If you’re reading this blog, you are likely a facebook friend or a friend of a friend.  You might follow me (or I might follow you) on Twitter.  Regardless of how you got to this post you need to know that this post is different than my typical entry.  It’s also an introduction to the changes you will see in my 2014 blogging.

My life changed dramatically in May when I resigned from public school education after 17 years.  I left the traditional classroom to finish a collection of early readers and home school our two youngest children.  I’ve said it once if I’ve said it 100 times, “I don’t really know what I’m doing but I’m going to jump in and learn as I go.”  This was true for home schooling, authoring, marketing, and blogging.

I’ve learned much, intuitively, along the way.  I’m also learning much from others.  I’m particularly grateful for Michael Hyatt’s book Platform:  Get Noticed in a Noisy World (2012).  Suffice it to say, I’ve done a few things right and many, many more things are opportunities for improvement.

I began blogging in May.  My husband recommended I somehow share my heart with an extended community as a way of introducing myself.  I’ve enjoyed documenting much of my life, more for myself and my children than for others.  Thanks for your patience in allowing me to do so.  I’ll leave them in my archives, but things will be different around here in 2014.

As I’ve considered my blogs I think the two most significant errors are as follows, though there are several more I will also address.

My posts have been too long.  The recommended is 500 words.  A friend mentioned that my posts were too long.  I reasoned that I was being thorough.  Of 23 posts, 1 has been less than 500 words.  They have averaged 1,200 words.  One comes in at a whopping 2,520, five times as long as the recommended.

My posts have been off-brand.  That’s a nice way of saying they’ve been random.  In fact, I have a “Random but Interesting” category.  Honestly, I didn’t have a clear vision for my blog.

My passion – Michael Hyatt’s book caused me to really think through what I’m passionate about.  I am certainly passionate about  Me and Thee Studios’ Early Reader Collection, http://www.meandthestudios.com  as literacy instruction was my niche in the classroom.  But ultimately, my passion in life has been and continues to be training a child in the way he should go, in hopes that when he is old he will not depart from it (to paraphrase Proverbs 22:6).

While I pray my faith was reflected in my actions in the classroom, there were hundreds of standards for life that I addressed with my students.  Some of the things I plan to blog about will be faith based but the majority of them will not.  They will all apply to parenting today because there truly are Things That Really Do Matter.

Imagine that you were preparing to pass along the wisdom you’d acquired in life and had to limit it to one simple idea.  What would you say as a way of speaking into the lives of those to come?