Going private

First of all I bet that you are shocked to see two posts from me in less than 24 hours!  Hey, life as a full time working mom and wife is busy!  My time to write has been lessened considerably.  On to the topic at hand, though.

I am thinking about making this blog private.  It's not because I don't love you all, because I do, but it is more about the fact that totally random people around the world are reading it.  I love the totally random people too...for the most part.  Yet, weird things keep happening.  One time I ran into someone at my school-a parent of an elementary student-and she said, "Oh! You are an American Girl in Canada!"  I had NO idea who this woman was, and I am sure she is perfectly lovely, yet she had followed my blog via  friend's blog.  I don't mind that she is reading it, it just reminds me that ANYONE can read it.  You can come across it in many different ways.  The biggest things is my kids.  Even though I don't post their real names and even though I never say exactly where we live, I don't think it would be hard to figure out.  I do want to say, however, if you are what you THINK is a totally random person that has been reading my blog yet is afraid to comment or something, PLEASE email me so you can still follow it!  (Nicole S, that's you!  Kev told me he ran into you the other day!  PLEASE keep reading!  I love my readers that I know...and even some that I don't know if I came across you through a mutual contact in some way!)  Oh, and Leah, Britt, Sarah, all of my Internet buddies, please don't leave me either!  You are so important to me!

Yet, I love writing on this blog.  It is an outlet for me.  I also write things down here about the boys, which I am terrible at doing in any other manner.  I am not the mom that remembers to write things down in their baby books, yet when I go back through my blog I realize that I write about them often enough to remember what is happening in their lives at that particular moment.

I have a really big dream to have my blog printed into a book some day.  There is a company that does it, and I have told Kevin it would be a really neat gift for me some day (hint hint honey!).  My blog is mostly for me and my family.  I don't blog to make money, or to gain followers.  I have absolutely nothing against people that do...in fact a little part of me wishes that I had the motivation to get my blog going and turn it into something that would make money for me.  The flip side of that though is that you generally have to be pretty open and willing to accept criticisms and such.  I'm really not.  So, I come to this.

I love my boys.  I recently had our police officer liason come in and speak to my grade 10 class about Internet safety.  I am smart and well educated and I knew that it was pretty easy to find someone on the Internet, but when she showed us JUST how easy it was it scared me a little bit.  My boys are not old enough yet to really know when someone is a stranger or what to do in a scary situation.  We talk about what to do with Rusty often, but I wonder...am I putting them in danger?  I post their pictures, I talk about where we go and what we do.

I get it, taking it private doesn't completely take away that danger, but it could lessen it just a bit.  When I think about them and the possibility that something could happen to them because of something that I post on my blog, I feel heartbroken.  I am pretty sure I wouldn't be able to forgive myself.

I'm taking my blog private.  If you want to be able to continue to read it, you'll have to set up a password.  I can let you know how to do that if you email me.  You can email me at anamericangirlblog@yahoo.com  I am setting up the email just to connect with the people that really want to continue reading and to let you know how you will be able to log into my blog.  (Mom and Dad S and B, that would probably be you guys!!)

I am sure some people will say this is silly and I will probably lose a lot of readers, but I am okay with that.  This blog was never about or for my readers anyway, it was for me.  It still will be.  It will be for me, my three guys, and anyone else that wants to come along for the ride and is willing to sign in to do it.

I'm going to wait a week before going private to give people time to set it up to login.  Then, it's adios public blogging world.  It's been fun, but I am no longer comfortable with sharing my life with any random person on the internet landscape.