Not Your Mommy's Blog

This here is the maiden voyage of lifebythebeans blog. I'm new to the blogosphere, and definitely a novice. 

I hope anyone who stumbles upon my humble little blog will forgive my relative cluelessness regarding all things technological. Despite the intimidation factor of beginning something new, I am excited for the opportunity to write honestly, engagingly, and hopefully humorously for anyone who's out there reading. And I'll work on getting flashier with visual content, links and who knows what else.

I'd like to acquaint you all with my intentions for lifebythebeans. As I researched how to go about starting a blog, 

I kept reading that I should choose a narrowly focused topic. After days of pondering, I wasn't able to pinpoint anything specific. (Not unlike my career aspirations...) I have many interests but I don't necessarily want to commit to blogging about wine, or gardening or breastfeeding for all eternity. I just want to write. I want to dig in and begin to hone my craft. The subject matter is practically secondary.

If you read my profile, you know that I have small children. Obviously, they will be the

 source of a lot of my material. I don't think that I could offer a fresh, genuine voice without writing (probably pretty frequently) about my girls who are two and a half and 5 months. Motherhood consumes my daily life, and is a huge part of my identity right

 now, but it's not everything. I'm also a student at the University of Maine, on the ten

 year plan, studying English. In addition to college and parenthood, I also work part time as a hairstylist. In these other realms of my life I'm sure I'll find inspiration too, so don't gag and roll your eyes at the thought of yet another boring-to-everyone-else mommy blog cluttering up the internet.

While I cant say exactly what I will focus on here in lifebythebeans, I can tell you what I 

will not do is pass judgement on methods of mothering alternative to the ones I choose, 

or offer tutorials on cloth diapering, making organic baby food, or potty training. I can't teach you how to knit hats, 

sew a quilt or bake bread. While it's unrealistic to say I won't blog about my kids or other domestic matters, I'll try to avoid rambling aimlessly about developmental milestones. Even though I am a mother, and I'm up to my eyeballs in all things toddler and baby, my hope is to provide interesting writing about meaningful and relatable topics (including but not limited to Motherhood) to all kinds of people.

Who do I think I am? Who will want to read what I have to write? Who cares about my perspective, or my anecdotes,

 or my petty problems?  That's what the little voice of insecurity in my head is nagging me about. Well voice, maybe no one will care, and no one will read.  That's okay, because I'll improve my writing techniques and that's the chief purpose for this blog.  You just can't live life with that kind of mentality anyway. You've got to put yourself out there sometimes, uncomfortable as it may be at first, to achieve what you want. That's why my blog is called Life By the Beans- as in, "Grab your life by the beans." Dont be held back by what you're afraid people will think, or by your own fear of failure. I'm going to stop feeling sorry for myself that I am not doing what I wish I was doing, and just start DOING IT. And I want to know about other people who are doing it too.

So there you have it. That's the premise of lifebythebeans. It's vague, I know, but I hope the quality of the content

 here will compensate for the lack of focus. I don't pretend to be a professional writer, or a supermom, but I think those are both worthy goals, and I'll keep pursuing them. I promise to always be honest and sincere in my posts so even if you don't share my opinion, at least you know I'm real. If you do disagree with something you read here,that's perfectly acceptable, just tell me why. I'll do my best to bring you something each week worth spending five minutes on. Won't you join me?