wallpaper Goals, Dreams, Aspirations

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Am continuing to work on blog improvement stuff for Bloggiesta. Today, for the mini-challenge of My Friend Amy, I'm giving thinking more priority than doing.

January is the time for reflection and re-evaluation and re-vision isn't it? I know that one of my issues is to set big goals, complex projects and get overwhelmed. I know about breaking such big projects down into smaller tasks and am even pretty good at doing that. At least as far as making the todo lists.

Sticking to it is another thing altogether.

I also tend to be a serial obsessionist, being totally wrapped up in one thing to the exclusion of all else. My blog tends to reflect that. Currently crochet and video watching has all but pushed out reading and writing. But that is probably going to run its course and I'll be on to something else in time.

Now all the advice regarding blogs needing to be singular in topic and finding a niche and so on had me feeling inadequate and like maybe I should settle on one topic and court an audience accordingly. But the thought of that pretty much sticks a pin in the balloon of my bliss and lets all the joy leak out.

I was going to say 'no pun intended' but on second thought loosing the joy is tantamount to loosing the Joy--aka my self.

And the advice from My Friend Amy was to think about making your blog into the blog you would love to read. I love eclectic blogs and blogs where the blogger at least occasionally puts some of their personal life in so I get a feel for the who behind the opinions. So obviously the niche advice doesn't have to be for everyone.

And there is an organizing theme to it all anyway: Story. I don't say story is my joy for nothing. It is all about story whether the current obsession is books, movies, news, poetry, music, writing, reading, research, jokes, puns, riddles, puzzles, trivia, creativity, dreams, religion or Joy's story. Even the crocheting and needlework is strongly associated with story for me as I've always worked on it as I contemplate one of my own writings and often while listening to music or audio books or watching TV/video. Or gossip at family/friend gatherings.

So I'm thinking, if I'm going to keep posting on whatever aspect of story that has taken my fancy currently the thing I need to do to draw and keep readers is to make navigation easier so they can find which ever topic they are most interested in and ignore the rest. Which is why the main goal I set for this weekend is to change my template to a 3 column. A huge task for me. And scary. But many of the other tasks on my long list are dependent on that one. Some I could do before but they would just have to be tweaked if not redone after the switch.

Maybe managing reader expectations by establishing a routine of sorts so that certain regular themes have assigned days whether or not there is a meme involved. Like Mondays are for sharing my reading plans and accomplishments and musings in Book Journey's 'It's Monday What are You Reading?' and Friday's are for sharing my fiction snippets or musing on the craft of fiction writing in my Friday Forays in Fiction which I let slide for most of a year now. And Sunday's for sharing the variety of ways in which I find bliss, serenity, joy, and contentment in my Sunday Serenity. And so forth.

A third goal to reach for would be to break the lurker habit again. I'd made great strides on that once but have slipped back into it again in the last year.

wallpaper It's Bloggiesta Time!

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wallpaper PEDRO
Plan. Edit. Develop. Review. Organize

That's what this party is all about. Blog improvement. Three days in which to devote time and attention in the company of like-hearted people who bring to the party buffet their knowledge, expertise, experience, enthusiasm and encouragement.
That's a lot gathered into one virtual place for 72 hours. But it ain't all. There is also FUN. Games (mini-challenges) and Prizes.

Join the fiesta at MAW Books.

Below this paragraph right here is where I'll be posting updates on what I'm accomplishing throughout the weekend.

Umm been doing a lot of lurking. Need to break that habit.

Did My Friend Amy's mini-challenge on goal setting. Made that my Saturday post.

Have accomplished my main goal of changing templates as of 4pm PST Sunday. See my Sunday Serenity post for more detail.

Involved in that project and a project in its own right was a good amount of fussing and fiddling with sidebar and footer widgets--organizing and cleaning up defunct stuff etc.

Also involved and a major project in itself was creating the graphic for the header myself.

Since Friday morning I've clocked nearly 20 hours of Bloggiesta doings.

I think maybe it counts for Bloggiesta that I just finally uploaded a picture for my Twitter profile. The same one I'm using here now and the same one I am using at facebook since a couple weeks ago. I think it was during the last Bloggiesta that I learned that having a common look across the platforms is helpful.

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I'm so late getting my kick-off post up because I'm still sleeping days even tho Ed has been off swing shift since Xmas eve. Since I'm a natural night owl the sleep schedule I settled into while he was on swing was more like staying up a bit later than usual than a complete change for me as it was for him. But instead of returning to my normal bedtime of 4 to 5 am and sleeping til noonish I've tended to stay up even later than the 9ish I had been, pushing my lay down time closer and closer to noon and then waking for dinner.

Thus work on my daily post usually begins after dinner but today I had intended to put up this post before I lay down. But while preparing the post I got side-tracked into doing some of the PEDRO stuff instead of just writing about it. Next thing I knew it was past noon and then waaaaaaay past noon.

I didn't lay down until after 3pm and then Ed woke me for the dinner he was preparing me at 8:30pm. Salmon on a bed of citrus, mango and hickima. Mmmmm.

This is my second Bloggiesta and I was so ambitious last time the list of improvements I made was long enough to need four Bloggiesta's to complete. So I'll continue to plug away at it and add to it. But I have two primary goals for this weekend: First to take advantage of the collective knowledge and experience to learn, learn, learn. Especially to learn what it is I don't yet know I need to learn. And second, to change my template to a three column.

That last was one of the biggies on my list last June and I almost got to it. I'd found the template and downloaded it but I needed a photo or graphic for the masthead.

That's what I was fiddling with this morning. I hunted down the template file and the website where I got it and where the instructions for implementing it are and I played with graphics until I'd made one that I think I can live with for a few months or even years. Years is more likely since I am so averse to change.

Many if not most of the tasks on the very long list I made during the June Bloggiesta have been on hold until I got this template changed over since so many of them involved sidebar and other template or blog organization work that would just have to be redone after the template switch or promotion which I thought should wait until my blog had had its makeover.

wallpaper The Next Bloggiesta is Next Weekend

wallpaper I just signed up for my second Bloggiesta which starts this Friday at 8am local time and runs through Monday at 8am local time. Your local time where ever you are on the globe.

Bloggiesta is about improving your blog or your blogging by learning from those who have gone before and/or accomplishing those big or small tasks from total redesign to minor maintenance or housekeeping tasks. From promotion to backup to catch-up.

It's also a bit about socializing with other bloggers and sharing expertise in the pass-it-on tradition.

But let's not forget fun and prizes!

Learn more at Maw Books.

I'm not going to be able to give it the same dedication I did last June since the baby afghan project takes priority still but even if I can't give it the 50+ hours I did last spring I should be able to give it at least eight over the three days and cross off a few more of the items on the huge list of tasks I prepared for June's Bloggiesta.

Just off the cuff, I would prioritize:

• a wrap-up of 2010 Reading Challenges
• sign-up for several 2011 Reading Challenges
• change to 3 column template (actually almost got this done last time. Have the template selected and downloaded just need a graphic for the masthead)
• create a graphic for the masthead of the new template
• sidebar housekeeping
  
• learn new stuff--after all that is one of the biggest advantages of the Bloggiesta. To have access to the info and the experts to learn how to do the stuff you have known for awhile you should be doing and to learn what things you should be doing that you hadn't known about before

I am not sure whether participating in this will add to or lessen the burdens I feel myself under right now. But one of those burdens was the worry about my blog getting neglected as I bit by bit let slide all the writing and reading posts as my focus transferred to crochet during the holidays.

Sunday afternoon I woke from a dream in which I was climbing a very steep hill while carrying a large and very heavy shovel on a 20 foot long handle with awareness that something very very important to me was balanced on the shovel which was too far over my head to see (it could have been the baby afghan or the baby itself; a pile of books; my manuscripts; or my netbook) but just before I woke I looked over my shoulder and saw a big red bouncy ball like we had on our grade-school playgrounds forty-odd years ago bouncing down the hill and into a swimming pool or lake at the bottom. And the thought I woke with was wondering if that ball had just fallen off the shovel or was that what I was being warned would happen if I dropped what was on the shovel.

I know this dream to be a reflection of the fact that I pile expectations on myself tenfold what I could reasonably be expected to accomplish and then berate myself for not getting them done or done to my satisfaction. Like, for example, assigning myself a 36 X 30 inch baby afghan done in size 10 thread to be finished in under six weeks while not dropping any of the other balls I have in the air already.

BTW the afghan started two days before New Year's is now 36 X 15. I just reached the halfway point having added ten rows or two inches between midnight and noon today to reach the end of row 76 of an anticipated 155 rows. But that may have to count for two days work as I don't think I could duplicate that tonight if I wanted to. My right wrist and thumb are threatening a strike. See last Thursday's post for a picture of it at row 54. I'll post a new pic this Thursday.