I love the idea of this place. I tire of the daily parade of endlessly recycled images and headlines, sappy photos with even sappier text overlaid, whatever little shiny nugget of internet caught someone's attention long enough for them to click the "share" button.

I enjoy reading thoughtful stories about people's lives and interests. I like seeing opinions that differ from my own, and perhaps engaging in some friendly debate on one topic or another.

The difficulty, for me, is that I have little time and even less brain to compose such things myself. That other website fits my life perfectly right now. Two minutes here to snap a photo and toss it to the tide, hoping it will wash up on my friends' and relatives' shores. A few seconds there to catch up on a neighbor kid's antics and acknowledge with a single click. A moment later on to chime in with a sentence or two that might encourage a struggling friend. My support network, social calendar, and pocket photo album over coffee, all in one place.

(Cue the wailing and gnashing of teeth over the ever-declining depth of thought by today's young people, and how online sharing is destroying real community.)

No, that's not it. I passed "young" by anyone's standards, save maybe the retirement home ladies in my church choir, a decade back. I deeply cherish the face-to-face time I spend with friends and loved ones. However, as a mother of three active young children, and a homeschooler to boot, my time and attention are under near-constand demand. Those face-to-face times are rare. When they do happen, they are usually punctuated by the needs of little ones before any serious discussion can ever get off the ground.

I am stealing the time to write this right now from the quiet half-hour (if I'm lucky) between my awakening and the rest of the family stirring. These precious moments I usually use to pry my eyes open with a first cup of coffee, scan my email and whatnot to catch any urgent messages, and begin putting together the day in my head. I check our calendar, pore over lesson plans, and organize materials. If I can get myself to bed a little earlier at night and give myself a bit more time in the morning, I have a stack of reading and other projects, for my own benefit and my family's, piled to the ceiling. I have a blog I post to irregularly, when I can string together enough thoughts to make a paragraph or two.

And now my husband and my children are awake and foraging for breakfast, and thus my day begins and my attention span ends, until tomorrow...