Nablopomo

November has been declared National Blog Posting Month by several hundred bloggers, and I, like a loon, have signed on to participate. This means that I have bound myself by blood-oath (OK, not really, but I'm telling myself that for motivational purposes) to post every single day for the entire month. (Thank God it's only one of those 30-day months!) Today I'm beginning with this entry, as well as posting several back-saved drafts that I have been trying to get finished for about two weeks.

Today also marks some other changes to the blog. You may have noticed already that I have changed the template and title of the blog. I have done this because I want to change my approach to this project in general. So far I have been using the blog as a venue for posting stories and information about my pregnancy and for posting pictures of Matilda. I am now broadening the scope of the blog to include my thoughts and ramblings on other subjects as well. Of course, there will still be plenty of pictures of the baby (I need to keep up my readership, after all), but, believe it or not, there's more going on inside this brain than just baby stuff. That's something I need to keep reminding myself both as a writer and a mother--I am more than just a baby-wrangler--I am still a thinking, opinionated woman who has stuff to say apart from how many poopy diapers I change a day or how much weight the baby is gaining. Also, it's become easy to forget the fact that I am a writer who teaches writing for a living. I haven't written a whole lot lately, and that needs to change, lest my skills get all fat and lethargic from my slothful habits.

In honor of this change, I have renamed the blog "Whim." The title and the quote below it are both from one of my favorite pieces of writing, Ralph Waldo Emerson's "Self-Reliance." If you haven't read this essay, you should. If you have, read it again.

Wish me luck, and I'll talk at you tomorrow.