A Blog Is Born!

Greetings, friends! :)

Due to my long-windedness and tendency to make Facebook posts that could be mistaken for essays, I've decided to finally bite the bullet and become yet another Mormon lady female member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints with a blog. I don't have kids, recipes, or crafts to post about, though, so I'm still not really sure where this is going. Bloggers are supposed to find a niche and post mainly about parenting or organizational hacks or something, but I have a feeling that this blog will become more of a shotgun blast of whatever subjects happen to inspire me to type like a crazy person. Time will tell, I suppose.

So, what's the topic of my very first post? I think I'll begin my journey into the world of blogging with an explanation of my blog title. Seems like a decent place to start.

As social media has grown in popularity, so has the use of all sorts of filters. People alter their photos to make their bodies look a certain way, use very specific camera angles so that the clutter in their house isn't visible, and selectively choose what they post about so that they only share the moments that make their life look awesome. (This is something I talked about a little bit when I posted about my third wedding anniversary; now, I have a dedicated platform to write on without feeling bad about talking too much. If you clicked on my blog, you knew what you were getting yourself into.)

At church, I work with the teenage girls. That's pretty much the most vulnerable group there is when it comes to low self-worth caused by social media. Everyone can be affected by this, of course, but these sweet girls have so much to deal with already that having Photoshopped models and digitally enhanced makeup thrown at them on Instagram just seems unfair. It's easier for older people to realize that nobody actually looks like that without editing themselves with either plastic surgery or a digital program.. or maybe makeup, if they've got sweet skills. I think most grown-ups understand that what people post on social media is usually just the happy things that they want people to see. I'm not saying that everyone is trying to fool their friends into thinking their life is superior, but it's natural to want to post about accomplishments and cool travel destinations and not be so excited to post about things like losing a job or having a sniffly nose. Even though logically, we all know that nobody has a perfect life, we sometimes let ourselves believe that our acquaintances' lives are way better than ours.

While I try to be "real" with my Facebook posts, my goal for this blog is to be even more open. I usually don't post status updates about difficulties and hard days because I don't want to deflate anyone's happiness balloon while they're scrolling past pictures of kittens and other fun stuff. This blog will probably contain some posts about the kinds of things I usually don't put on Facebook. Of course, the blog posts themselves will inevitably get shared on Facebook, but then it's more of an optional kind of thing and people who don't want to hear about my problems can just ignore the posts with titles like "I Jabbed Myself In The Eye With Mascara Again" or "Why Adrian Monk Is A #Relatable Character." Hopefully my titles will be better than that, but you get the point.

I won't be offended if/when most people don't read this stuff. My blog's purpose (not to be confused with A Dog's Purpose) is to entertain whoever reads it and talk about some things that I think are interesting.

I've had a few friends tell me to start a blog, so hopefully this will live up to their expectations. If not... at least my parents will (probably) still read my posts. Hi, Mom and Dad!

Love,
Lizzie