What I'm doing online that keeps me from writing in my blog.

Only a few days into the month, and I'm having trouble getting my posts entered on time. I'm going to stick with this-- the point is to get back into the habit, and of course that will take a little work-- but I'll try to be creative with my brief obligatory posts. I'll also quit pointing out that they're obligatory after this paragraph.

There, I'm done metablogging for a while. Yay.

Here are a few of my current fascinations:

Awakened: nature-loving, hill-living mom with a baby boy just Bird's age. Love the simplicity of her life and writing.

Sundry Mourning: working mama of another baby boy just a little older than Bird. Very funny, recovering alcoholic, brutally honest about the frustrations and joys of motherhood.

Knitted Brow: Kim's an old friend (that I've never met) from my Diary-x journaling days. A teacher, a lover of good food and long walks and dogs and spirituality and many other things that I like too. Plus, now she lives in Hawaii, and her scenery fascinates me.

Sara's new preemie Isaac has me checking daily for updates on his progress. I've loved Sara's spunky, honest-yet-irreverent site for years-- anyone who would sell WTFWJD merchandise has my undying devotion-- but Isaac just makes me relive all the joy and terror and love of Bird's Intensive Care days that first month. Plus, she knitted that squee pumpkin hat that I must make.

Harris Chronicles: An old high school friend, now living as a military wife to her high school sweetheart, who's stationed in Iraq. Her posts of moose and snow (she's in Fairbanks, Alaska) entertain me, but I really stop in to watch her baby girl photos and check to make sure Alan's doing fine. He should be back next month, thank God.

Homesteading Bloggers: I've found a whole nest of them at homesteadblogger.com via my friend Beth. You need to be registered to read them, I think, but they speak to all my latent loves of gardening and composting and my desire to raise chickens and grow my own food and (possibly) teach Bird at home when she gets old enough. There's a huge range of philosophies that cause people to choose this lifestyle, and I find that fascinating too.

Mir's Want Not blog. She posts at least twice a day about various fabulous bargains she's found on the Web. She's funny. She makes me want to buy stuff. I have to watch this-- I currently have 16 servings of dehydrated soup that I bought for $2.99 from Canada, no shipping. Do I need dehydrated soup? No. But Mir blogged it, and so I wanted it. Arrgh. But regardless, I love her. So pretty. (I find it weird that I'm all attracted to The Compact and the Brown Dress and the Simple Way while also being a daily visitor at a shopping website. Guess I've yet to work through some of the changes I'm feeling called to make.)

Tabblo. This review describes its features in detail, so I won't do that. But be assured: It is addictive. It makes me feel like I'm part of this big worldwide community that celebrates the beauty of life via each other's photographs. That sounds completely cheesy, but it makes me happy that some young photographer in Italy thinks that I've taken a really wonderful photo of my daughter, and that I get a chance to see what he saw on his way to work last week. It's also a great way to share baby photos with family and friends-- I make a tabblo, and include the link in an email to them. Flickr is dull by comparison.

...and I could keep listing things. But I'll stop there to keep from revealing the embarassing extent of my online habits. It's something I need to curb, but also something that brings me a ton of joy and satisfaction and connection to the outside world.

Hopefully, as I get back into recording my life online, this will become a source of joy and satisfaction as well.