January 6, 2010 – Write From Karen

I TOLD you I Tweet random stuff!!

And by the way, I have NO idea if this is even how you do the whole “cool” hand thing. If I’m actually flipping you off in gangsta’ speak, then my apologizes.

Anyway …

It’s cold here. As in single digit cold. And we have snow, as in about 4 1/2 inches of snow with more on the way.

(By the way, did you hear about Fulton, New York? It’s been snowing up there for nine straight days and they have 55 inches of snow – with more on the way!! Wow, just wow).

But I’m not complaining. In fact, I’m just thankful it’s not ice because that much ice? Would be baaaaaaad.

We’re getting by. The temperatures are supposed to drop to the negative digits both tomorrow night and Friday night. I’m sitting here wearing a t-shirt, a sweater AND a hoodie (as pictured above) and I’m just NOW feeling comfortable. Our poor heater is on overdrive.

The boys are refusing to wear coats to school. They claim that the school is pretty hot and they don’t want the hassle of carrying a coat around. This means, that half mile they walk to reach me after school? They’re walking with just sweat jackets on.

Their lips are blue and their teeth are chattering by the time they reach my car. But you know, I’m MOM; I’m STUPID. I don’t know ANYTHING.

Silly boys.

The weather is supposed to warm up to the 30’s next week, so hopefully we can get rid of some of this snow. I’m getting pretty tired of dealing with snow blindness.

(I know. Wah).

I realize I’m not for everyone; I’m an acquired taste, I suppose. My writing is a little on the preachy side and I have a tendency to just put it out there – perhaps with a bit more tact than others (or perhaps not, depending on your perspective), but for the most part – I am who I am and when you visit me? You pretty much know where you stand and what to expect.

I have very strong political opinions and religious views and I’m not afraid to put those opinions and views out there. (They may be a bit diluted for the sake of trying to be fair and me not wishing to be a total jerk, but I daresay you’ll find more of the “controversial” issues on my blog than on a lot of other bloggers’ blogs).

I don’t suffer fools lightly. You’re more than welcome to visit, but please, check your whine at the door.

I say what I mean, and mean what I say.

For that, I suppose, you could call me a bold blogger. Though I’m certainly NOT as bold as I would like to be (I have friends and family that read me and for that, I censor myself. In addition, I don’t enjoy purposefully hurting someone simply because I CAN), but for the most part, if you’re any good at reading between the lines, you can usually catch my drift.

I blog without obligation and I plan on keeping it that way. I never accept anything from anyone so if you see a giveaway, a contest or even a review, I paid for these items myself and my opinion has not been altered in order to play nice with sponsors. I don’t like answering to anyone. I don’t like feeling obligated to anyone. I want the freedom to simply be me – for whatever that’s worth.

I simply don’t go down that road. I’d LIKE to go down that road. I’ve had OPPORTUNITIES to go down that road in the past, but when I sat back and weighed the pros and cons of being honest or tiptoeing around my opinion, I opted to go the no obligation route.

For the most part, I stay out of Internet drama. And by that I mean, blogging drama. And trust me, if you pay attention, at all, you’ll see what I mean. Does this mean I don’t have an opinion on the matter? Hardly. But I refuse to get sucked into juvenile games of he/she said and I’m CERTAINLY NOT interested in becoming one of the popular “elite” bloggers who everyone spends an insane amount of time kissing up to all in the hopes that they will notice them and perhaps accept them into their inner circle.

Though I would love to make friends online, and I have made some pretty awesome friendships thus far, that’s not my ultimate goal. My ultimate goal, for this blog, in my publicly writing to y’all, is to simply be myself. To document my life as honestly as I can without damaging my relationships in the interim. I honest to God only wish to leave a little piece of me behind to whomever is interested enough to care.

That’s all.

I ramble on Twitter. I have a tendency to just type the first lame thing that comes to my mind.

I do that, because THAT’S a big part of who I am. My brain has always moved faster than my mouth and I’ve always been the sort of person who starts something only to become distracted by something else later (SHINY!) I’m notorious for having big ideas and then not doing anything about them.

But the fact that I have those ideas is saying something, I suppose.

And you can tell when I’m in one of my moods because my tweets are all OVER the board. And they appear in rapid succession – random thoughts ricochet off my brain walls and just sort of dribble out of my mouth or ooze out of my fingers and onto the keyboard – it’s quite an attractive process, I assure you.

And it never ceases to amuse me the amount of followers I either gain, or lose, in one particular rant. I have a tendency to go OFF on politics sometimes and I never know if what I’m saying will offend, or reaffirm, what others think. Sometimes my numbers plummet, sometimes they sky rocket – it’s a crap shoot.

I almost always lose followers whenever I slip up and curse – I try very hard to keep the vulgarity to a minimum but come on, I’m human, that only flies for so long before the situation DEMANDS an expletive.

But here’s the thing – even though I’m thrilled when people follow me, or it saddens me a bit when people unfollow me, overall? I’m not overly concerned – I am who I am. I am me when I’m in a funky mood. I am me when I’m in a sarcastic mood. I am me when I’m feeling b*tchy. I am me when I’m feeling depressed. It’s all relative. I can’t be anyone else but me.

And I won’t apologize for that.

Take it or leave it. And I think that’s where so many bloggers go wrong when they start blogging. They feel like it always has to be rainbows and sunshine and get real – life is not always like that. After a while, feeling like you have to be something you’re not starts weighing heavily on your mind and you start finding it harder and harder to blog because you no longer feel like you can BE this persona, that you will disappoint people. That you will lose RSS readers or followers.

I hate to break this to you, but it’s impossible to please everyone. IM.POSS.I.BLE. So the fix? Just BE yourself.

Only better. 🙂

I guess I felt the need to write this post because of I’ve been reading how other bloggers are taking a stand to be more bold and are blogging without apolgogy this new year. I admire their determination to stay true and honest. Because blogging? Really IS all about you. And if you take YOU out of the equation? It gets rather boring, don’t you think?

So, this is me. Stay. Or leave. Either way, I will continue to be who I am.

Thanks for reading.