What’s going on with the blog? (Or big changes are a’coming)

~This is a long post but has some important information at the bottom.  So if you don’t read it, please at least read the last of the post.  Thank you.~

The plan was that I would write a catch up post tonight but I am so incredibly tired.  However, I did want to share some things that have been happening with the blog. 

(And this post will be pictureless…sorry!)

I love to blog.  Seriously.  I love to sit at the end of the day and share my thoughts and my pictures.  And I realize that it ends up going out all over the internet world for anyone to see.  So in an effort to protect my family, I try to keep some things anonymous. 

For one, I rarely use my children’s names. Two, I do not post where I live or my last name.  And three, I have chosen to use sitemeter to help me track the traffic coming to my blog.  (HAHA, I actually just typed “blob” instead of blog.  Of course, I changed it but the fact that I did that and that I think it is funny shows me that I am tired!)  :)

Anyway, back to the subject…the sitemeter button is at the bottom of my blog and I use it to keep my eye on what is going on around here.   Last week, I noticed something that had me a bit concerned so I decided to google my blog name.  And everything came up ok.  Then I googled my former site name and I was alarmed!  (And if you google my site name, it must be typed a certain way.  If you just google it, you might not see what I saw.  I really prefer not to say how I typed it but it is a widely used technique for finding the entire phrase and not just words in your phrase when you search for something.  The only reason I’m being secretive is because I don’t want you to stumble upon the mess that I found.)

So I googled my former site name (which is my address, by the way) and found…filth.  You can probably guess what I’m talking about too.  So if someone is to google my site name, typed this particular way, they will find a link that has my title but is linked to, well, you probably have figured out what.  (It was about the fifth search result on the page.)  ~Edited:  After I posted this post, I ran another google search on my blog and now there is only one “yucky” search result coming up and my blog name is not the title anymore.  Plus it is now showing up farther down in the search list.  That’s good.  I wish it were entirely gone because I really don’t feel like starting this blog over again. ~

And this scares me. 

It scares me for my children and it scares me for anyone who is searching for my site. 

And it makes me mad. 

I have poured my free time into this blog.  It is our life story from these past few months.  The preschool posts, oh…how much work I have put into those posts!  And I now am attached to something so…so…  I’m wordless…and mad!

I thought about deleting my blog because I don’t want to put my children at risk and I don’t want to put others at risk.  But after thinking, praying, and discussing with David, here is what I’m going to do:

• I am going to make this blog private.

This blog contains too much of my work & life to just erase.  Also, others have expressed interest in my preschool posts.  So this blog will be made private within the next few days.  I will send out invitations to people to read it.  If you would like to be a reader, please let me know. (You can leave a comment or email me.  See my profile to email me.)  I’m not sure how much it will be updated but it will contain all of my former posts and I will post pictures that I don’t feel comfortable putting out to the entire world.

• I am going to start two new blogs that will be public. 

I will start a new family blog and a homeschool blog.  My plan is to keep both of these blogs even more anonymous.  I will still share our lives and there will still be pictures but just a bit more anonymous.  I just feel that I need these blogs to stay connected to my friends and family who do not have blogger accounts.  Plus, I have met some wonderful people in blogdom and I don’t want to close off that opportunity.  If at any time I feel that these blogs are having the same problems as this one, they too will become private. 

These two blogs will be under construction hopefully sometime this week.  (We are really busy right now but I hope to do it this week.)  Once they are ready to go, this blog will become private.  I will post links to them as soon as I have started the blogs.  :)

• I have removed the followers from my page because of some suspicious looking accounts that seemed to be spam.  I still have followers of this blog, they are just hidden from view.

The main reason that I follow blogs is so that they will appear in my google reader and I can read all posts from there.  That saves me time by keeping me from blog hopping too much.  And I have no problems with someone following anonymously if that is what he or she wants.  But if you are following this blog and you have not left me a link to your blog or links to blogs you follow, I become a bit concerned.  Please let me know something about you even if it is a quick, “hi, I’m following your blog” type of thing. 

• I have started moderating comments. 

A week or so ago, there was a spam comment on my blog.  I did not click the links that were left, but I really didn’t want to either.  So I have started moderating comments so that I avoid spam and unwanted links around here.

I know that I might seem a bit over protective and melodramatic.  And maybe I am.  Trust me, I usually am NOT melodramatic.  But I’d rather err on the side of my children’s safety in this case. 

Ok, I think that’s all I’ve got tonight.  Please look out for links to my new blogs coming soon. 

Oh, and thanks for reading all of this if you did.  :)