Alike/Different

I've been planning to write a post on blogs I read by people who aren't like me, but then I got caught up in a circular internal debate about what makes a blogger like or not like me, and whether that is a weird/presumptuous/oppressive categorization.  Nevertheless I read a lot of blogs by people who seem very different from me, people who wouldn't want to be friends with me, people who might even be appalled by me.

I want to be very clear that I read these blogs because I enjoy them, even if I sometimes strongly disagree with the ideas and opinions expressed by the authors.  I'm a naturally negative person, so I don't need to hate-read blogs for my daily dose of negativity.  When I judge online, it's mostly in situations where people seem to lack the most basic sense of self-preservation for themselves or others: people who give confident hack medical advice online, women who know they are experiencing serious symptoms of preeclampsia but chose to do nothing to get it checked out, an otherwise nice family that chose to expose a preemie recovering from pneumonia to dozens of people including children, and then expressed shock and confusion when said child landed in the PICU with a scary case of RSV (he recovered).  Those cases make me frustrated, but otherwise I really enjoy reading about people who live differently from me.

For your edification

What Are Your Running For, a really informative preeclampsia blog I just started reading
http://whatyourunningfor.blogspot.com/

The Common Room, well-read, quirky, frugal, big Christian family
http://thecommonroomblog.com/

Held By His Pierced Hands, a young Catholic woman who is a self-described Hobo for Christ
http://www.piercedhands.com/blog/

Passionate Perseverance, Catholic wife and mom, caregiver for her young adult disabled daughter-I also find this "what I wore on Sunday" linky very charming
http://passionateperseverance.blogspot.com/

Put That On Your Blog, matching, outfits, decorating, and other stuff I know nothing about
http://putthatonyourblog.com/

In events in our lives, we, like many families in southern New England, used IKEA as our personal playground on Saturday.  LB's working on her cobra pose.

[need to find this pic]