Thank you, Hunter.
That was my sincerest hope,
I really appreciate your thoughts.

I think it’s when anything takes me away consistently and in an unhealthy way from my family relationships that I need to take a hard look at what I’m doing. But I guess my point is that it’s not often as stark as some of the examples, and I think he knows that. Elder Bednar gave us guideposts and then invited us to seek the Spirit’s guidance in figuring out how to apply it.

Think of it like this: reading your family blog is similar to discovering and reading an old journal (with photos!) from a long lost ancestor. By reading your blog and seeing your pictures, the reader is getting to know you better (even if they’re not making other efforts to get to know you or stay in touch). I have to believe that knowing about your comings and goings, and some of the miscellaneous details of your family’s life will endear your extended family to you. It’s bound to happen, with or without the phone calls.

Maybe stopping the blog could help re-establish relationships. I understand the discordant family relationships so so much. Sometimes what I really really want just doesn’t jive with reality.

Here’s my current dilema I’ve been wrestling with for the last three weeks.

I live all the way across the country from the rest of my large family. They are very close and frequently get together as a family for many big and small occassions. It’s fantastic. My family is clearly missing out. My husband works here; this is where we live–that’s life and it’s okay. It’s been hard on me to maintain relationships with my family, if I don’t initiate conversations with them– they don’t happen. After a time, that just gets emotionally exhausting. I thought I could start a blog to facilitate our family being “remembered” as part of the clan, i.e, children’s successes, family happenings, even at times, some deep thoughts…
My blog is private so I am not searching for any virtual friends (although I do like visiting here and hearing what all of you have to say…), it was meant to encourage some kind of interaction with family members. We are not estranged. I thought it seemed like an okay plan. Here’s what happened: the dismal pre-blog communication has now dropped completely off the map. NOTHING. I’ve been at it (the blog) for nearly a year and a half. It appears that I have an entire family of lurkers.
In the last few weeks I’ve suddenly realized that I’ve been encouraging, even making it easy for my family to have this non-relationship with me. They can get on, see what we’re up to… It’s quick, it’s clean, it’s painless. Maybe they feel like because they know what’s going on in our lives, it constitutes a relationship.
I hate to see my blog die. It is a great record for our family, as well as cathartic for me to be able write so many of my thoughts and feelings… But lately I feel that this virtual “outlet” is just making things worse.

Still thinking about what to do…
Sometimes it’s just really hard to take the good with the bad.

The children are another thing!!! I worry constantly about them and that they spend too much time on their consoles. T.V. is limited, the wii is limited, the Ds is limited, but still I worry about it. Seriously kids, go outside and play, climb a tree or something. When they go to friends some of them never go into the garden but just play on games and watch dvds. They go to friends for social interaction and sometimes it just doesn’t happen.

yes balance is the issue!