RTUTB/TA? What the heck is that?

I found this magnet while on vacation this summer. Made me LOL.

When I started blogging I did not realize how hard is was going to be to Resist The Urge To Blog/Tweet About some things. When you are trying to blog two to three times a week, the world becomes your blog inspiration. It’s worse with Twitter, because that’s instant. Once you send it out, you can’t take it back. And really, even if you delete a blog post, nothing ever really goes away on the internet.

Some years ago, we took a ride on a steamboat. I had a babe in arms, and it was chilly, so I was stuck in a small and rather smelly lounge at the top of the boat. We told our daughter she could be outside, but she had to sit in sight of me (while the hubs wandered around taking pictures and checking on her periodically). Well, she chose a seat near this couple. I could see her talk, talk, talking and then periodically, she and the couple would turn and look at me.

I never asked what she told them. I didn’t want to know. And hoped we never ran into each other. Ever again. Needless to say, we had a chat with her about what information is for sharing and what is for public consumption. And yes, the list had to be added to many times.

This is where I craft my blogs. I get the ideas from everywhere else. And then kill some of those ideas, so I won’t get banished.

Fast forward to this brave, new world of instant information. And instant sharing. And being on the hunt for interesting blog topics. Let’s face it, the juicy stuff makes more interesting fodder than what I had for lunch. But it’s also the stuff that can cause offline family problems or bring out the trolls. I will admit I try to avoid controversial topics, both public and private. I’m not fond of trolls, haven’t liked them since some tried to eat Bilbo Baggins. And for the most part, I like it that my family will speak to me.

So I thought it might be instructive to make a list of things I won’t blog about and find out what’s on your list. We’ll start with mine:

• Zits. (You don’t know how tempting this topic is for both blogging and tweeting purposes. Am I bitter it’s still an issue for me at 57? Oh yeah. But I fear blogging about it will offend Fate and result in more of the pesky things. So embarrassing at my age…)
• Muffin tops. (I tried to talk about this at a party and it didn’t go well…)
• Jowls (They are the curse of our family and I have some amazing pictures with the jowls hogging the spotlight, and while my jowls obviously LOVE the limelight, too much sharing of this one could get me banned from family gatherings forever.)
• Other family business (I suspect most families have a certain level of dysfunction and, with a few exceptions, my family doesn’t seem to read my blog, but sure as shooting, if I posted some family biz, you can bet someone would chose that day to check out my blog and then, well, yeah. Banning.)
• The hubs (he doesn’t actually read my blog that faithfully, but he might cut off my access to his awesome pictures if he found me blogging about him too much and I’m saving the really good stuff for a posthumous, unauthorized biography.)
• The kids (I don’t think they read my blog either, but if I stepped in that pool, I suspect even they might hear the splash and there goes the Mother’s Day cards…)
• Your friends (ditto all of above  and bang goes the support network, though I think me and mine would make a way more interesting reality show…)
• Hurling of cookies and other gnarly illnesses (While our symptoms are endlessly fascinating to us – boy could I tell some stories! — they aren’t actually that interesting to anyone not experiencing them with you, and then it becomes more a “who is the sickest” competition instead of sympathetic sharing.)
• Politics or religion (While I’m interested and active in both, they tend to be equal opportunity offenders, no matter how careful you think you’re being.)
• Writing (I sort of side-swipe the topic but am trying not to spend a lot of time on it since I took Kristen Lamb’s blogging course from WANA International and realized it’s mostly only interesting to other writers.)

So there it is, my top ten list of things I have to RTUTB/TA. What’s on your list? Is there any topic that’s off limits? If you go no limits, do you have some ‘splaining to do later? People who still aren’t speaking to you? Or do they like the moment of fame? Do share.

Because I reward those who share by entering all comments into a drawing for a $10 AnaBanana Card of extreme awesomeness! Winners are announced in the first blog post of the next month (which happens to be this blog post, btw, see winner below), but leaving an email addy also helps when I go a notifying.

Her zombie logo.

And because it is the first blog post of September, here is the August gift card winner is our first guy:

Allan Douglas!

Perilously (and blogging carefully) yours,

Pauline