State of the Blog

Hello faithful readers (whoever you are). This blog space has been weighing heavily on my mind lately. Mostly, I've been conflicted over whether or not I should keep up with it. I've been at the blog game for a long time (in one way or another) and it has evolved into something I hardly recognize. In the beginning, it seemed like it was mostly people like me - just personal stories... an online journal/diary, a place to share or work out something on your mind.

Now it seems like everyone has a blog. Every company, everyone's mom. I know that isn't really true - but it seems that way. For awhile, that wasn't so terrible. It was cool to me for K-Mart to have a blog, and K's Mommy to also have a blog. Yet, somewhere along the way it turned in to K-Mart sponsoring posts about K-Mart's crap on K's Mommy blog. For awhile I just started skipping past those sponsored posts, and now I feel like there are more sponsored posts than real true life happening in the blogs I used to love. Hey, it's cool - I can appreciate that people need to make a living. But the whole reason I started a blog was a place to document things for my family that they could then enjoy decades from now. Part of what kept me coming back to write more was being inspired by great stories of others. Now? Not so much.

You hear a lot of complaining around the holidays that they've all become too commercialized. I feel that way about blogging. I'm sick of all the commercial interruptions. I feel like there isn't a place for me in blogging anymore. Surprisingly - the few blogs that I still enjoy reading (aside from the blogs of friends) are the blogs of small business owners promoting their own brands. For me, I suppose it is like reading a magazine online in those instances.

Anyway, I'm not trying to get all high and mighty on everyone. The only reason I even said anything was because I always wonder what happens to folks after they stop blogging for months. Everything is ok - I'm just taking my blogging back into to pen and paper :)

It has been one day and I already miss it. Damn.

I just can't quit you, blog!