Note: This afternoon Brent is taking a Sunday off, releasing some control, and letting his beautiful fiancé write a guest blog post for Don’t Blink. Sidney Mathis, a second grade teacher in Myrtle Beach, writes about what it is like to date a blogger.

Today is a day that will go down in Don’t Blink history. Brent has granted me, Sidney Mathis, permission to takeover this blog and compose a post of my VERY OWN!

As a part of my inaugural blog, please allow me to include a disclaimer. I am in no way, shape, or form a blogger. There are in fact a plethora of other things I’d call myself before I claimed to be a blogger. Teacher…? Yes. Southern Belle….? Yes. Reality TV connoisseur? You betcha! Blogger….? Absolutely not. With that being said….please bear with me as you read my debut post. Here goes nothing!

Sidney, Brent’s fiancé, takes over the blogging duties for Sunday.

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As many of you may know, I teach 2nd grade. One of my favorite things to do in my classroom is hold a Community Circle meeting on Friday mornings. In these meetings we all participate in a reflective exercise called “The Peak and the Pit”. The objective is for each person to share what they believed to be the best part of the week—PEAK— and the worst part of the week—PIT. (Yes…I stole this idea from an episode of “Keeping Up with the Kardashians”…..please don’t judge me.) Anyway…in an effort to get my game-face on for the upcoming school year, I thought I’d share with y’all 2 PEAKS and 2 PITS of dating a BLOGGER.

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The PEAKS

1. Hassle-Free Scrapbooking
Since Brent and I have met, I’ve been in 133 blog posts. That means that Brent has mentioned me, by name, in over 100 of his posts in the last 15 months. Not only am I very flattered by the recurrence of my name on brentreser.com, but it makes keeping track of our time together very manageable. It’s like having a virtual scrapbook. With just a few clicks, I can go back and reread and relive some of my favorite memories with Brent. What’s the best part? I didn’t have to contribute ANYTHING. Even though I’m a sucker for a good craftivity, scrapbooks are not my thing. But thank goodness for dating a blogger…all of the scrapbooking and memory keeping has been done for me! Score!

2. Priceless Side-Kick
Brent is forever on the hunt for the next great blog idea. Most times this involves some type of trip, dinner, outing, etc. On most of these excursions, the blogger needs a side-kick…someone to take part in the adventures, keep him company, and occasionally offer opinions. How is this a perk of dating a blogger, you ask? You get to tag along, take part in some pretty interesting adventures, and all the while have no obligations!! I usually pay very little and NEVER have to write about it. It’s like those old, corny MasterCard commercials. Bar Tab…$30. Tank of Gas….$25. Having an unforgettable adventure (and getting to read about it the next day)… PRICELESS!

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THE PITS

1. The Time Element
Writing posts for Don’t Blink takes up a fair share of Brent’s time. Luckily Brent doesn’t normally post during the weekend, so we get to spend lots of uninterrupted time together. But during the work week, Brent’s blog can easily consume up to 8 hours of his time. So naturally the time he devotes to writing creates a void of time for myself. As a teacher, on any given weekday I can be home no later than 4 p.m. That leaves about an hour for me to run home, do some chores and relax before Brent gets done with his work at 5 p.m. Brent usually goes home and gets started writing as soon as possible, and can take up to 2 hours to reach completion. That leaves me two options. 1. Sit at my house bored and waiting for my phone to PING with a new “Don’t Blink” post notification, or I can go to Brent’s house and watch him write. Let me tell you…he doesn’t like it when I watch him write…sooooo….9 times out of 10…the blog contributes to my boredom.

2. Pausing for Pictures
Sprinkling pictures throughout a post is definitely a forte of this blog’s namesake. Brent is very conscientious about getting photo-documentation for most of his blog posts. However, this means that I have to stop for photographs…A LOT. If we’re out at dinner…I have to wait until a picture of my entrée is taken before digging in. If we are out at a new bar, a selfie is a necessity. Or if we go try out a new putt-putt course, we have to double back around the front of the course before leaving in order to get a good pic of the signage. I know that all of the picture moments are meant to keep with Brent’s mantra of “Don’t Blink”, and most of the time I kindly oblige. But sometimes I just don’t WANT to pause for a picture. I want to just plow through my dinner, socialize at a bar, and head straight for home after playing mini golf.

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So there you have it…the PEAKS and PITS of dating a blogger. Maybe next year Brent will let me takeover again and I’ll fill all of you in on the pits and peaks of MARRYING a blogger. Until then, keep reading and….. you guessed it!!…Don’t Blink.