Call me crazy...

So, as silly as this is amongst all the important happenings in life, I've discovered that Twitter is actually no fun when it's private. As many of you know I had a bit of an online privacy freak out last week. I had heard about three horrible stories in the span of a few days and read a few online articles about online safety, and I really got upset. It also doesn't help when your friend tells you that their house got broken into because she posted about a vacation via her blog! SO scary. I just don't need to post things like "I am at Whole Foods in Tempe right now, in the fruit aisle!" or "Leaving my house now, alone! Heading downtown." I do feel there are ways to keep myself and my family safe without having to be totally cut off from the internet world I know and love so much. Most recently I've been stopped numerous times and recognized from this blog. Super touching and amazing to know all of these people visit this site (and I do love meeting you!), but when this happens in my tiny town it makes me a bit uncomfortable, especially being a teacher. If you've read my blog for awhile you'd know that I've always felt really, really weird about the possibility of my students reading it. When I found out that quite a few did last week (perfect timing with my security issues, right?) I started to get super uncomfortable. That, added to the feelings I was already having, started a whole thought process that resulted in closing everything in my "online life" down with the exception of this blog. After thinking more about it, I am going to keep my Facebook closed indefinitely, but keep my Twitter open always. The issue with students reading it will be over soon enough anyway, as I phase out of one career and into my next job of being a full-time Mom. Thank you all so much for bearing with me as I am hot and cold about this whole online security thing. I do definitely think though that it's a good thing to think about. I know that going through all of these thoughts I have come out being a lot more aware and a lot safer. I urge all of you to think hard about what you put out there, and maybe reevaluate it to be sure you are doing as much as you can to keep yourself and your family safe! I do think I was careless before, and at times it's scary to think I am bringing a child into such a public internet world. I have a tendency to err on the side of extreme caution, and yes, I did think many times about making this blog private. But, I love this little community here way too much to make that change! I promise I'll never do that, and I do feel I've struck a nice balance with omitting things like I've mentioned above. My friend Lindsay told me that she tries to blog in the past tense, meaning that she will share things after her and her family do them. Not "leaving for vacation tomorrow!" but more so, "back from vacation, here are the pics!" I like this a lot. And even more so, in a few months when I am officially a stay-at-home Mom, I know that I will truly enjoy all of the "mommy-blogs" and the community of "mommy-tweeters" even more than I do now. I definitely want to be a part of that.

So, call this round two, but I am going to do the public Twitter thing. I won't ever make it private again, I won't remove followers, etc. I promise. If this blog is public, then Twitter goes hand in hand with that. AND to the slightly rude, anonymous Formspring commenter who called me a flip-flopper, I can admit that YES this is me flip flopping. :) I prefer to call it changing my mind, but whatever. haha. Twitter is too quiet and dead without being able to communicate with all of you, and I am going back to the dark side. Yippee!

xoxo

OHH, and the link!

http://twitter.com/danihampton