12.22.2004

A little info = bad thing.

Blogging is addicting. It just is. You find yourself marching around through life and thinking "Drat, gotta get to a PC and blog about this!" I, who always meant to keep a diary but never could discipline myself to do so, am a blogfiend now. With the addiction to the blog writing itself, comes this gnawing need to be read. So you up and enlist with places like BlogExplosion to generate some traffic. You work into adding links to your blog and commenting on other blogs - which in turn means other people link to yours which just means even more traffic.

And then, once you get some notion people other your best friends are reading, you get the urge to know how many and how they found you. You sign yourself for something like BlogPatrol so that you can track your hits and where they originate from. At least I did.

This tracking ability has been worse than traffic generation for my obession. I know now how many people read my blabble each day. I can see how many of you have arrived via links off other blogs and many have googled the term "I am a loser" and undoubtedly landed on the photo of my new bathroom I posted moons ago under the title "Because I am a loser" because really, who else would post pictures of their bathroom (redecorated or not) in their blog? (Ok, so you're not a loser then, just me.) Anyway, I digress.

Seeing what search terms lead to my front door has made me very aware of what I post sometimes. Not in a bad way - I mean honestly, what you put on the web is really out there and public for lord knows who to read. I wouldn't publish it if it was going to embarrass me. What I mean is that when I post, for example, about Megan's Wry Neck diagnosis and treatment I feel obligated to keep a running tab on her progress. Why? Well what if someday there is a parent out there that Googles "Wry Neck" (Or its much harder to remember or spell medical term) and they fall into this blog. I don't want them to see just the day Meg's pediatrician told us she had it. I want them to know what we did to help her and what worked. I want to know that if someone is going to peek into my life it humors them or helps them -- even if it just helps them to know that they're not alone.

Lately it seems a lot of Search Engine hits come from various queries on infertility, pregnancy, or the joys (ha) of toddlers. These are topics buried through-out the archives. I wonder if those rambles really help. I wonder if those people come back and read on. I wonder a lot...Apparently I should stop checking into my stats if I ever plan on accomplishing anything ever again!

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