The History of My Bethisms in 704 words.

Welcome! I’m glad you’re here.

Once upon a time, I had a little blog called the Luddite Blogger. I called it that because although I am an admirer of technology and am sometimes an early adopter (why yes, that IS a first edition iPod you see) I am also pretty bad when it comes to actually using technology.

So my little blog stayed little and a few of my loyal, generous, big-hearted friends read it and told me it was great and they loved what I wrote, and everyone else asked if I was still writing that blog and what was its name again?

A year or two in, I wrote a post that really pissed a few people off. And they called my house to let me know how unhappy they were. After I got off the phone, I realized that the repercussions of putting my thoughts and opinions in writing and publishing them were maybe more than my family had signed up for.

So I shut down the blog. That day.

And I went back to writing an article here and an opinion piece there and a guest blog post whenever someone asked. But everything I wrote was more removed and impersonal than anything I had written on my blog.

Then one day, I found I had a tween daughter and I discovered that the lifestyle magazine for tweens I was hoping to find for her, a People/In Style/Daily Candy mash-up didn’t exist. I wanted something that would give her the information she needed for her 4^th grade version of the water cooler, the school lunch table or the soccer field. I pitched my idea to a few friends and with their generous pledges of time, money and talent, betwixtgirls.com was born.

For two years, we interviewed impressive girls, shared tips on fashion, beauty, health, self-esteem, new media, interesting products and trends. Then, life intervened and we all had to find something else to do with our lives.

Through it all, I kept writing stories and opinion pieces in my head and sometimes even shared them in local publications or websites. Almost every day, I would compose something and think to myself, “I wish I had somewhere to post this.” But I have this thing where I either get to shy to speak up or, after I share my thoughts, I’m all like, ““Wait, I didn’t really say that.” And wish I had just kept my mouth shut.

It’s sort of like that dream you have where you go into a public restroom and having to go to the bathroom so badly and sitting down to pee and realizing that there is no door on the stall. Then you either can’t go, which is agonizing, or you can’t stop going, which is in some ways worse.

You do have that dream, right?

Anyway, it suddenly (and by suddenly, I mean over the course of a year) dawned on me that I could start another blog. And so here I am older, hopefully wiser, and possibly slightly more diplomatic than before.

Needless to say, for an introverted exhibitionist like myself, the process has been just as torturous as it sounds like it would be. And believe me (and my saintly website designer) when I say it has been one very long exercise in paralysis by analysis to actually get here now.

My Bethisms refers to all the things I did as an awkward, quirky, dreamy girl that sometimes amused but mostly irritated my parents and made me, how shall we say it, an acquired taste.

I’m still not everyone’s cup of tea. But I hope I will be yours. And with that cup of tea, I will be serving a big helping of rumination, a side of minutiae, a trend towards the dorky and an opinion or two (or three) thrown in free of charge.

If you like what you read, please comment and pass links on to friends, family or the person behind you in the grocery store checkout line. If you don’t like what you read, please tell me (gently) so we can talk about it (civilly and without name calling) until you are convinced that I am right and you are wrong.

So. Let’s give this thing a whirl, shall we?