Moving

I've learned a lot in the nearly five years I've been blogging (holy cow, that's a long time). And I've been contemplating a lot of things in the last several months. All of those things I've been contemplating have led to this: we are moving.

Not into a new house, but into a new home in the blogging world. From now on, you'll find me blogging as One Ordinary Mom at

http://oneordinaryfamily.blogspot.com

I hope you'll make the move with us, follow us, put us in your RSS feed. This blog we'll stay up for at least the next couple of months. I'm in the very long, slow, yet enjoyable process of collecting my favorite writings and musings from the last year and putting them into book format. I want to have a record of what I've written here in this space. 

And if you're wondering why we're moving, here are a few of the reasons, most of them dealing with privacy: 

• I teach middle school. Middle school students are sometimes weird and like to Google their teachers. This blog is connected to both my first and last name meaning that it usually comes up in a Google search. The new blog isn't connected to either and even has a separate email address.
• In going with the above, I also know that at some point in time, Cate and Brennan might decide to Google themselves. Nothing here will ever be hidden from them (hence the book), but a small part of me is slightly concerned about what their friends or bullies (hopefully we won't have to deal with this too much) might find. I've kept away from the mostly embarrassing and controversial, but still. 
• None of my pictures here are watermarked. I've learned to watermark and want a fresh start on a new blog with watermarked pictures. I realize I write for a small audience, but I would hate for a stranger to stumble upon my blog and take a picture of mine to use for some negative purpose (like those Craigslist adoption scams you read about). I've mostly good faith in people, and this has never happened to me, that I know of, but I want to be careful. 
• I attended an educational technology conference right before Cate turned one. At it, I learned that even once a site is taken down, it's cached pages are sometimes kept on record for 5-7 years. While difficult for the average person to track down, they are still there. So I figure that if this blog stays cached in some deep Internet record-keeping place for 7 years, Cate will be 11.5 by the time they disappear for good and in the meantime, they would be hard for anyone to access unless they really, really wanted to (well, once I finish my bloggy book and retire this blog for good).

It's a personal choice and one that Eric and I have discussed at length. I'm not going to flatter myself and pretend that I'm some blogging celebrity that needs to protect her identity. It really boils down to future preservation and changing our small internet identity. I'm very loosely toying around with going back to school for a PhD and Eric may end up back in school for a totally new degree at some point too. Also, he'll be going back into the full-time work force at a yet-to-be-determined date. And again, while nothing on here is embarrassing or controversial, it still is very much tied to our names. Prospective higher education programs or future employers don't need a silly (but meaningful to us) blog showing up should they Google us.

So we're moving, but we'll be blogging as usual, just under a more protected identity. Eric will be blogging as One Ordinary Dad, while I'm One Ordinary Mom and our kids are now just C and B. We're still tweaking the new site, so be patient. But please, if you feel so inclined, update your blog rolls and continue to read. We're looking forward to this leap. And thank you for a great almost five years in this space.

~Melody :-)