When I first began this blog, I did it to brush up on my technical skills after having taken care of my then 4 year old twins full time for several years.  Having kept a journal in some form or fashion since I was about 10 years old, blogging seemed a perfect way to combine journaling with my desire to brush up on technical skills.

Shortly after starting the blog, my husband closed his business and our household income immediately dried up.  We went from a husband working and stay at home mom family to an unemployed family to a 2 parent working from home family.  Our lives faced many challenges, primarily financially.  Throughout these changes and challenges I continued to blog.  It forced me to focus on the positive and to continue to learn new skills.  It was a productive outlet for me.

At the end of 2008 and the first 6 weeks of 2009, our financial challenges reached the bottom. We had filed bankruptcy, which was finalized and we lost everything that was worth anything financially, including our house and home of 11 years.  We moved into a rental house.  Lee and I began cleaning houses and repairing computers to make ends meet and earn money to pay for the basic utilities and roof over our head.  At that time I began to blog about about what we were going through financially.  So many others are facing a difficult time due to the recession and I wanted to show that you can keep the what matters most:  faith in God, love of family.  All the other things are truly the icing on the cake of life.  They are truly things.  Things that can be lost or broken, sold or given away.

At the end of 2008, I also got involved in 2 new groups online called Smart Girl Politics and Top Conservatives on Twitter. They were ways I could combine my geeky love of technology with my passion for politics.  I wound up being on the board of Smart Girl Politics and met some incredible conservative online women.  Politics are a HUGE part of my life but one that I have stayed away from for the most part on this blog.

So, in February of 2009, I began a blog series called Surviving Financial Disaster, which I planned to launch in conjunction with 5 Minutes for Mom Blog Party.  Also, in February, 2009, we moved from our home of 11 years to a rental house.  Then, Rick Santelli who is on CNBC had the rant that changed the world and truly changed my life.  He complained about the government bailouts.  Finally, in 2009, the Tea Party Movement was born and I co-hosted the Atlanta Tea Party on February 27, 2009 at the Georgia State Capitol in the pouring rain.

I did my best to be a good mom and wife, unpack, keep up with my blog, earn money through cleaning houses and repairing computers, and plan the next Atlanta Tea Party, which was on April 15, 2009.  I’m not sure that I did very many of those things as I would have liked to do.  I did keep the kids’ life normal and their teacher said they did not change at all during the time we moved, so the most important job was done well.  My husband knows I volunteer for everything, understands and shares my passion for politics so we had not problems.  The Atlanta Tea Party went well. It was the largest gathering at the State Capitol that the State Capitol Police had ever seen. Sean Hannity broadcast his show live from the event.  A moment was turning into a movement.

Unpacking, nesting, blogging, and rebuilding our financial lives, those things I did not do so well.  I do not regret what I did but I do accept that I did not live up to my goals in those areas.  My life was becoming more public and less private and I stopped blogging to keep some of my life private.  Plus, I was literally up 20 – 22 hours a day and simply did not have the will to sacrifice anything else to blog.  The house felt temporary so packing and settling in did not rank high on the list of priorities.  My husband began taking on most of the work so I could focus on building the Tea Party Movement.

A handful of those involved in the Tea Parties founded Tea Party Patriots and were National Coordinators. The hours have not let up and the work to build an organization and support structure around the movement that already had over 1.2 million people was and still is tremendous.  Other things have changed as well:  I’ve been on television, emceed a crowd of 1.7 million in DC, become an event planner, given public speeches on a regular basis, attended countless protests and became a protester, and traveled the country promoting fiscal responsibility, constitutionally limited government, and free markets.  It is a labor of love: love of country, love of liberty, and love of future generations.

I do not blog as much as I did a year and half ago but I have met the most incredible people who share a passion for politics.  People who love America, our liberty, and our Constitution as much as Lee and I do.  I am not a stay at home mom anymore but I am a mom, which at one point seemed an impossibility in our lives due to infertility. I do not read as many tech blogs as I once did but I am working with others to apply current technology to Tea Party Patriots.

So, while we do not live in the same house or have the same lifestyle as when this blog started, I still have the most important aspects of my life in place:  God, my incredibly loving and patient husband, our twins who are a blessing in our lives every single day.  We live in the greatest country with the liberty to truly make your life what you want it to be.

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