Joan Ellen Cornell

1:09 PM

O hey!

This whole blog world is crazy.

I'm gonna say right off the bat that I do THIS -----> I disappear for a few days, a few weeks, a month even, and I come back here apologizing that i've been gone for so long.

But really. Why are we all apologizing for being away from our computers and living our lives?

The craziest part to me is that I wish I could remember the simplicity of when all of this social media didn't exist and we were all JUST FINE without it.

And completely contradicting that, is me wondering how the F people today don't know what a blog or Instagram is. Haha.

It's seriously really hard (for lack of a better word at the moment) to think about the fact that people, not that long ago, lived so fucking differently than we do now.

I'm 29. I've had a "smart phone" for about 5 years. Before that I had a phone that could text (by hitting the 1 button three times just to type a "c"), and before that I had a pager. a PAGER. which makes me laugh because I remember my Dad telling me once that "only doctors and drug dealers have pagers"...little did he know that me and my bestie were paging each other with things like "123" (I love you) and "609" (i'm mad at you).

Now, I have a phone that would easily let me know how surgery is going (on Brad Pitt if he was having surgery that very moment), or let me tell my "guy" that I want to pick up 20 lbs of weed (hypothetically). But for real, I have this phone that I feel obligated to use as my lifeline, every minute of every day. I'm not the only one...dot dot dot...

I sat in my roommates room tonight as we discussed the pros/cons of refined sugar/sugar/honey and he handed me a book (A BOOK!) (he's in massage school and happens to have a book about food and your body, lying on his night stand), and I opened that book and it felt AWESOME. I even told him how awesome it was that I just looked up something in a book and not on my phone...and then I immediately got sad that Porter will probably never experience that.

Why would I be sad? I don't know. I truly do believe that Google being incredibly accessible has definitely taught me a thing or two, but I miss the times where me and my friends are all sitting around and we disagree on something and we actually have to DISCUSS it rather than just look it up.

Anyway. Thanks for listening to my random rant (it's 1:30am here, what time is it there?)

7:30 AM

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12:31 AM

Lately

6:55 PM

SimpleHuman Sensor Mirror Review

1:01 AM

NO no no no no water

1:09 AM

Afterthoughts.

11:40 PM

Goodbye, for now?

For a long time now, Porter will give me my phone. Like, if it's sitting on the table, he'll grab it and hand it to me. He will do that with just about anybody's phone. If it's sitting there, he must put it in your hand. I've noticed this for a long time now and never really thought much about it until lately. I'm not sure when I really "realized" it, but it kinda sunk it that he thinks that i'm supposed to always have my phone...sadly, because he always sees me with it. If it's sitting there not in my hand, he freakin picks it up and hands it to me.

That really sucks. It makes me think about the fact that a LOT of the time i'm doing stupid shit on my phone rather than interacting with him. Whether it's texting or Facebooking or....on Bloglovin'....or checking my stats for how many hits i've had on my blog that day...it's doing something completely unrelated to him. And that's so unfair.

After months of thought, months and months, fighting myself back and forth about it...i've decided to stop writing here, and make my blog private.

Bam, I said it.

Nothing in particular happened, there were no horrible comments or mean words spoken, and in actuality it has been just the opposite, mostly positive.

This used to be a place that I took pride in. It became a really important piece of my life, it was probably higher on my list of what really matters than a lot of other stuff. Don't get me wrong, I will always look at this as a place I loved.

But I think i've changed and with the change this blog has fallen further and further down the list.

Dare I say...it's just really not important at all anymore.

I started this blog on August 25, 2010 (the exact post is here). I actually just reread that post and cracked up the whole time. I was all "here's my first post. i'm pregnant now listen to what I have to say about it..." haha. No "hey i'm Joan nice to meet ya", just jumped in and acted like somebody out there would care, haha.

I started it as a place where my family and Porter's dad's family could come, to keep up with Porter's travels from my belly to the crazy real world. I had no idea what a "blog" really meant until it turned into more than just keeping my family updated. I started putting my time into it- posting things I thought other people would enjoy, accepting free stuff in promise of a review, making buttons to share, and learning HTML and Google Analytics and Photoshop. I started commenting on other people's blogs and getting comments on mine and met a few amazing people, in real life, who I met through this little space of mine on the internet. I realized that there is a whole shitload of people who blog. I got advice and ideas from other blogs. I learned, and I also put what I had out there for other people.

So i've put a lot of my life on this space, 3.5 years worth to be exact, and i've def wrote about happy things as well as not so happy stuff. Porter's birth, debuted here. The whole first almost 3 years of his life have been documented here. But i've also gone through a lot since I started this thing that weren't such great times. Me and Jeremy (Porter's dad) breaking up, being a single mom, trying to work together with someone who felt a lot of hate towards me for a long time. It's so much better now, we get along pretty good I think and it took two years to get to this place, but we're working together more and more every day for Porter's sake and that's what matters :) And i've been through dating and different jobs and probation for a DUI that I got the first time I went out after I had Porter. I dated a person after Porter's dad, someone I saw a future with, someone I was in love with....who lied to me constantly. I've been through my Grandpa's death and new life (my nephew, Tyler). This blog has seen a pretty damn good portion of my ups and downs and everything in between.

I used to love posting tutorials and DIY stuff, but to be honest, I have no interest in it anymore. I still do creative things, not as much as before, but now I just do them and don't spend half the time trying to take the perfect photo for EVERY step. That stopped being fun.

And that's what it comes down to. At this point, I fight with myself about posting. I really do. I think "I haven't posted in a while, what can I post?" think...think...think...post something with a few pictures and some lame words and call it a day. OR. I just don't post for weeks and think about how I should and make myself feel guilty about the fact that I used to love this and now I don't.

I think i've finally accepted that i've moved on from this and that's just the way it is.

I am literally cracking up right now because I really feel like I just wrote a break up letter or something, haha.

I'll say this as best I can for everyone to understand- knowing I have people who read this daily who don't blog and probably had no idea what a blog even was and still kind of don't really get it- And to everyone who comes here that has a blog of their own...YOU know exactly what I mean when I say, that- It becomes a PART of you.

blogging becomes a way of life. it becomes a part of who you are. no joke. EVERYTHING I did ended up being me thinking about how that experience was going to be photographed and edited and replayed on my blog. EVERY THING WE DID.

I'm really over trying to document every single thing ALL OF THE TIME. I am going to put more effort in enjoying the moment while I live it instead of waste my time trying to preserve it.

I will never forget any of it when it comes down to it. And i'm def not saying i'm never going to take a picture and capture a moment, but i'm ready to stop trying to do it all.

But yeah, anyway. I'm gonna see what life is like without this blog. Hopefully less guilt about neglecting it? Maybe i'll feel guilty for letting it go...we'll see. I may be back. If I am, it'll be on a whole new blog, a fresh start. That's just the way I roll. But i'll come back here for a day or two and direct you there, I promise. So if you leave me in your Bloglovin' feed, you never know, maybe a post will show up one day telling you where to come if you still wanna kick it :) Otherwise, i'll forever have Instagram, so come follow me there if you wanna! Link is over there on the right hand side. And my email is JECornell6@gmail.com. Keep in touch :)

Adios amigas (and amigos if you're out there)...thank you thank you thank you :)

(p.s. I didn't reread this, which I always do religiously because I hate when grammar sucks and sentences run and run, but I feel if I reread it and edit it, i'll change everything or just change my mind about even posting this. So sorry if it sucks.)

I'll be off teaching Superman the importance of pants, and also to not delete every picture he takes...and apparently perfecting selfies...