Where Do They Find The Time?

Candy has mentioned the "anti-Candy blog" a few times now on her site. Whenever she does this, you can count on two things. First, everyone gets curious, hits google, and we get a lot of new visitors. Second, there is a chorus of comments on her blog along the lines of "Surely so-called Christian women should be spending time on their homes and families instead of wasting so much time on a blog."

Since so many women have expressed a concern about our personal lives, I thought I would address that concern. Really, I think it is a matter of perspective. We all find time in our day for things that are important to us, and things that we find relaxing. Many people watch television in the evening. Other people exercise, or read a book. Most people have hobbies. Think of this blog as something that Elena, Erika, and I find important, and something that has become our hobby.

Candy is clearly a busy person, as you can see by her daily schedule on her sidebar. Yet, she maintains a blog that is updated almost daily. In addition, she has written several e-books, totaling over 500 pages in length! Yet, no one seems to feel that she is wasting time that should be spent on her family. She views her work as a ministry, and so do we.

Candy maintains her blog and e-books alone. Visits To Candyland is a group blog. Currently, there are three bloggers, although Elena and I do the majority of the posting. At times Elena is busy, and I handle more of the writing. This past week, I wrote a few posts, but Elena spent more time here. Often, when there is a lull between Candy's Catholic posts, we won't post at all for a week. So we share the workload, and as we don't update daily the way Candy does, the workload is sporadic.

Finally, just for the record, I do almost all of my blog writing during two specific times of the day. I have an hour during my baby's nap where my older children have "quiet time" and I use that hour for computer time. I check my e-mail, blogs, and write a post if I have a topic in mind. Then, after the children are in bed, I have usually several hours before I go to bed. While I once spent a full three hours writing a post, usually I spend less than an hour in the evening on the computer. Usually, if there isn't anything pressing, I use my evening time for relaxing with my husband or reading and don't do more than check my e-mail before bed.

Actually, I think running a "gossip blog" would be much less time consuming. I could just make up some story and throw it up here. In reality, I do spend time researching my articles. It is important that the information people get here reflect actual Catholic doctrine, so if I am unsure of something, I don't just guess, I look it up. I try to provide resources for additional information. In my last post, about the history of anti-Catholicism in America, I spent a lot of time visiting various reputable history sites on the web. I'm not sure if anyone noticed, but only one or two of the links were to Catholic sites. I tried to choose non-Catholic sites so no one could accuse me of present a "Catholic version" of history.

Outside of that one to two hours on the internet, I clean house, cook, educate my children, run errands, take children to activities, visit my 98 year old grandfather, walk the dog, and all those other things that people do during their daily life. I don't make my bread from scratch, or sew clothing, or embroider or scrapbook. Sadly, nor do I exercise much. But I love theology and debating, and so most of my free time is taken up with reading books on theology, discussing theology, and writing theology-centered posts for this blog.

So, I hope this clears up the question of whether or not we are neglecting our homes and children while running the Visits To Candyland blog.