Guest Bloggers and A Little Break For Me

Supposedly, becoming a blogger comes with several distinct phases. There is the new blogger phase, in which you are still learning to use the software, play around with page elements and boast a woefully short blogroll. There is the phase in which you contemplate custom design, obsess about the appearance of your blog, consider ads on your blog, and perhaps try a new template. There is the phase in which you post fast and furiously, determined to never miss a day and dedicated to getting every thought in your head into type. Somewhere in there, you might get blog fatigue and take a week or five off. And at some point, you will reach a nice balance, in which you blog neither too much nor too little.

I love me some Internet. With the Internet, I have a wealth of information at my fingertips. I can keep in touch with friends all over the world. I can read the news as soon as it happens. I can collect recipes and craft ideas without ever picking up a pair of scissors. There are websites that help me teach my four-year-old how to read and websites to look up weird health symptoms. The possibilities are endless.

However, the Internet has slowly started to soak up too much of my time lately. I'm addicted to the printed word, I'll read the back of a cereal box if there is nothing else, and I keep finding myself dragged in. Especially recently, with the election looming and all the controversy, I've spent way too much time in front of my laptop and not enough doing other things. As well, I'm sick of all the election coverage, I feel like it brings out the worst in some people, and it's time to stick my head in the sand. And hopefully, when I come up for air, all the excitement and mudslinging and fingerpointing will have died down.

I'm taking a little blog break, partly because I need one, but also because we're going on vacation and won't have Internet access. I'll probably find a Starbucks with free WiFi at some point, but the idea of being unable to get online is refreshing. Instead, I'm going to dig my toes into the sand, watch the waves, take a billion pictures of the kids (and force you to look at them later) and get reacquainted with the idea of doing nothing much.

By the time we return from the beach, I'd like to have accomplished a couple of things. First and foremost, I'm making this vacation my chance to quit drinking soda. It's time. I can do it. And secondly, it's time to halt the downward spiral into physical inactivity that I've been falling into. I'm taking my laptop to the beach, but I'm also taking my running shoes and hope to get back into the habit of daily exercise.

Starting on Monday, several guest bloggers will be taking my place here. Look for posts on a musings from a stay-home dad, how to create a family budget, what it's like to have a food allergic child in the family, and one mom's reaction to a Disney classic, as well as a question from a non-mom about the etiquette of taking small boys into the ladies locker room. Enjoy their posts and be sure to leave them lots of comments!