Someone on Formspring asked what happened to my Rome bridal photos. I had fun digging them up on my mom’s computer while I was home!

Hooray for blogcation. But HOORAY for coming back! Oh I missed you dearies (and if there are any men, dears), and although I loved my little break, I happen to love blogging even more so I’m going to come back again.

A few of you suggested turning off comments on all or some posts, at least for a little while, but I just can’t do it. Both because comments are my drug (Ke$ha says my love is her drug, but your comments are mine) and because I think that the comment section is what has some of you coming back to visit so often. I am going to be a bit more selective about what comments get approved, because I realized I don’t owe anyone anything, and if someone is going to be unnecessarily rude they certainly don’t deserve anything from me. I know there are some critics who will say that this means I am censoring anyone who doesn’t agree with me, but luckily there are people who accuse me of that all the time already, so nothing will be different to them! You’re free to disagree with me, as always, just don’t do it by saying I’m a horrible excuse for a human being. Let’s be civil kids.

I’m going to change my comment policy a bit. Along with the other criteria, I’m now going to delete all comments that include phrases like “Not to be rude, but…“, “I don’t want to tell you how to parent, but….” and anything that resembles “You’re putting yourself out there so I think you should expect comments that…“. Most of these come from one time visitors anyway, who see one post and think they know everything and decide to tell me so. Now they will have to go somewhere else and spread their nuggets of joy and wisdom around!

On my return, I’m going to take a page off the blogs of OMGMom and Cjane. Both recently wrote posts asking thing from their readers and I’m going to combine the two ideas into one. OMGMom asked her readers to introduce themselves, and CJane promised to visit the blog of anyone who commented and say hello. I’m going for a bit of an amalgamation of their posts.

Comment below and tell me a little bit more about yourself (as Mandy urged her readers to do). There are so many of you that comment on an almost daily basis, but I don’t know much more than your screen name! I would love to hear things like:

  • Age
  • Location
  • Hometown
  • Profession
  • Marital status
  • Children?
  • Likes or dislikes
  • How you found That Wife
  • One quirky thing about yourself that might help me remember you in the future (this is the point where I always say that I raised pigs in my front yard growing up, or that I can blow milk out of my eye, or that my husband grew up in Poland)
  • Anything else you think I should know

A la CJane, if you comment below with some or all of that information, and leave your own blog address, I’ll stop by and comment on one of your posts. And my comment will be a real one, not just “Hey, you are awesome!” because I believe the only good kind of comment is a genuine one. Maybe I’ll like what I find and I’ll subscribe and say hi every once in awhile from here on out (but no guarantees on that one, I only have 24 hours in each day, and I swear T1 wants to take charge of like 20 of them). I’m hoping that this post will turn into a place where I can refer back to when I read through a particularly insightful comment and realize I want to know more about the person who left it. Did you know that sometimes I talk about you guys with TH? One of you will say something and your name and comment will be the topic of our dinner conversation that night.Now I’ll be able to be really specific when I  say things like “She’s the one who said this” or “She’s the one who did that”. Super cool.

I’m not going to post again until I catch up on commenting on all of the blogs like I promised, so it might be a little bit before you see something new here, but after that expect a glut of posts. I have so many things I want to say and so many drafts that are piling up in my dashboard that I just need to get them all out in the open. I might even have to break my own rule and post a few times a day to get it done…

I’m looking forward to learning a bit more about all of you!

P.S.-You should read that post I linked to on Mandy’s blog. Isn’t she so sweet? Did you know I met her in real life. I wouldn’t be opposed to T1 declaring his love for Mia very early in life and the two of them marrying for happily ever after (he’ll have to convert her first though Mandy, I hope you won’t mind having a Mormon daughter!)

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