you are God's tender mercy...

First off, THANK YOU. I am deeply touched by the out pouring of love that I have received. Thank you for the e-mails, FB comments, and phone calls. Knowing that there is a network of people out there thinking about my family and  sending us prayers or positive thoughts and words of encouragement is truly strengthening. I appreciate the advice and wise counsel that you've shared with me and it has given me a lot to think about. This blog and FB have been such a wonderful vehicle of connecting my life with the lives of people that I have known since I was a child but rarely see as well as keeping my current circle of friends in touch with one another's daily events. I love reading through people's blogs to see what is making their lives tick as well as sharing a bit of my life with those who want to bear witness to it. So thank you for being a part of this with me by reading my blog and sharing your thoughts and input as well offering glimpses into your lives through your blogs.  

When my laptop was stolen it had almost two years worth of journaling saved on it. Since I got my new laptop last week, I have been sorting through e-mails, blog posts, snippets of feelings and thoughts I wrote and saved on my husbands computer, and our home computer all in the attempt to recreate what was lost. I am so grateful that I have this blog. It has photos and antidotes about the daily perils of motherhood and I have shared where my head and heart where along the way. The thing is, while going through the posts for journal recreation, I noticed that the last time I posted something about the family was almost two months ago. I also noticed that for every two post that are published, there is a post saved as a draft. I usually write something then think that it isn't really in line with the spirit of the blog or it is too personal and keep it to myself. So I am thinking about making two blogs. Keeping this as a place to document all the little adventures and moments of daily family life to be bound together at the end of the year (like a photo album with commentary) and doing another one that is more about how I am processing the world. Should I just keep everything together and censored for a family blog format or should I separate the Bartlett Family Blog from a blog that is more my rambling observations, attempts at learning life lessons, and just documenting my internal journey? Can the two go together, or are they too conflicting in purpose? 

The really intimate feelings I have just can't be expressed properly in type. Those things go in my journal. There is something about the smell of the leather cover and the scratching of pen across thick parchment paper that adds weight to the words being written. Those words are personal and not open for public review. But I can sense a lot future blog posts that are written as I try to process what is going on around me and inside of me and sharing it makes me feel less alone as I go through it. I also get so much from the feed back I receive. I love it when someone says something that makes me go, hmmm, I hadn't though of it from that perspective before. Everything is really crazy in my life right now (on so many fronts) and that is reflected in how jumbled my thoughts and emotions are. Writing helps me sort it all out and really look at it so that I can figure out how to grow from it. And, maybe by sharing it with others, it will help them grow in some way too. I just don't want to overwhelm these blog followers with too many posts that are just -thoughts by Shama if they are just interested in reading a light hearted family blog.  Just something I'm thinking about.