Women Connect. Mothers. Wives. Sisters. Friends.

It's HERE! I am so excited to connect so many women with one another, to meet new friends, read inspiring stoies, and to find similarities among bloggers in this amazing community. Please write your posts, grab the HTML code below {or link back to the blog} and hop around to connect with others. If you do not link back to the blog, please know your post will be deleted from the link-up. This is all about connecting as many women as possible.

What do you do? You write. You write and you open up to us. Tell us who you are. Share a story with us. Tell us why you blog. Something that has been challenging for you in life? Something that has been a major blessing. Anything applies. The goal is that you take the time to actually write and the result would be that other women would find you and your blog and connect. 

When you link up. Please put and "identifying factor" about yourself. "Mama of two." "Recent Newlywed." "Struggling through marriage." "Need help with parenting." And so forth. 

<a border="0" href="http://www.frommrstomama.com/" target="_blank"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpKqbARocSH0cdmXine3uegn9VbMMQAu9CT-x4L90u8UbwHUm9Z89WctvfHMTDWnsml4WDYAJ8zmRu5GcOtzFIzTS0jS_jbTphf1ZQP8eRKf_9w-kJJpDmmhdnirMZgUglVPF_ZEt6UDjk/s1600/Untitled+6.png" /></a>

It took me quite some time to sit down and think about what exactly I wanted to write about. I thought about what I wanted to share, how I wanted to introduce myself. Each time I would start, I would find myself wanting to start all over. They know this stuff. Delete. This sounds like a recording machine. Delete. Oh man, I am never going to get this. Delete.

"Hi, my name is Becky and I am a mama of a 2 year old, and 34 weeks pregnant with number two, who will be our first son." Okay... and?

"Hi, my name is Becky and I am a nurse. I work night shift 3 nights a week so that I can be a full-time SAHM to my children."Give them more Becky.

"Hi, my name is Becky and I love life." Becky, Becky, Becky. Think.

And so I stared at a blank screen. Until I realized that what I truly wanted to write about was why I do this. This blogging gig. And how? In a weird, strange, peculiar,  hard-to-describe kind of way... it's made me grow as a person, mother, and wife.

You see, I began this blog a couple years ago, three in January,  not knowing where it would take me. In fact, I'm pretty sure I was convinced I wouldn't get much further than a week or two and then I would get "bored with it," just like I do with every other thing that I start in my life. With a few exceptions. I had no real desires to pursue it further than just a hobby. No real future plans or goals. No idea how much it would mean to me down the road.

And so the blogging journey began. And I would be lying if I said I wasn't initially obsessed. I soaked it all in. I would write posts all hours of the day. Sometimes I couldn't even resist the urge to post 3-4 times a day. About what you say? My favorite music list. My top ten loves. A link up here. A link up there. It was my way of hiding. From truly writing. Opening up. Letting it all out there.

And then there was the other aspect of blogging. The other bloggers. You see,  I would try to find as many new blogs to read as possible at the beginning. Sometimes I would stumble upon one and hours later realize that I had just read every post they had ever written. Just about.

"Wow, I want that to be me." I wanted people to come to my blog and want to read my past posts, and find themselves lost in my story. 

And then, just a few short months later, I found out we were expecting. And blogging?  Well blogging changed right there and then. Or specifically, when the sickness began. And the next 9 months of my journey placed blogging on hold. Not because I didn't have the time {because believe me, reruns of the baby story for hours at a time was not exactly my definition of busy}, nor that I didn't care, but instead it was because I was lost in transition. The transition that my life was heading into.

I no longer knew what to write about, and how to mix my current life with the life that was about to begin. Little did I know... this was my new life. And I found "that place" when Elliana was born. I found that I connected most with my readers by not holding back. Sharing my thoughts and emotions. Sharing motherhood. The challenges, and at the same time the ease and joy and how natural this new life was that we had been blessed with. And at the same time, I wanted to continue to share the "old me," the humor, the "fun" part of my blog that I felt was the foundation for my writing. So I found myself asking, how do I balance the two?? How to hold on to the readers that liked the humor part and at the same time engage those that wanted me to open up on a deeper level. 

The answer came to me when I sat down to make my first blog book, the first year and a half placed in hardback print for me to cherish forever, and I was forced to go through past posts. Delete. Delete. Delete. I can't tell you how many times I had to click delete. Posts that had no meaning to me. Posts that I would not want to look back on in the future. Posts I wouldn't want my children to read. And even posts that I was embarrassed to look back on. Why did I share this?

And so I found myself. And since that day, over a year ago, blogging has been such a new adventure for me and my family. I get excited to share our journey. I get excited to document our every day lives. I get excited to capture the milestones of my baby girl {and future children} through pictures and writing. And I get even more excited when all this is printed. Permanent. In a hard book. For me, my children, and my future grandchildren to cherish forever. Some, probably many, posts may seem boring now. But 5 years from now? 10? 20? 50? I am going to sit back and smile.

I am going to love hearing about how my 2 year old had to be carried out of the library kicking and screaming. The day she first said "Love you mama." How my husband and I bickered over who would get the next diaper. The first boo boo. Our first family vacation. The endless amount of memories. 

So what I know now is that blogging 2 years ago? Is very different from blogging today. Blogging 5 years from now? Will most likely look very different from blogging today. But no matter where I am in my blogging journey, today or tomorrow, I hope to always stay true to myself and my readers. I hope to be honest. To be real. Raw. And to share every detail that is important to me. And my family.

And I hope that one day, I will look back on these years and smile {or cry} at what I "thought I knew" back then.