Blogging is to Time as Bargains are to Shopping

I was sitting at my computer this morning, waiting out the moments to see if the Babe crying in her bed would cooperate with nap time so I could take a shower (she did not, thanks to her rotten cold). As I waited, I was checking my Google Reader to see if Kelly, a blogger who doesn't know I exist, has had her baby yet. (When I started composing this post, she hadn't, by the way, but she was enjoying her epidural. At the rate I'm going, she may be having her 2nd or 3rd child before I get this posted!)

Anyway... At that moment, as I stared at the photo of a complete stranger lying in a hospital bed, I made a decision. I'm going to stop wasting spending countless hours just reading other people's blogs and start writing my own.

I should clarify that I don't consider all my blog-reading a waste of time. There are many blogs that have encouraged me, inspired me, challenged me, and caused me to question some things in my life and myself that really could stand to be addressed. Made me ask hard questions like, "What would I say about God if I were battling cancer? Grieving the loss of a child? Facing infertility?" And some blogs just keep me connected to people I care about but rarely see and give me the treat of seeing pictures of some real cutie pies that often make me laugh out loud.

But sometimes what I've read or seen or just plain imagined about other's lives based on their blogs really brings out the worst in me. Granted, sometimes my disagreements are valid, and I may even be the one in the right once in a while, but ugly things like envy, a critical spirit, legalism, comparison, and self-condemnation would rise up in me. Why would I want to feed that?

And then there are those blogs that I read just because....I have a strong aversion to cleaning they're there. They aren't even interesting. Hyperlinks are my downfall. And I mean, seriously, if I'm going to read about total strangers, it should at least be interesting. So I'm moving on to my own blog. Here we go!

Oh, and in case you're wondering about the title of this post... It is probably the first of many things I'll write that makes perfect sense to me but may or may not make sense to anyone else who may stumble across this blog. But I'll try to explain:

You know how sometimes you're shopping and you don't really need anything, but you run across a great bargain that you totally can justify buying, even though you don't really "need" it? As I mentioned before, blog reading has consumed quite a bit of my time over the past year or so, but if I can sit here keeping up my own blog, recording memories and exploring some of the thoughts I don't otherwise take time to enter, well then, that's a time bargain!

Make sense to you? No? Oh, well. Better get used to that!