Tag Archives: writing

MAYhem challenge: blogging every day in May

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Killer Cake by Toojay's. WOW!! There's one located near someone's office...someone I love dearly. What do you know?

Killer Cake by Toojay’s. WOW!! There’s one located near someone’s office…someone I love dearly. What do you know?  Have you every had this cake?  Ugh.  Not on ANY healthy diet.  Ever.

It’s almost here:  MY BIRTHDAY MONTH!!!   The month where I torture myself to blog daily (weekends optional) and invite YOU to join me.

Generally there is no theme…just blog it up.  Photo essay.  Words.  Many.  Few.  Whatever you’re feeling, bring it on.  Sometimes it’s a little something profound-ish, sometimes it’s an essay, a story, a recap, maybe a link up.  Whatever.  No rules.  Just write.  (see what I did there?  hee hee crack me up)

Why I always pick May is mainly my dear friend Lea’s fault…she started this long ago…next to December it’s the busiest month of the year what with school end projects and such and yet…..I do love a challenge, even a personal challenge, just to see if I can do it.  Sometimes it just gives me something else to distract myself from the EVERYthing that is going in on May…birthdays, Mother’s Day, end of school.  It also reminds me that the likelihood of my ever making a living from writing is slim to none (since you actually have to write well and often)…so this is all for fun and encouragement!

Think on it!  Join in.  Crazy loves company!!

Blessings!!

When do YOU have time to blog???

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Be not of those who think perfection consists in undertaking many things, but of those who place it in doing well what little they do.  For it is much better to do little and to do it well, than to undertake much and do it ill.”  St. Francis de Sales

My  blog posts are becoming fewer and further between.  WTH?  When do you people have time to write?  Do you pound it all out at one sitting or draft and edit and edit?  I’m a sit down, get it done, publish kind of girl.  I like to wrap it up.  No loose ends.

My writing time is in the morning and since I started morning boot camp last week that killed 3 days during the week of “writing” time.  We also implemented a new scheduling system at work that has opened up a whole box of cluster for our company as there are MANY people trying to learn (all at different paces) AND utilize the system all at the same time.  We’re waiting to see if a head will roll (or two), but in the meantime our company has offered OVERTIME (unheard.  of.) to get the backlog of scheduling caught up.  Yours truly is all kinds of up on that train.  We have back-to-school in 4 weeks (already?!?!?) and the OT will definitely ease the burden of supplies and new shoes, shorts, shirts, etc., which means even less time for blogging!!!  I guess until the blogging pays for itself that’s the way it will be and since I’m not really in it to market anything, nor really found (or am looking for) a niche to fill, I don’t foresee that any time soon!  So, in the meantime, (or at least the next 3 weeks I have boot camp in the mornings) my blogging will be sporadic.  Unless you all give me some good ideas.

This weekend when I wasn’t blogging I was here:

Walking with one of my oldest and dearest friends for ONE WHOLE HOUR on the beach early Saturday morning! Great sweaty girl time!

Then, later in the day when I wasn’t blogging we were here:

Ending the day with friends on the beach

So, really.  How and when DO you blog?  Does the beach (or other fun) get in your way?  I really want to know….

By the way, it is Natural Family Planning Awareness week.  For those of you thinking it’s the ol’ Rhythm method here are a few sites to check out and learn a little somethin’ somethin’ about your body (or your wife’s), save a little dough and avoid added carcinogens in your body (because don’t we get enough from everything else we face on a daily basis?).  So, I may (or may not) have a few re-blogs here this week on interesting NFP stuff.  Excited, aren’t ya?  😉

iusenfp.com

1Flesh.org

It is done. PTL!!!

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iWeb you may disintegrate, self combust, implode…whatever.  I have my blog.  I moved it.  No thanks to you apple people!  I only waited until the bitter end because I was just SURE someone was going to figure out a simple way to move my blog off of iWeb before it “goes away” forever on June 30.  Sadly, that just never manifested.  Or my search engines completely bite.  which is a possibility.  However, I managed to get my 222 blog posts over a 3 year period moved over to a 2nd WordPress site so that I can sort them out and re-blog (bonus for me! and you!)  at will.

As I was madly cutting, pasting, dragging and dropping this past week I did get sidetracked a few times re-reading old blogs.  Something I just don’t do.  I don’t love the same song over and over, the same TV show, the same movie more than once (OK….VERY few exceptions* on that one).  It was interesting.  and funny.  and sad.  and bittersweet.  and insightful.

Do you re-read any of YOUR old blogs?  Journals?  I’m curious.  Have I just been missing out in NOT re-reading my old musings?  Hmmmmm…..

Well.  I have a few other things I’m mulling over in my brain before I put it to the blog, but be assured….I have so much to share with you….maybe not all 222 posts but plenty of them!

Now I’m off to put some cortisone on this garden issue on my forearm…..it better NOT be poison ivy, that’s all I’m going to say!!!  And then I’m off to bed!

**Movies I will watch more than once, in no particular order:

Under the Tuscan Sun

Steel Magnolias

Fried Green Tomatoes

Star Wars (purely as a matter of chance….2 boys who’ve watched them a zillion times and 2 girls who are being newly indoctricated…starting with #4.  of course)

Pretty Woman

Father of the Bride…1 &2

Cheaper by the Dozen 1&2

there might be a couple more, but that’s just off the top of my head…what about YOU?

I hate moving…..

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Apple you confound me.  It’s a love/hate thing.  Really.  So easy to work with, such pleasant employees, intoxicating stores; I sing your praises often. (although, I have lots to learn and my Hubby does not share my love of Apple products necessarily, especially when he asks me how to do something on my laptop and I say “yeah, I don’t know….google it.”), anyway….really I love Apple.  However, right now they are my “S List”.  That’s right.  The Sucko List.

They are discontinuing their iWeb service (and a few other things that I don’t really use….) and that caused me to have to uproot my prior blog to new and less precarious pastures.  The problem is….unlike many of their other services, they didn’t really have a super clear and/or EASY way to move the iWeb blogs to other services.  I could use a big red Staples button here.  Really.  Not kidding.

easy it ain’t!!

Last summer I started looking around for other blog homes and decided on an unnamed site that could move my blog easy sneezy, had pretty good directions (even for me), however, I ended up calling IT support and between the two of us they could NOT move my blog.  Something in the version of my laptop or the iWeb I have is hindering progress, so I came up with a big fat ZERO!!  Very frustrating.  In the meantime, I decided to cease and desist any further bloggage on the iWeb and I moved to WordPress with my new blog (which, incidentally is working for me so far) and deal with the move later.  Much later.

In my infamous procrastinator-fashion, I have truly waited until the bitter end to move that B.  I currently have 7 6 days to move a little over 2 years and 3 months.  I’ve moved 9 months of blogging in the past 3 days.  It’s a cut and paste nightmare.  Screenshots for pics that aren’t crossing over on the cut and paste.  I’m a little fried.  Wondering if I’ll actually get it done.  The worst part is….my hard drive crashed a few months ago and guess what didn’t get backed up….yep. iWeb.  the bane of my existence right now.  So, I don’t even have the blog on my harddrive to just pick and pull when I feel like it.  Which is probably best.  Because in all reality, under pressure is my best work and I will get it done.  Under pressure, I turn into a focused Type-A person.  Once crisis averted, I’m back to my laid back procrastinating self.  It’s a vicious cycle.

Either way.  You might not see much blogging on my end for a few days.  I guess it’s good we are getting a lot of rain today, I know what I’ll be doing.  And at least for the next 7 days in between.  After that…I must say…I fully plan on recycling some of my old posts.  There was some good stuff in there.  I’ll keep my second WP site private, it’s very personal and emotional (in fact, I am working diligently on NOT getting sidetracked re-reading old posts….it’s HARD!!), but I will recycle and update them to share with you as I pour over them.  My heart will be on my sleeve, but WOW was God working over-time in my life those 3 years–He still is now, but when you look back you can see His presence so vividly.  It.  Is.  AWE-some!

Well, time for coffee #2 and a little breakfast before Mass!  C ya!

Blessings!

All good things must come to an end….until next year!!

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Thanks to The Treasure Trove (Lynnell), Dance Mommy’s Odyssey (Laura), Sempiternal (just call me AJ), The General (MB) , Redefining Normal (Brite), The Eagle’s Nest (Amanda), and Blog it ALL (Lea) for this month’s “Blog-Every-Day-in-May”.  Or most days.  Or some days.  Or whatever you felt like days.  It was fun and all good things must (PRAISE GOD FROM THE ROOFTOPS!!!) come to an end. (I know my Hubby is happy, too!)  So we will all now return to our regularly planned blog schedule or non-schedule and I thought I’d wrap it up with what I gained from this little exercise Bloggapalooza.

In no specific order:

  • I gained new “Followers” this month….these lucky people automatically receive an email each time I post a new blog, so they never have to worry about missing one single minute detail of my life.  Lucky, right?  Well, in case you want to be lucky, too…just click on the “+Follow” in the top left of the screen…..see below….other handy-dandy tools, “Like” if you enjoy the post and “Reblog” if you really like it and want that to be your post on your blog.  I didn’t even know what that WAS until Sempiternal “Reblogged” me…very cool indeed!
  • I found several new blogs along the way, one to encourage my fitness and health journey AND encourage my Faith walk like Clare @ Peak313Fitness.  The woman loves her some Jesus and keeps the workouts fresh to constantly keep that temple humming and wondering what in the heck is coming next?!?
  • Ellie @ Emerald Pie.  Her life in Ireland is fascinating to me, a world apart and yet no different in her daily life, challenges and busy-ness as a mom and wife.  Her Irish scenery is AH!MAZING!!!!
  • Ex-pats and their very interesting lives in Dubai @ Circles in the Sand and Three years and home in Switzerland.  Witty, insight and photos into other parts of the world, customs, differences in their “normal” lives and how they adjust and roll with each day.
  • A gem of thoughts to teach our daughters (though us parents and sons would benefit, too) from One Joyous Heart . Witty, dry, sometimes right on the edge of cracking, raw observations on motherhood and life to two very young and very close-in-age cutie-pies, Camp Patton (I see glimpses of myself when the girls were so very young at this stage….I want to hug her and tell her, keep taking pictures, take videos…they grow up and you. will. survive!!)
  • I’ll be keeping my day job.  The only time I want to write is first thing in the morning…that 20 extra minutes or so (the “or so” often sets me running behind!) after my Quiet Time.  I don’t think I’ll get a Nobel in those 20 minutes.  Probably.  Apparently you need to write often and enjoy it..another strike.  Soooooooooo…..just press “Follow”…you’ll know when I update.
  • You can get lost for VERY.  LONG.  PERIODS.  OF.  TIME.  on the internet.  You might think I learned this from Facebook.  Child’s play.  There are so many flippin’ blogs out there.  Thank goodness for my Reader, but then I often get sidetracked by hyperlinks to other blogs, then add them to my reader and boom….there goes another hour.  CrAzAY!!!!
  • Stepping out of my comfort zone to share something I feel passionate about usually brings out my best writing.  Over the next couple of months as I move my old mac blog over to WordPress (an EXTREMELY time-consuming process–one would think as “user-friendly” as apple generally is, that “THEY” would have made it easier to transfer blogs once they decided to no longer support mac blogs–but that is a whole other venting blog…) I will also add a page of “The best of….according to Hubby”.

This month I’ve celebrated Mother’s Day internationally, my birthday, my sister’s birthday, the end-of-the-year chaos, enjoyed new baby pictures, witnessed the ups and downs of a NICU baby doing her best to grow big and fat and go home (and won a T-shirt!), remembered the joys of maternity leave and the heartbreak of it ending, new house pictures, great words of encouragement, learned about Broadway plays, enjoyed recipes from new gardens and a world of LIFE happening.

So, this month comes to a close, but the blogging goes on.  Maybe not everyday, but it goes on.  Like life.  So get out there and enjoy it!!  And THANKS for visiting!!