Since starting this blog last month, I’ve had a few people ask me how I decide what topics to write about, how I come up with blog post ideas, the process involved in deciding when to post and when not to post.  The truth is, after spending the best part of 8 years at home with my children and almost all of the last 8 months at home with a 4 year old, I’ve been saving my grown-up topics of conversation for a captive audience.

No, not really.

Well, sort of.

But…. ideas spring from conversations I have in real life, snippets of news I manage to catch, things I read, stuff my kids say, feelings of desperation that well up.  Etc., etc.  Frankly, I’ve probably got enough angst built up to power this blog for another year or two with weekly posts without too much of an issue.  That said, part of blogging is the give and take between me, the writer, and you, the audience.  (Do you like that?  The audience?  Would reader be better?  This is all Greek to me—-no wait, that was the last country we were in….).  I haven’t yet mastered the blogger/reader dialogue, but do appreciate hearing back from those of you that read it.  It keeps the train of ideas a movin’ down the track of thought.  Comments and critique are an essential part of this exercise.  Feedback is good, even when it’s not good.  And obviously the more readers one has, the more thoughts provoked, the more feedback generated, the more give and take.  Discussion is encouraged, opinions solicited, and thus more ideas are generated.

So if you read something you like, pass it on.  Hell, if you read something you hate, pass that on too.  Share it.  Send an e-mail to someone you think may relate.  Share it on Facebook, pin it on Pinterest.  I’ve been updating my own Facebook page with new blog posts, but I’m not sure how long I can do that without having a friend mutiny.  You can sign up to follow blog posts via-email, or let me know if you like being updated on social media sites.  I don’t tweet on twitter, because honestly the whole idea of twitter reminds me of being followed around by a lot of chatty pre-schoolers and I have enough of that in my own life at the moment, but feel free to tweet away if you do.

It all sounds a bit shameless, a plug for myself.  But I guess that’s what personal blogging is.  Since the only other expertise I have after spending 8 years raising 2 young boys is a wealth of knowledge regarding construction vehicles and equipment (and man, if this is ever a category in some sort of trivia contest you want me on your team), I went with the only other thing I know a lot about.  Myself.  But there’s always more to learn.

So keep in touch.