The New Blog Story

Thanks for coming to the private blog!! I have a few requests for my definition of "creepy" and it really isn't that interesting. I never loved having a public blog, it was one reason that it took me so long to start one, I don't like not knowing who my audience is and the idea of random strangers reading my blog. I told myself that - really, who is going to read it if they are not my friend??? Multiple pictures of my child + detailed updates of our daily life is about as exciting as grass growing. I do love how it feels like it is easier to keep in touch and having accounts of everyday life with Hadley that wouldn't have made it into my actual journal.

After I started the blog I put a feedjit on the side, it let me know where people were from when they viewed (I know it doesnt take into account google reeder) and at the beginning could I normally tell who was viewing it. Over time there were more and more views from places I didn't recognize - not a big deal, I figured it was friends of friends or people that I had known before that found their way to it (again, I am not that interesting so I assume only people I know would care). In the last 2 weeks though my traffic shot up a ton from all sorts of places, although the main place was Utah weirdly enough. I know about 5 people in Utah. The part that got me though was a Tennessee address that would show up about 6-8 times a day, at the beginning I figured maybe it was someone reading archives (I have been known to do this with total strangers...) so I wasnt worried. After a week had passed and I was still getting anywhere from 3-8 times a day I figured they had already read the archives and I was just creeped out. I have heard that spam is regular intervals (could be total internet myth) and this was erratic but multiple times so basically I just decided to pull the blog. My friend had taken her blog private and did her set up like you see mine, where you can still get updates from a public blog (teuschertravels.blogspot.com if it isnt in your reeder) that tell you to go check out the private one. That is my biggest complaint with private, I forget to go check and remember every few months to catch up. So combined with my being less than thrilled with randoms on my blog, and my friend's creative idea I made it private. .....and this concludes my rather boring story of how we went private. We will see how it goes, hopefully it isn't too much of a pain. We are so far away and have friends all across the US, I love how I can still feel a bit in touch.