Not Tonight Dear

Every time I think about writing a blog post lately that is what I tell myself......Not tonight, Dear. Okay, I don't actually call myself "dear", but I have told myself "not tonight" night after night. I just say "not tonight", read a few other wonderful blogs, play a little computer Mah Jong, read a book for a while and go to bed. I think I have a slight case of blog lazy-itis. I hope a will find a cure soon, because I do miss posting and hearing from other bloggers. Anyone know a cure?

Other than being a lazy blogger I have pretty much been doing the normal stuff that I usually turn into a blog post.

EJ had her first soccer game. She didn't like it very much while it was happening, but the story she told afterward is that she loved it and was one of the best players on her team. She has played a second game since and actually played the whole game with a smile on her face and scored two goals. 

I went to Wil's Odyessy of the Mind competition, but arrived just as it was ending due to a mix-up in the times.

Haircuts for EJ and Hope.....not all that exciting, but the kind of thing I feel lucky to get to do with them.

Lunch at the mall after the haircuts. Jared didn't seem near as thrilled to have EJ on his lap as she was to be there. She is a big fan of her older cousins and they  are (almost) always very good to her.

My daughter, Jill, posted this on her Facebook page after a week of Spring Break. It has been a long time since I have had kids home for Spring Break, but I can remember feeling the same. 

While I am working on the cure for my blog lazyitis I am in awe of the bloggers doing the A-Z challenge. A post a day seems overwhelming to me right now. Maybe I'll get cured and jump in somewhere between P and Q. 

And That Dummy Is Me

I have never claimed to be a computer expert or a blogging expert, but I'm a little frustrated that after 2 1/2 years of blogging I still encounter blog (or Blogger) problems that I can't resolve. My current issue is that for about the last two weeks I can't get my own pictures to publish when I am using the updated Blogger editor. I can import them and they show up when I am writing a post but they don't show up on the preview or a published post. If I switch to the old Blogger editor the pictures will post but there are other things about the old editor that I don't like, including the way the published post looks. 

I know there are formats other than Blogger that many people prefer, but I just don't have the knowledge or energy to try to make a switch right now. While I wait for a miraculous spontaneous fix, does anyone have any knowledge of what my problem might be? If you can offer anything I would really appreciate it....and keep in mind that any words you use need to be able to be understood by a dummy.

Speaking of pictures, do you have a picture of yourself in your profile on your blog? I have always had one and I changed it a while back because the one I had was a couple of years old. I had one for a few weeks that looked pretty much like a mug shot so I changed it again and I still don't like the one I have. I'm not looking to have a glamour shot, but I can't come up with a decent picture. I like to see a picture of the writer when I read a blog, so that is why I put a picture on mine. What is your opinion....picture or no picture of yourself on your blog and do you like to see a picture of the writer on blogs you read?

Do You Remember Who Was Your First Follower?

Image from Google Images

I started blogging as a way to help me pay more attention to my own life and to help me better remember family events and activities. I was pretty clueless about blogging. I certainly didn't expect it would ever be read by anyone but me and maybe a few family and friends. I had read a few blogs written by people I knew but I didn't really know a follower from a Frisbee in the beginning.

Over time I started reading some of the blogs that people I knew followed and started leaving a comment here and there. Then one day I had a follower! It was ChrisH at Diet Coke Rocks.

Chris

Chris, from New Zealand,  is a beautiful, "tell it like it is" blogger, and she has plenty to tell. She is the mother of six and the grandmother of seven. She and her husband, Stew, are raising two of their grandchildren. She is a very talented and creative seamstress. Her unique way of expressing what is going on in her life and what is on her mind always makes it fun to visit  Diet Coke Rocks .

I still write my blog for the reasons I started it. I'm not exactly overrun with followers and I appreciate each and every one of the followers I have and friends I have made. Every time I get a new follower I remember the excitement I felt that day Chris became my first follower. Thanks, Chris.

Do you remember who was your first follower?

Happy Anniversary to Me

Image from Google Image

I realized today that I posted my first blog post two years ago this week. Following is my first post.


At 61 years old I often think back and wish I could remember more about myself or my children or some event or activity....all those years and all those things that brought me to today. I like where I am today....I live with Doc, who I call Kenny, who thinks whatever I do is okay. I have 1 son and two daughters, 1 daughter-in-law, 2 sons-in-law, and six grandchildren, all of whom I think are the best ever, and who all bring joy beyond description to my life. I'm not sure that they think that whatever I do is okay, but they let me share in their lives and that makes everything okay for me. Blogging feels like a good way to reflect, remember and share the things that take us from day to day, and with time make up the life we look back on.

Why "Living Consciously"? I am, like everyone, getting older and I hope, like everyone, that continues for a long time, so I want to do it the best I can. I feel like one of the keys to that is to live consciously. It is something I have thought about and tried to do for a long time, but still can't totally define., and certainly am far from being really good at. Maybe blogging will help me along that path.

I expect that I will write more about what I am thinking than what I am doing, more about other people than myself. Many years ago I wrote a weekly newspaper column about my family, things
going on in the community, etc. This feels a little like that, without the circulation or the pay.. Maybe I'll write a lot, or maybe I won't write very often, but I hope I will entertain at least myself with what I write and that I'll have something I can look back on when I think "I wish I could remember................"

I think blogging has helped me with my original goal of living more consciously. The serendipity for me has been other bloggers. I cherish each of you who read and comment on what I have to say. I look forward daily to reading what you have to say. I value the friendships I have with so many of you. I would name names, but I would probably leave someone out and then I would feel bad. Some have become good friends and some have come and gone and I miss them. I have learned from you and laughed with you and cried with you. I don't do mushy very well, so I will just say a very heartfelt thank you.

Internet Naivete

I have never pretended to be computer savvy or internet savvy, but my naivete about "how things work" has been pointed out to me in the last few days. I have very recently written a couple of posts about having a new grandson, one of them with the title New Baby. Since that post I have received e-mail after e-mail after e-mail for baby products. I have been offered baby toys, baby shoes, birth announcements, baby blankets, baby shower gifts and on and on.

I know companies have programs that search for words throughout the internet that relate to what they have to sell, but I never expected that search extended as far as an obscure little blog. I have found it pretty funny and maybe a little disturbing. It kind of makes me want to post on some other specific topics just to see what new things I might get e-mails about. It is not likely that I will be writing about sex, but if I did I bet that would bring some interesting offers.

Does anyone know any more about this than I do or have you had a similiar experience after a post?

I Just Wanted To Change My E-Mail

My son has been trying to get me to change my E-mail from AOL to Gmail for a long time. As a creature of habit I have resisted, but when over the weekend AOL decided I was a spammer or low-life of some sort and started periodically blocking me from sending e-mails I decided to make the change.

The picture above is the result. I thought it would be simple, but it has not gone well. I got the Gmail account opened, and went about changing my e-mail address in all the places I thought it needed to be changed. It turns out that a Gmail address cannot be a primary address for Blogger (who knew?).  I'm not really sure what that means, but it has left me having to sign into my blog with my old AOL e-mail address, but using my new Gmail password. Can you even guess how long it took me to figure that out? I also have to go into Blogger through sort of a back door from the way I used to go in. I figured that out after being told over and over that I do not have a blog.

As it stands now, I still have both e-mail accounts and am getting all of my e-mails, I think, and am getting blog comments in one or the other or sometimes both of them. AOL still tells me from time to time that I am a scumbag spammer and won't let me send an e-mail.  I will get some help to get it all figured out, but I called my son so many times over the weekend that he started answering his phone "Tech Support".

If I don't respond to a comment or if I reply three times to the same comment or any other strange e-mail thing over the next few days, please forgive me. (If I send you a blank reply, well, that is just normal...I seem to have been doing that a lot lately).

And, yes, it is okay to laugh.

Name That Blog

Name That Blog

I am intriqued by the name of  many blogs that I see. How did the writer come up with that name? What does it mean? Why didn't I think of that? Some, of course, are fairly straight forward  like, The (insert name) Family News or  Life With The (insert name) Family. Some are descriptive of the writer's place in life or their career or a hobby that the writer loves.  Some are fun or funny and others give a sense of artiness or angst. Sometimes the name of the blog and the content of the blog are cohesive and sometimes not. In the long run it is the content of a blog that keeps us going back, but I'm still curious about how some of the names came about.

In my first post I explained the name of my blog this way:  At 61 years old I often think back and wish I could remember more about myself or my children or some event or activity....all those years and all those things that brought me to today. .....Why "Living Consciously"? I am, like everyone, getting older and I hope, like everyone, that continues for a long time, so I want to do it the best I can. I feel like one of the keys to that is to live consciously..... Maybe blogging will help me along that path.

I think blogging has made me pay more attention and be more conscious of things going on in my life. It has also joyfully opened up a whole world of what others are paying attention to. It is often those things that others are paying attention to that has helped me to live more consciously.

How did you choose the name for your blog?

Do you still like the name you chose?

Are you enticed to read blogs you come across by what they are named?

Another Blog About Blogging

When I started blogging a year ago, in January, 2009, I had no idea what I was doing.  I wrote the following in my first post:

At 61 years old I often think back and wish I could remember more about myself or my children or some event or activity....all those years and all those things that brought me to today. I like where I am today....I live with Doc, who I call Kenny, who thinks whatever I do is okay. I have 1 son and two daughters, 1 daughter-in-law, 2 sons-in-law, and six grandchildren, all of whom I think are the best ever, and who all bring joy beyond description to my life. I'm not sure that they think that whatever I do is okay, but they let me share in their lives and that makes everything okay for me. Blogging feels like a good way to reflect, remember and share the things that take us from day to day, and with time make up the life we look back on.

Why "Living Consciously"? I am, like everyone, getting older and I hope, like everyone, that continues for a long time, so I want to do it the best I can. I feel like one of the keys to that is to live consciously. It is something I have thought about and tried to do for a long time, but still can't totally define., and certainly am far from being really good at. Maybe blogging will help me along that path.

As I start my second year I'm still a neophyte. I think the blogging endeavor has helped me to do what my title suggests I am trying to do....live my life more consciously. Oh, and  it has also cured me of a computer Mah Jong addiction. The surprise serendipity  for me has been the wonderful people from the blogging community that have come into my life. All ages, from all walks of life, writing about births and deaths, loss and healing, marriage and divorce, tragedys and triumphs, the everyday and the mundane. Writing about life. I truly value everyone I have gotten to know and all that they have shared .

I have learned a lot about blogging from other bloggers. Joanna, at  The Fifty Factor has done a wonderful series of posts that answer a lot of questions about the "how tos" of blogging. Betty at
A Glimpse Into Midlife has very kindly and patiently answered many of my questions by e-mail about how to do something or why something doesn't work. Others have offered suggestions about my recent crazy HTML issues and Thais at thedesign-house fixed my HTML issues and re-designed my page. With all this help, I still have questions.

• Do you feel as embarrassed as I do when you leave a comment and then see that there is a typo in it?
• Do you know what the difference is between a member and a follower?
• Do you think "lurking" is a very unflattering term for dropping by to visit a blog you don't follow?
• Do you publish posts on a schedule or just when the muse moves you?
• Have you ever left a comment and then worried that what you said came out wrong? Do you e-mail to clarify or just let it go?
• When you go to a site and see that the person has more than one blog do you get a little flustered?
• Do you really, really like being able to visit with your friends in your pajamas with no make-up and before you have washed your hair?
• Do you like it when people put a question or questions at the end of their post?
• Do you sometimes have trouble thinking of a way to end a post on just the right note?

I do, so I will just say thank you and all the best to everyone for a great new year.