I remember when I asked for a morning off work to attend the closing on my first house. Several co-workers expressed shock that they didn't even know I had been house-hunting. It seemed odd to them that I had been able to come into work day after day without sharing the minutiae of the process, while it hadn't really occurred to me that others might care to hear about it.

That was seven or eight years ago.  I’m sharing the story now just to illustrate my extremely private nature.  Talking (or writing) about myself does not come easily, which is one of several reasons I once swore I would never write a blog.  In fact, I believe I went so far as to swear that I would never even use the word “blog” in a sentence.  And yet here I am.

So what drove me to make such a commitment?  Timing mostly, with perhaps a dash of pregnancy hormones.  We get to blame those for just about everything, right?  I was finishing up some editing on a work of fiction (shameless plug: It’s called Tightening the Knot and is available now.) and didn’t want to start another big project with two babies on the way.  I figured that two babies were enough of a project.  But I wanted to make sure I kept up some regular writing.  That’s when this opportunity came up.  A commitment to someone other than myself seemed harder to ignore. 

When I started I faced two seemingly opposite fears: both that no one would read my blog and that people would read it.  I was thinking about these fears recently as my daughter had her first week of preschool and my son joined Cub Scouts.  I found myself encouraging them with the parental shtick about how exciting it can be to start something new.  I tried to think about the last time I broadened my own horizons.  I admit I like comfortable.  We tend to eat at the same batch of restaurants, we sit in the same section at church every Sunday and I buy most of my clothes at the same store. 

But this blog is one good example of me branching out.  Every Saturday I’m here stepping out of my comfort zone and eating my words and actually enjoying myself in the process.  I hope anyone reading gains something from the experience as well.

Mandy appears weekends on TriangleMom2Mom.