Spin Cycle - In the Beginning

Okay - I know I'm late getting this out but I have really wanted to give the Spin Cycle a "spin". I do hope Jen over at Sprite's Keeper (the master mind behind The Spin Cycle) will forgive my tardiness - she seems like a pretty kick-ass chick plus I'm not too worried because I have a super good excuse (which I'll get to in a later post, I promise)as to why I've been AWOL again this week.

So anyway, about the beginning of Captain Crazy. One night I was laying in bed reading an article about mommy bloggers in Wondertime magazine. Until that day I had never even heard of a "blog" and I certainly didn't have the slightest clue as to how to get my own. The next day at work I looked up the blogs the article mentioned, Finslippy and a couple of others, and I was hooked. They were downright FUNNY and they were writing about everyday stuff but the humor and the wit they used....it was great.

As moms we share everything with our kids. I share my food, my drinks (the non-alcoholic ones of course :)), my bed, my lap, my stuff-the list goes on and on. So the idea of having something that "belonged" to me and me only was pretty exciting. Having a place where I could vent about my frustrations (which are plenty) brag about my accomplishments (which are few)and cry over my failures (which sadly are also plenty) was to me the cherry on top of it all.

So after a couple of days of mulling it over, I decided to try my hand at blogging and like I do with most things - I dove right in. I did do a little bit of research -for about thirty minutes- and settled on using blogger. I decided to go with the name "Captain Crazy" because I thought it had a nice ring to it and it is also my first son's nickname. That's his crazed little face with the drool and the slobber on my blog page. Isn't is just cute?

Anyway, my first post went up in January 2008- which honestly feels like years ago. But back then I was in the middle of some daycare drama and I was really irritated and angry and worried about the whole situation. I have some really close friends, but I felt like I had already unloaded on them enough and I didn't want them to start screening my calls. And my poor husband - he had heard enough of my constant blabbering about the whole situation and I had heard enough of him saying "everything is going to be okay" It was nice to have a place to get everything off of my chest - so to speak.

To say that I have learned a lot since my first post would be putting it mildly. I know I'm not a great writer - I made full disclosure of that in my profile. My excuse is that I majored in broadcast journalism and was trained to "write for the ear" - conveying information in very short, concise "sound bites" that people could process easily as they chewed their morning oatmeal and listened to the radio or the morning news. But I think my writing has improved some since I embarked on my journey through the blogosphere. I still make a lot of mistakes, it still take me AGES! to write one stinking post but I feel like my writing has improved a bit. I at least feel like when I compare my most recent posts to my very first posts it's not like something shit all over the page anymore -well sometimes it still looks like that - but not as often.

But I can't close this post without mentioning the best thing of all that has happened since I started blogging. I have "met" all of you - the folks that read this blog. Your comments have bolstered me and your blogs have inspired me and for that I want to thank you. Blogging is still somewhat of a struggle for me - but you remind me of why I do it and what is in it for me. For me.