Let Me Explain…

“My 17 Acre Life” is a weird title for a blog.  I get it.  It isn’t witty.  It doesn’t tell you about any skill set that I have.  It gives no insight into my hobbies.  There is no alliteration.  17 is kind of a random number.  I know, I understand and there is a reason.

I’ve been encouraged over the past few years to start writing a blog or a book. A book was too much to even think about, so I’ve stuck with the idea of maybe a blog. I’ve been told I write funny Facebook posts and many friends have mentioned to me over the past few years how much they enjoy reading my Facebook posts.  This makes me smile.  Mostly because I do put a lot of thought into what I write and I’m glad people recognize and appreciate it.  But it also makes me smile because I’m slightly embarrassed.  It’s easy to forget that what I write on the “interwebs” (as my husband and I affectionally call it), does not stay there.  Sometimes I forget that people can read my posts, so in real life when someone brings up what I’ve written about, it’s hard to digest that that person now knows that piece of my life even though I have willingly put it there.  It does not stay on Facebook.  It won’t stay on a blog.  So I didn’t blog.

But Facebook and a blog are both online- what’s the difference?  For me there is something far weightier and more poignant about writing a blog versus a Facebook post.  Most Facebook posts are brief.  I tend to write more than the average person, but already in this little essay I have exceeded what I would typically write.  Facebook is a skim.  You don’t go out looking for something on your news feed.  You are there to scroll and maybe read what catches your eye and move on.  A blog is purposeful.  Sought out.  You come to read what that person has to say.  It’s an invitation into a life.  Come, click on this link and see what I have to say.  Enter the world I choose to show you. What will I show you?  I don’t know.  So I didn’t blog.

I know that people will read what I write.  And I also understand that they will read what I write. Knowing and understanding are different. Knowledge can sometimes be casual. “Oh, I know!” Yes, but did you understand?  Understanding that my thoughts have just been given to someone and they have read them, thought about them, agreed with them, disagreed with them, criticized them, praised them, found them funny, found them bland, been inspired by them, been uninspired….Yes, understanding is different.  Understanding is scary.  So I didn’t blog.

I also did not know my voice.  So many blogs are about something. Cooking, parenting, sewing, spiritual guidance, motherhood, etc.  I did not feel like I had anything new to contribute.  So I didn’t blog.

Fear and the unknown are what has kept me back.  But I am choosing to step out and see where I go.  I don’t know how to create a webpage, so bear with me as the look of this site will undoubtedly evolve.  I don’t have a definitive direction, so you’ll get a bit of everything that I have to share.  Sometimes I’ll share about how my day is going in mommyland, sometimes I’ll impart a bit of (what I feel) is organizational wisdom, I’ll take you through what God has been showing me lately, or… who knows… I’m trying not to overthink this.  Obviously I already have and that has taken me nowhere except to a dead end of inaction.

So, “My 17 Acre Life” is my writings about whatever in my life I feel led to write about.  My life that I actually live on 17 acres.  The picture of the two deer is one that was taken in my front yard about eight years ago.  A lot has changed in my life in those eight years, but those are stories for another time.  The deer have stayed the same- grown up of course and different individuals.  But every spring mama deer bring their sweet fawns to hide in the bushes while they go graze in the woods surrounding our house.  I’ve watched from our second story window as those babies frolic around the backyard.  I’ve watched the juvenile bucks take charge of orphan twins when mama was killed by a mountain lion.  I’ve even saved my kitten from an overprotective mother deer and watched a buck seek shade under our trampoline in the summer.  I thought the picture of the deer was a good representation of our lives here, that I am going to share with you, on our 17 acres.