On Privacy and Sharing Photos

Over the last month or so I had several people ask me what happened to A. They were concerned whether or not we had broken up because I haven't talked about him much. Don't worry! We are still together. He was back in his hometown for almost two months visiting his family for New Years.

During that time my blog kind of exploded here in Russia. I felt bad that his picture was being shared and people were leaving comments and mentioning him in them (they were mostly comments about how he should break up with me because I won't make a "good wife"). After reading them I felt guilty he was being dragged into comments made by online trolls. The negative remarks about me didn't bother me so much as the comments about him did. Even though they saying mean things about him he didn't ask to be put in the blog. The dread ate at me for a little while. I immediately went to old blog posts and changed his name and removed some pictures. I needed to respect his privacy, which is why I will be referring to him as 'A' from now on. I don't know how much that will help. I'm not taking him out of this blog completely, but I'm just going to be more conscious about what I share.

On a lighter not, he's finally back in Ufa, which means more walks and more photos. I've been thinking about upcoming blog posts and asking friends what they'd like to see. I know, for me, when my sister and cousin were living in different countries I always wanted to know more about their city and what it looked like. I'm going to try to take more photos of just every day places in Ufa, not just the tourist spots or landmarks. With A back in Ufa I have much more desire to go for walks and take my camera with me. Taking photos alone is still a struggle, and for some reason I'm much more comfortable doing it if someone is with me, even if they aren't taking photos.

I've been wanting to take a photo of that yellow house with green trim for SO long. I still want to take a photo of it when spring comes for my Instagram, but I'm always afraid someone is going to come out and yell at me. I couldn't resist the other day, though, because it looked so cute with the icicles and snow surrounding it. You can also see this house and this house from my Instagram if you look close enough. I want to go around sometime this spring and take pictures of the wooden houses. I just love how they look!

What kind of posts about Ufa or Russia would you like to read?