Most of you probably think I have no filter.

I do have a filter.
It just looks like this:

instead of this:

Lots of things fly through my filter without even slowing down.

When you’re with your parents you have one filter.  When you’re with your friends you have another filter.  When you’re with your co-workers, that’s a totally different filter, too.  For example, most of my blog-only friends have no clue I’m a singer.  If you’ve known me my whole life, you know that music is an integral part of who I am.

But being a blogger is a weird thing.

Some people that read this blog I know very well-my family, close friends.  Some people are acquaintances.  Some people know me only as “queenofhaddock” from theiveyleague.com.  Some people know me only as Marshall’s wife or Carter & Lydia’s mom or Richard’s sister.  Some people are older than me.  Some are younger.   And when I blog, I have to chose how much of which filter I’m going to use.  You’d me amazed at the number of unpublished posts in my draft box.  But this blog is a lot like a journal to me.  I want to be real, authentic.  But sometimes I’m too real and authentic for even me to handle myself!  You don’t need to read that stuff.

And, like every English teacher I ever had told me: in order to be a good writer, you have to keep your audience in mind.  Writing a children’s book is nothing like writing a murder-mystery.

When I first started blogging, our parents were about the only readers I had.  As more of my friends have moved away(or I’ve moved away from them), more “real life” friends read my blog to keep in touch.  But lately, I’ve also had an influx of old friends who have found me on facebook, folks at my church, and other “mommy-bloggers” and Twitter friends.  And my audience is changing yet again.  And there are things that I don’t post because it would embarass Marshall.  And there are things I don’t post out of respect for other people.  And there are things I don’t post because it’s just not appropriate.

But I’m still me, and I will still post embarrassing stories and sometimes even inappropriate things.

And don’t be surprised if one day you see something that looks like my handwriting on this page* or my maybe something here*.  Because sometimes I just need to get it out.  Sometimes there are things I want to say here that I can’t.  Sometimes I feel better when I hit the “publish” button on a post, but feel worse when I realize that it hurt someone else.  What you do on the web can’t be undone(easily).  And so I need to make my filter a little finer; let a little less get through.  And that’s not easy for me to do.

*Careful!  These are websites where people post anonymously.  It’s full of secrets, and some of those secrets aren’t PC or tasteful.  They’re often completely un-filtered.  So…if you’re easily offended, you might not want to go to this site.