a change

This change to my blog has been a while in the making. I've had our old blog, Shevlin Shenanigans, for three years now, and while I've really enjoyed keeping everyone in the loop on our family life, and I have definitely been grateful for the record of our lives that keeping a blog has provided us with, I have been super inconsistent in posting over the better part of the past year. Since last summer (2009), I've slowed way down on the amount of posting I've been doing on our blog - partially due to how busy we've been with the house, the dog, school, work, travel, life, and partially due to the fact that I realized that I want to change the direction of this blog - to the point where I considered just calling it a day, and closing up this blog entirely. To begin with, it felt strange sometimes to write from the "us" point of view, since I was the only one actually contributing to the blog, and, hey, if I'm doing all of the writing, shouldn't I get all of the credit? Actually, it has less to do with my wanting credit for my work, and more to do with wanting to have the freedom to write about more than just the "what we've been up to" writing that I've been doing since our first blog post back in August of 2007.  And, so, I thought why throw away 3 years worth of posts, when I can just change the design of the blog, change the name, tagline, and web address, and just start my "new" blog right with this very post. So, here it is: tam-sense.

To be honest, I'm not one-hundred percent sure what, exactly, I'll be writing about on this blog, but it feels good to have finally made the switch - to make it really and truly my blog. For those of you that love reading about what we - Kevin, Lola, and I - have been up to, do not fear, there will still be plenty of those types of posts. There will also be posts on things that inspire me, things that interest me, shock me, excite me, things I like, things I am less than a fan of (but, no, I do not foresee this becoming a whine-fest), things I'm mulling over, etc., - and all from the point of view that it's okay for me to be a work in progress, to be honest, to be real. One of my goals for the past year was to learn to take it a little easier on myself, to trust my decisions more, and to take it one day at a time; I think this new blog is a good indicator that I am learning to give myself the freedom to be a work in progress.

I am hoping this new blog will serve as a tool for me to become more disciplined with my writing (and editing), and that I will produce at least one post per day (I am ambitious, and deluded, if nothing else!). So, here we are, friends. I hope you will like the new blog, and that you will give me some feedback on the things I post. Expect lots of posts, and some more tweaks to the blog as I figure out just what I want this thing to look and feel like. I think this is a good change. I'm excited. 

First picture of me in Paris.

This picture makes me very happy, so I thought I would share it. 2010 was the year to check some big things off of the "Tam's To Do, Before She's Thirty" list (thirty, by the way, is only two years and one month away!). Getting serious about writing is another one of the things on the list.