Wednesday, July 29, 2009

To Blog or Not to Blog

Seriously though, this blogging thing is a lot harder than it looks (to me at least). In fact, I am still a little unsure of the whole thing....obviously, since the last post was made two weeks ago. I have to admit that over these past two weeks I have been questioning why we even decided to start a blog. For those of you that know me (all two of you that I have actually told we started a blog), know that I am not very good at "putting myself out there" and I totally feel that is what I am doing when it comes to this whole blogging thing. This is a HUGE step out of my comfort zone.


I am also a little doubtful of my blogging skills and subject matter. In my state of doubtfulness I started thinking about what elements make for a good blog. So I began to look at other blogs that I enjoy reading and that I find interesting. I found that the majority of the blogs I read are, of course, people I actually know and care about what is going on in their lives. I also discovered that most of the people I know actually have interesting things going on in their lives such as having babies or moving to a new city. For example, we have Kendall and Will. Kendall has been one of my very best friends since 7th grade. She has been trying to get pregnant for almost two years and after a lot of prayer, patience and doctor appointments they are expecting twins!! Now that is something to blog about! :) Then we have Anna Katherine, Scott and Max. Again, Anna Katherine has been my best friend since 7th grade and not only is she pregnant with a sweet baby girl to be named Ellie Rose, they are following God's call for their family and going to help start a church in Vancouver, Cananda. Definitely blogworthy. On to Mary Stewart, Jon Paul and Mitchell. Yet again, Mary is another best friend since 7th grade. She and Jon Paul welcomed Mitchell into their family just over a year ago and I love seeing new pics of Mitchell and how he is growing. Again, blogworthy. And the list goes on.


Then we have those blogs that I have just happened upon and have, for some reason, kept my interest. I think the main reason these blogs caught my eye was the writing. These women have been through some incredible situations such as Adrienne, who has had multiple failed pregnancies and also multiple failed adoptions but has a beautiful son she and her husband adopted from Russia and is now in the process of adopting a little girl. Then we have Angie. Angie is married to Todd Smith that sings in Selah. They have three daughters and a little over a year ago Angie gave birth to their fourth, Audrey Caroline. Audrey went to be with the Lord several hours after being born. On to Jennifer. Jennifer has four children and their youngest, Stellan, was diagnosed with a heart condition in the womb and was not expected to live. However, Stellan is now 9 months old but he continues to struggle with persistant SVT and has been in and out of the hospital several times in his short 9 months. Like I said, all of these ladies have been through tremendous obstacles in their lives but the ongoing theme through each of their blogs is faith. I honestly believe that God has gifted each of these women with a talent for writing (among MANY other talents) and they are using that gift to reach the thousands of people (seriously, thousands) that read their blogs.


So maybe you can see why I feel our blog might be slightly inadequate. I am not pregnant with two little miracles (or one little miracle for that matter), Preston and I don't have beautiful children to post adorable pictures of (yet!) and my writing skills are FAR from eloquent. Yes, we did move across the country but that was over three years ago. We have settled into our life here (somewhat) and so our everyday life feels like, well, everyday life and that doesn't seem very interesting.


With all that said, I am not ready to give up on the blogging just yet. The other day I had conversation with one of my friends, Drew. Drew just recently picked up his life and moved to Chicago. As you can see, he started a blog about his new life in the big city (please note his url address). Drew was feeling the same way I do about blogging and was considering deleting his blog after only two posts. In our conversation, I told him that he shouldn't give up yet because I was thinking that it should get easier after the first couple of posts (and I am still hoping for that). Drew said that I was so loyal, even to blogging. I told him he made it sound like I was a basset hound and his response was, "I like to consider you more of a golden retriever."


See, I AM trying to be loyal and give this blogging thing a chance. We'll see how it goes....


-Anna

Saturday, July 18, 2009

Hopefully the First of Many

Welcome to our blog! We decided to set up a blog so our friends and family can get a better glimpse into our everyday life and maybe learn a little bit about life in the Sonoran desert and the grand state of Arizona.


For those of you not familiar with our story, here is a little history. We are both from Tupelo, MS where we were married on December 31, 2005. We lived in Tupelo for just three short months before moving to Sahuarita, AZ. Preston took a job with MTD in Nogales, Mexico as a lean coordinator and continues to work for them as a material manager. He crosses the border, eats Mexican food and speaks Spanish everyday...life couldn't get much better! I (Anna) drive 20 minutes into Tucson to Tucson Business Interiors where I work as a commercial interior designer. And last but definitely not least, our family expanded in January 2006 before our move to the desert. We welcomed a sweet and very petite chocolate lab named Lottie.


So welcome to our life. We aren't promising anything exciting. This is just the state we're in.