In which I am not keeping up with the Blogosphere

Every so often, I look at this tired old blog of mine and think, “Ya know, this thing is a bit dusty, don’t you think? How long have you had this particular template? Which by the way I think you downloaded free from somewhere, back in the day?”

And then I go poking around looking at what everybody else is doing and, somewhat stunned by the fabulousity out there, I stagger back and think, jeeeeeeez, I really do need a makeover or something…

Inevitably, this leads to me fiddling with settings. And flipping through endless and I do mean ENDLESS numbers of “fully customizable” templates. And trying to figure out how to make a banner do this…no no, dammit, not THAT, stupid thing, I want you to do THIS…

When I get to 28 dammits per hour, I get serious. Pretty soon, I’ve clicked my way to some site or other that is enthusiastically pointing out all the things I absolutely must do or have in order to put together a successful blog.

At this point, one of two things happens. Either I immediately start laughing and back awaaaaaay from the whole thing…or I burn another few hours reading articles about how to making my posts “relevant” or how to create pictures with “life” in them.

When that second thing happens, well, it’s really sad.

Because no matter how many times I read “how to write amazing content that will catapult you into blogging history” – what I will go on to produce will be…erm…this.

No matter how often I embrace the concept that I really-really-really ought to post at least somewhat regularly…well, I’m a little embarrassed to admit this, but, the thing is? It always seems to be that when my life is at its most interesting, it is also either very-very busy, or very-very exhausting, OR very-very full of stories I shouldn’t share for one reason or another (like, they aren’t necessarily my stories, I’m just involved in some way, and those whose stories they are might not appreciate me leaping into the Internet to start airing out their dirty laundry).

Plus I don’t like to post things while I’m still agitated about them. It’s like a super-fast express lane to issuing apologies to everybody I know.

And I could probably read every photography tip known to man, and what will I still end up doing?

Something like this.

Making Lemon Peel Candy

…any questions…?

(Yes. This is all the pictures I took of a three day process by which I turned about ten pounds worth of lemons into lemon peel candy. I am a giver, Internet.) (WAIT, HANG ON A SECOND, I THINK THERE’S SOME LEFT DOWN THERE…) (…holy crap, it really is almost all gone…I’m not sure whether I’m more pleased that it is so popular, or irked because something that takes that flamin’ long to make should not disappear twice as fast…) (OK, here we go) (…wait, I’m not supposed to use colored plates because they make it look weird-colored or something…) (…crap, auto-flash was one, one sec…) (OK, so…wait…it’s not supposed to be centered because of…reasons…and stuff…)

Voila! Two (2) pictures. I am a photo-blogging machine right now, y’all…

OR, there’s always things like this.

…taken one-handed, with my phone, while juggling a coffee, car keys, and a bag in the other hand. But it shows ‘life’, right? right?!

The “life” is right there, next to the blue arrow only someone with truly mad photo editing skills could manage!

(And that life is saying, congratulations, jerk-face, you captured my fail-blog worthy first attempts at flight and posted them to the Internet, hooray for you…)

I am not laser-targeted on a single subject. I am not going to make networking my primary goal in life. I’m not going to go around slyly inserting link-backs to my blog everywhere I go.

Shoot, I’m hard-pressed to remember to use the one-button click to post links to my Facebook account. (This gets me in trouble sometimes. I’m still mad at Facebook for removing that feature where posting here auto-magically posted there, because that was the only reason that my scintillating stories were getting onto Facebook for family pickup in the first place. Curse you, Facebook, for not providing all the tools I WANT free of charge!)

So, to review:

1. This is never going to be a “successful” blog.
2. Baby birds do not appreciate having their pictures taken when they try – unsuccessfully – to fly for the first (dozen or so) time(s)
3. Lemon peel candy is pretty delicious