One whole year

Hey, it’s my blogiversary! I’ve been blogging for exactly one year now! WOOOOOOOT!

I’ve had such fun writing down my thoughts and experiences, and slowly establishing a small regular readership. When I think about it, it’s rather an odd thing to do: writing stuff and sending it into cyberspace, wondering if and when anybody will read it and perhaps even send some small acknowledging comment back. It really is a bit of a leap of faith to blog, and although I think I’m hooked enough to keep doing it regardless of response, it truly does make my day when I open up my WordPress Dashboard and see that I’ve received a comment from somebody far way.

I don’t think I’m ever saying anything new or exciting, and it’s not that I believe my life to be so much more interesting than anybody else’s. But I know I like reading snippets of other peoples’ lives, mainly because it’s not MY life. It’s only logical that what I write will interest a few other people out there for the same reason. We just have to find each other, and that’s where other blogs come in. Making those blogging connections has been so rewarding, and I owe thanks to the writers of all the other blogs I read (you know who you are!) – for sharing your thoughts on the Intarnets, for the cyber-relationships we’ve developed, for continuing inspiration, and also for the opportunity to check out your blogrolls.

Everybody, thank you for reading, and thank you especially for commenting!

Now, let’s have some cake!

Incognito

The other day, for the very first time, I met a blog buddy in real life, the lovely Hannah. She and her Hubby were in my neck of the woods on holiday and we had brunch together. We had a great time and the conversation flowed effortlessly. I quite enjoyed myself, and I hope they did too.

The thing is, I was rather nervous about the whole idea. Not about meeting new people so much (and Hannah and Hubby are the farthest things from scary that you could imagine!), but about the idea of shedding a little anonymity.

I have not been blogging a very long time. In fact, I am just coming up to my first anniversary. But I never have and never will give real names or super-identifying characteristics about myself or the people I write about. I will never post photos showing faces clearly. Yes, if you already know me, it is certainly possible to figure out who I am if you just stumbled across my blog by accident. But for the most part, I prefer to protect my privacy and remain more anonymous.

I don’t really understand those bloggers who tell all, with full and extensive photo coverage. Do they not worry about it coming back to bite them in the butt? Are they not concerned that everything they post is out there forever, that they have willingly given away all privacy? And worse, do they not consider the fact that they are also compromising the right to privacy of the people about whom they write – without those people’s explicit permission?

Well, to each their own. I guess I am just more comfortable with keeping myself to myself. Not so much in real life, no. There, I often tell too much! But in my blog, I do censor myself and I do consider the possible implications of what I write, particularly to those around me. As well, I sometimes pretend that my mother is reading this (although she doesn’t), so that certainly can make me stop and rethink things before I hit that publish button!

And Hannah shares this same philosophy. So you won’t find that photo of the two of us on either of our blogs.

I probably look too fat in it, anyway.

A day in the life

I sit at my computer late in the afternoon.

I’ll just check my email, I say to myself. I have two email accounts, so I have to check both of them. This will take me about five minutes, tops.

I’ll quickly have a look at my blog stats while I’m here, I think. It’ll only take a minute. Oooooh – a comment! I need to reply. And how did they find me? Better follow that too. Hey, that looks like an interesting blog on that blog roll. I’ll just read a couple of posts. Wow, they’ve been blogging since 2006, and I only started in August 2008. How long did it take before they had a loyal following, I wonder? I’ll just go back in their archives and see what I can find …

An hour later…

Well, that was certainly interesting, if lengthy. I think I’ll add that blog to my favourites. Oh, and speaking of favourites, I wonder what’s happening with my other fave bloggers? I think I’ll just have a fast look at all of them. But I shouldn’t just lurk, I should comment wherever I feel the need. After all, everybody likes comments …

Two and a half hours later …

You know, that last one was sure a thought-provoking post. I’d like to expand a bit on the comment I left. I should write a post about that on my own blog. Oh right, there’s that post I started last week and left in draft form. Maybe I should rework that one a bit, too. I could probably find a good photo for it somewhere – maybe I have one on DD’s camera? Now where did she put it? Okay, found it, now do I remember how to hook it up to my computer to see what I’ve already downloaded from it – crap, this would be so much easier if I did this all the time. Ah, forget it. I’ll just search my topic on Google Images, there’s got to be something that’ll work on my post …

Another hour later …

OKAY! Perfect! Got that post just the way I want it! I’ll just publish it now. Oh, hang on, what was that other post I wanted to write about? Oh yeah – now I remember. I should start that right away, before I forget again. And I’m on a roll anyway, so I should just keep on writing while I’m in the mood. This should be pretty quick, I have tons of ideas …

How the hell did it get to be midnight already??? I have to go to work tomorrow! I haven’t even had dinner yet!

Getting started

For some reason, I’ve decided that I need my very own blog.

During my vacation this summer, I’ve been reading a lot of blogs and thinking, “I could do that!” Of course, my next thought was invariably, “But I could never do it as well as [whomever]!” Then I’d start thinking about my own privacy, other people’s right to privacy and that whole thing about sending personal information into cyberspace and never being able to retrieve or edit it… on and on. Darling Daughter has been blogging forever (okay, maybe just seven years, but that’s a third of her life already) and she kept saying, “Mom, you can write! You know you can! Stop worrying and write!!”

So I’ve swallowed my apprehension and here I am.

DD graciously consented to help set me up, even going so far as to design the header for me. It actually wasn’t the first one she came up with, but it was the only one that wasn’t intended to completely embarrass me, so that’s why I chose it. My only stipulation was that there had to be pink in it, and she, being quite adept at PhotoShop, played around with colours and designs and who knows what all else for a grand total of four minutes in order to create several prototypes for me to peruse. So THAT’S what she does till 2 a.m. every day…

Of course, the bigger issue turned out to be my ancient computer, a 2001 vintage iMac. This thing is so old that the site kept crashing, meaning that there was no way I would be able to post unless DD let me use her laptop. Fat chance of that! But she rode in on her white charger to rescue me yet again. Her advice was simple: “Mom, you’ve GOT to upgrade. Buy that laptop you’ve been drooling over already!”

I sighed. It’s true, I have been drooling over MacBooks this summer as well, but really, other than crashing every time a graphic-heavy site (like eBay) is opened up and being unable to access most of YouTube and being unable to download very much and waiting FOREVER to open up most of my apps, this computer works perfectly well. Besides, the nearest Apple store is currently closed.

On to Plan B, which was for DD to download BlogThing and link it to my new blog so that I could post away happily. (I didn’t even know that programs like BlogThing existed.) I’m so glad my progeny is so computer-savvy! I mean, I can work my way around computers reasonably well (I do spend a lot of time on them, both at home and at work), but she was born knowing more about them that I can even imagine existing!

So, as I said, here I am. I’ve started a blog. And I need a new computer. Already.