went to all the trouble to write it all down.

Good post!

Some blogs are like bad accidents that you just can’t turn away from. I wonder if the blog you’re referring to is one I stopped reading. There have been several that annoyed me so much with their drama and turmoil that I had to cut them out of my life.

I like this entry.  I enjoy reading your blog, but I don’t expect you to read mine.  My blog tends to be about my son…something that just isn’t going to interest you so much.  I like reading your blog because it’s NOT about children haha.  My whole life revolves around being a Mom now, so it’s nice to read your blog and feel like an adult haha. 
And we all have those guilty pleasure blogs.  People who post lies, and don’t even try to do a good job convincing readers they are telling the truth crack me up…but the donate button you spoke of….that would make my blood boil!

You always make sense to me!

I don’t comment nearly often enough, but your blog is and always has been a sweet, welcome place to visit. I’m very grateful that Reya brought us together!

Mary: exactly! Toxic blogs! I’ll email you privately and we can compare notes. How funny it would be if we were both reading the same blog unknown to the other!

Katie, I like reading blogs about people with children because it’s something I never went through. I have nothing much to add because I have not “been” there. Your photos of your newborn son are simply stunning, as is your obvious love and joy that you get from him. By the way, she still has a “donate” button on her blog to support the fees? from blogger which I have no clue what that costs. Seems silly to me.

Jane, dear Jane. I know you have better things to do (like healing) than to comment all the time on my blog. I know you are out there reading, and to know that it brings you pleasure is all the more satisfying to me. And yes, Reya did bring us together! You have a permanent place in my links. XXOO

I am with you on the peyton place stories!  Too bad to turn away, sometimes!  I enjoy reading about places that are new to me - kind of a window on different places in the world.

Exactly why I blog.  Exactly why I read other blogs.  Exactly why I rotate through other blogs.  I was just thinking about that the other day…how I started reading some and found them quite interesting, then later so ho-hum.  And others piddle out on their own.  Some are varied enough, have enough meat to them…and truth…or bears!...to have legs.

I love this post!! Such honesty!

My name is Linda and I am new to blogging, I found your blog by accident and I have only read a couple of posts.  I loved the the photos of the mushrooms, what beautiful colours. The bird feeder and bear story made me smile. Nothing like that happens in my backyard. I look forward to reading more and getting to know you better, HAPPY NEW YEAR to you.