I did it!

I did it I did it I DID IT!! I reached my personal goal of 30 posts in 30 days! I actually reached a goal..even though it is kind of small. But damn it, I did it.
I want to keep it up. I think what I'm going to start doing is post Monday through Fridays so I have a break on the weekends. The weekends are my chance to have family time with the Bent Bunch anyway. Even though we have to squeeze it in. But I think that will be good to do. I really love posting..albeit that I have a small audience. But there are readers and I constantly remind myself that I have to keep it up even if no one reads. I do it so the kids can read the blog when they're older. Well, when they're old enough to read cuss words. Yeah, I did kind of tarnish my wholesome blog from the earlier years that I started. To think, I've been at this for almost 7 years.

I've been brainstorming for a while about where do I go from here. Do I keep going and going? or do I start fresh? The reason being- this blog has evolved so many times, with so many different titles, and with having the totally unexpected situation crop up where I had a second child born with half a heart.
Do I keep going?

I've thought about starting a brand new blog so I can focus solely on congenital heart defect awareness. I also get really conflicted because our family is neck deep in dealing with CHDs.. for life. In the most personal way, too. It's hard to fathom the idea of breaking the two in half. One blog with just our family updates? Or another where I can promote awareness, advocacy, and positivity in dealing with CHDs. Or do I keep them stuck together? CHDs don't rule our family, they certainly don't rule Natalie, but it's a huge part of our being.
I think about this often.

I struggle with low readership, but it's not because I want people to notice me and my immature jokes. I really want people to notice Natalie and notice how a family can cope in dealing with a child who is, literally, scarred for life and will never be cured. I want people to notice the blog itself and what it stands for. When I received Natalie's diagnosis in May of 2007, I was bombarded with death. Immediately after diagnosis, I found a support system but the first people I ever met all had losses due to CHDs. From that point on, I was 90% sure that she was going to die. At that time, I found zero blogs that depicted a life with severe CHDs in a positive light. At least, in my experience. For all I know my anxiety about the whole situation had me in blinders when I was sitting in front of  the computer. It's like a horrible car accident.. you know you shouldn't look.. you want to look.. you feel bad for looking.. you want to help but you feel powerless. You wished you hadn't looked after all.
Once we got past the initial shock of it all, I removed my blinders part-time: constantly searching for CHD survivors and their stories.

I'm not done blogging.

I know that our blog will never become popular. I'm totally fine with that. As an awesome family member once said about life.... "you keep doing what you're doing and you'll keep getting what you're getting". I want to keep going and I'm fine with whatever I get. The mere fact that our family has endured ridiculous amounts of challenges that even God would shake his head at, is enough to keep going. Ricky and I just realized something tonight.. since Natalie's diagnosis 5 years ago, we have endured a whole bunch of shitty situations. Loss of work due to Natalie's heart condition (yes, we've experience incredible amounts of discrimination because of a single day of work lost due to heart surgeries, one major example).. loss of patience.. loss of words.. loss of ourselves.. loss of our sanity. But we've gained a whole bunch too and that's why we didn't truly realize the losses we've had, in it's full load, until tonight.

We have so much more to blog about....