Interesting

Here's something random. I was just browsing through my live traffic feed like I sometimes do, and found that someone had arrived on our blog from CheverlyCommunityMarket.com. Slightly confused, because I usually only see people arrive from familiar blogs, and the occasional person googling Cookie Monster Sings Chocolate Rain on You Tube (yes, we still get a few hits a day on that one). So I went to the source to search where the link to my blog is. Sure enough, on their about page, on the In the News and on the Web section, they had a link to my post when I had attended the market. I guess they google around now and then to see what testimonials they come up with. I actually gave a pretty good one (unknowingly) describing the beautiful neighborhood, the great selection of what they sell, and the crowds that were present, so I can see why they'd want to use it. Funny how blogs really put you out there more than you know it.

But here's the thing.

A while ago, I'm sure you noticed that I went ahead and took my last name from our blog, like many other fellow bloggers, in an effort to protect our family the best we could without going private. And with our adoption nearing, we need our name protected for that as well. So, I wrote the Cheverly market people, and told them I would be happy to provide my testimonial, as long as they changed the link, not provideing my last name. And I suppose it's time to ask you all to do that same. I've never liked it when blogs go private (though I understand why people do), and I'd like to keep mine as open as I can (I kind of like the random comments, and visitors), but I know times are changing, and I feel, and our adoption agency has reccommended, that we try to keep really personal information to a minimum. The Cheverly website is not a dangerous place, by any means, but it just reminded me of just how easy it is to access anything on the web. Crazy.

So, if our last name appears on your link list, or anything like that, could you simply remove it to show just our first names? Thanks friends. And, you might want to google your blog from time to time and see just where you have ended up.