I know blogging has taken over my life when:
- I can’t find time to write my entrance essay for applying for my Master’s Degree because I’m too busy blogging, replying to comments, reading other people’s blogs and twittering.
- My husband thinks I love my blog more than I want to spend time with him (I admit this is true some of the time).
- I tell my kids “I will help you/play with you in five minutes,” and five minutes turns into much longer.
- I lie awake planning my next blog post or editing in my head the one I’ve already written, chastising myself for hitting the “publish” button when it really wasn’t perfect.
- I lie awake wondering how I will fit blogging into my day when I have so many other things to do when I get up.
- I get angry when there’s not enough time to blog.
- I take a foodie extremist comment (my first ever blog controversy, not over breastfeeding but tofu!) personally and spend Thanksgiving day griping about it.
- The pressure to give good blog leads to self-esteem FAIL.
- The only thing that I can make time for for certain is Grey’s Anatomy.
- And finally, I know blogging has taken over my life when I go to sleep and dream that The Feminist Breeder and Ruth Moss from Look Left of the Pleiades and I are at a Punk Rock Girl Blogger Conference and one of the attendees turns a man into a chicken carcass and then suddenly everyone turns into rubbery, slimy, pink and blue Storm Troopers and starts shooting each other with laser beam guns but no one dies (just like in the real movies!). If that isn’t symbolic of… well, something (I’m open to suggestions) then I don’t know what is!
What does this all mean?
Well, aside from the feminism-meets-vegetarianism-meets-anarchism dream, I’m certainly not going anywhere. Laser me all you want – I love blogging. This past year of blogging has saved me from certain brain atrophy and a slow, spiraling depression. But I do need to cut back from posting 4-5 days a week to 2-3 days a week. I need to tend to my Master’s application and my family.
I wish I had the stamina and time to crack out the kinds of posts PhD in Parenting is writing these days (Annie, you’re amazing! Mind if I laser you? Zeep!) for she is the stick I measure myself by (even though you can’t really tell these days), but (weep!) I just can’t. You moms who can juggle jobs and kids and husbands and school and sideline gigs and blogging (ahem – Feminist Breeder) just blow my mind. I’m barely getting enough sleep as it is.
My goal is to strive for better balance.
I know how Amber at Strocel.com manages her time, but how do the rest of you do it?
I love you guys! I hope you stick around while I go academic for a bit.
~Melodie ~
Related posts:
Thank you for the twice-linking… you rule.
It’s funny – Cave Mother just posted something very similar — and linked to me as well (am I becoming the poster child for the over-multi-tasked Mom?) Okay, guilty as charged. But here is what I told her on her post (yeah, I’m quoting myself, see this is how I save time!):
“My secret is this: I only write after my kids go to bed (and they’re both asleep by 8 pm… don’t hate me for that.) I’m also a massive insomniac so when I can’t sleep I stay up writing. My final secret is that (and my husband is so angrily jealous of this) I write really fast. I’ve written entire 10-page research papers the same day they are due, and gotten perfect scores. My trick is that I write most of it in my head before I ever sit down in front of a computer, and because I have a good memory for this, I’m able to throw things together pretty quickly when I do finally have time to type.
”
I dunno… that’s all I got. *shrug*
.-= TheFeministBreeder´s last blog ..Wordless Wednesday =-.
I know, balance is really hard. I lie awake writing in my head, and I too have to battle against taking it all too seriously. But on the bright side, I really hope you get on your Masters course!
.-= Cave Mother´s last blog ..Co-Sleeping in the News =-.
I know blogging has taken over my life when…..
It’s Sunday and I have 45 minutes to make pad thai for a potluck we’re heading too and I’m leaning over the computer in my apron and *really* feeling your post and having to comment while the fried eggs burn.
No one expects you to make any x amounts of posts. Your the best blogger when you’re doing what you need to do. Hoo-rah She-rah Mama!
.-= hillary´s last blog ..flowers13: Think getting old sucks? Try again.RT @tweetmeme Photo Friday :: All the Days of Your Life | …infinitely learning… http://retwt.me/ZfF4 =-.
Oh… I have definitely been accused one too many times about loving the blog more than the husband… Sigh.. guilty as charged as well
.-= Wendy´s last blog ..Birth practices of the early 1900s =-.
We can’t do it all!
I fully believe that if someone is attempting to “juggle jobs and kids and husbands and school and sideline gigs and blogging” then one of those things is suffering. Best to tend to the ones that need us most.
I totally support your decision to cut down the blogging; not because I don’t love your blog and find inspiration in it all the time!!, but because there is a time for everything, and it’s so important to follow the priorities where they take us!
Good luck with school! I will still be here loving your blog!
.-= Sally Jackson´s last blog ..30 days of Happiness– These days =-.
WOOOOOOOOOW! It’s like you were inside my head when you wrote that post. Just know you are NOT alone! I feel so much better about my blogging and social media addiction. I work full time out of the home and home about an hour commute each way. It just KILLS me that I HAVE to waste my time sitting at a desk doing work that bores the crap out of me. The commute can go away as well. Someday, someday.
Thanks again!!!
.-= Laura Rucker´s last blog ..Funny Friday =-.
“I fully believe that if someone is attempting to “juggle jobs and kids and husbands and school and sideline gigs and blogging” then one of those things is suffering. Best to tend to the ones that need us most.”
Leave it to a woman to tell another woman she even doesn’t know that she can’t cut it. I LOVE how women do that to each other.
Just cuz YOU ain’t doin’ it doesn’t mean I ain’t doin’ it. Or maybe you wanna come over and tell me which one of those things is “suffering?” 4.0 GPA? Check. Happy/Fed/Clothed kids? Check. Husband who loves me and my ambition? Check. Blog? Check. Cake Business I run all by myself? Check.
But no… I couldn’t possibly be doing it all. I am, after all, only a woman, so I must suck at something.
.-= TheFeministBreeder´s last blog ..I Guess This is Why I Stay Married To ‘im =-.
I’m leaving this one alone…. I like you both too much.
HAAAAAAA HAAAAAA HAAAAAAA!!! Well put Melodie!
.-= Laura Rucker´s last blog ..Funny Friday =-.
Wow, how did I miss this back when you posted it? Probably because I was too busy blogging…ha ha! I just want to say “check” to everything on your list. Even that freaky dream! Ok, not really that one.
.-= Lauren @ Hobo Mama´s last blog ..Wordless Wednesday: Ancient potty training =-.
[...] while there’s the potential for blogging taking over your life, I find it’s just one more thing to learn from and find balance with. And of course, [...]