I almost moved over the weekend. Not houses (though lord knows I'm ready for that), but blog hosts. After visiting a number of other blogs, I thought Blogger was a better host--easier customization, no ads, connected to my beloved Google account. So I spent a couple of days playing around with a new blog design over there and moving posts. But I just couldn't settle on a design for the new and improved Mean Mommy and something just kept drawing me back over here. I decided to stay put, and now I think I know why.

When I started this blog a couple of months ago, I was totally green. I knew nothing about the blogosphere; I just jumped in willy nilly. I used my kids' real names for pete's sake! Everyone knows mommy bloggers only refer to their children using cute, representative nicknames! And for the first week or so, I didn't even share my blog, nor was I sure I ever would

Now that I've become better acquainted with mommyblogville, and now that I've culled a few (and I do mean a few) readers, I feel a little more self-conscious about my posts. I even struggle not to try to write my blog the way I think it should be written instead of just writing it the way I want to write it--the way I blogged when I first started. I think as I was trying to design a hip, clever new site for Mean Mommy, that feeling of trying too hard bubbled up. I didn't feel as authentic. When I decided to stay here, I felt better.

I may decide to move eventually, but I'm not ready to leave my first blog home quite yet. I like what I've built here, and I'm afraid of changing it, so I'm going to stick around and let everything settle in a bit longer. I even sprung for a paid LiveJournal account (only $20) to turn off the ads on this site, since the ad-freeness of Blogger was the biggest draw for me, and I'm home again.

Now. The new blog.

Since I joined the community of mommy bloggers--and there really is a community, quite a sincere one--reading other blogs has become a hobby, maybe even a mild obsession, only because I get caught up reading, following links, reading more, and suddenly 2 hours has gone by. And I have found some amazing voices out there, some really smart, witty, and talented writers. The more I read, the more respect for I gain for these women. So I decided to create a blog to showcase some of the especially good posts that I come across. It's called Mommy Blog Round Up. I just started it yesterday, so there's not much there yet.

But you can help me build the site! If you read a particularly great post, send me the link in comments here or over on MBRU (Mommy Blog Round-Up--yeah, the site's cool enough to have an acronym already) or email me. Don't be shy about submitting your own posts, either! I'm trying to build a pretty extensive collection of mommy blogs on Google Reader, so I can easily scan several posts every few days, and I'm happy to add new blogs to the list.

When I collect enough brilliant posts, I'm going to share the site with a friend who just started a small publishing company and try to persuade her to let me help her edit and publish an anthology of mommy blog posts. It would be an amazing book, don't you think?

As you know, I started this blog a few days ago, and thus far, Emily of the mommy board has been my only LiveJournal friend, a fact about which LiveJournal has felt it necessary to remind me every time I post an entry. The first time I view a newly posted entry, a little box pops up, telling me, "You've only made 1 friend."

My friend Emily from my mom's board inspired me to join Live Journal even though I've never known quite how I'd feel about blogging.