KirstenL4W

I’m finding that as I get further along in this series, all the obvious choices for certain letters have already been addressed in past posts. For K, I could have written about my name, but I have a post from 2006 titled K is for Kirsten (which really has nothing to do with my name), and as I was preparing for the next few posts in this series, I got stuck on the letter R when I realized that I had already written about me being a redhead, so I went over every entry in the R section of my dictionary to find something.

But for N, I figured that even though I already had a post with an obvious title, I have never really talked about my name. Here you go.

My name is Kirsten, and I’m a blogaholic.

Sorry, wrong group.

My name really is Kirsten. It’s pronounced “curse-tin” and not “keerstin”. It’s not Kristen, Kristine, Kristina, or Karsten. It’s KIRSTEN. Get it? Also, I don’t have any nicknames, so please don’t call me Kirsty or any other shortened version of my name. Only Melissa can get away with that, but she can also beat me up, despite being much smaller than I am.

I got this name because my mom wanted a Scandinavian name for me, since her grandparents came from Sweden. I was the only Kirsten I knew of, and just like my hair, I didn’t really like anything about me that stood out. I would rather have had a traditional name, like Elizabeth. I thought that would have suited me more.

My middle name, Linnea, is also Swedish. It’s my middle name, my mom’s first name, my Grandma’s middle name, and my great-grandma’s first name. Since I’m the 4th one in a row to have this name, it’s where the 4 comes in on my user name, KirstenL4W.

These days, I’m used to my name. I don’t have any feelings either way about my name, but I would prefer that people get it right. I do like knowing that if I hear my name in a crowd, there’s a pretty good chance that someone is calling me. There were 3 Jennifers in my 4th grade class, and I don’t think I would have liked having a name that common.

I do love my online name. I chose KirstenL4W in a flash of brilliance one day when trying to choose a username for Yahoo mail. My previous email, at excite.com, was getting wonky, and I didn’t really like kmylast1 as a username (mylast being my actual last name at the time). KirstenL4W seems to have a bit more oomph. Another bonus was that no matter where I went, I didn’t have any issues with it being taken already, so chances are if you are on a website and come across a user named KirstenL4W, it’s me. It hasn’t failed me yet.

Naturally, when I looked to getting my own domain name, I picked KirstenL4W. It’s my online identity. I love it for its personal meaning, and I love it because it’s unique. It’s not Kirsten12345 or some other random series of numbers because the other 2821865 name/number combinations were taken. It’s all me.

I’m always a little late to the party, thanks to a day job, but I saw through a few different sources that Centsational Girl is having a Where Do You Blog? Party. The idea is to show the world where you spend most of your time blogging, and do the whole linky thing on her blog to join the party.

Without further ado, here is a picture of my disaster area desk:

Besides my giant monitor with my favorite drawing from this blog post on it, my desk has on it: some bills that need to be paid, writing books, html and css books, my college writing portfolio, a calculator, some pictures, colored pencils, pens, tissues, a big K hiding behind the tissues, some organizing boxes that I can shove things in to forget about, my headphones, a notebook for blogging ideas, some cards from my husband, and a whole bunch of crap - I’m not sure exactly what all is there. There’s also the purple curtains that are always closed because Mister sits behind me and doesn’t like the sun on his monitor.

Below my desk is a turquoise filing cabinet with more stuff in it (not sure what), and on top of that are boxes with CD’s and software in them. What you can’t see is what isn’t in the picture - a huge pile of books and magazines in front of the filing cabinet, which prevent me from opening it, and to the left of my desk is a huge pile of bills that need to be filed in the giant 4-drawer filing cabinet next to Mister’s desk. Obviously, I excel at piling and suck at filing.

I’ve never been good at having an organized desk. Check out this post for a picture of my desk before I met Mister. But because I’m a Gemini, my desk at work is as neat as a pin. Seriously. I get annoyed after the cleaning crew has been in because I have to move everything back to its just so position. If they did the same thing at home that they do at work, I’d never notice because my desk already is a train wreck.

I really need to clean that mess off one of these years. I’d like some space to keep more books handy, which I think would go where all the pencil cups are now. I’d love to paint my little corner aqua, but Mister already has a hard time with my file cabinet, which is probably why he doesn’t say anything about the pile of books in front of it. I’d love a sliding keyboard tray. The desks we got didn’t come with them, but if there was an easy, inexpensive way to attach one to a glass desk, I’m open to suggestions. It would help keep my desktop clear so I have more space for writing. Right now I have to shove my keyboard back to have enough surface space.

So where do you blog? Did you participate in Centsational Girl’s party?

I’m the first person to tell you that I love music. If I’m at work, I’m probably listening to my iPod. If I’m at home, I’ve got some sort of music playing. It’s an important part of my life.

It isn’t, however, part of my blog.

If you’ve ever read any sort of blogging tips, I’m sure you’ve seen this classic: Thou shalt not have auto-play music on thy blog.

Personal bloggers are especially guilty of this. I’m not sure why. Maybe they like to go to their own blogs to listen to music rather than listening from another source?

While I’m all for expressing yourself, and I believe that a personal blog is a great way to do that, I must draw the line at auto-play music (this also applies to auto-play embedded videos). I have a few reasons for this:

1. While you might have your favorite song playing on your blog, it might not be my favorite song. It might even be on the other side of the spectrum for me.
2. I’m a big fan of tabbed browsing. That means that I can have many websites open at the same time without a huge effect on my computer’s performance, so what I do when I come across a bunch of links I want to check out is to open them all up at the same time. It’s not unusual for me to have 20 tabs open. If even 2 of those pages that I just opened have auto-play music, then it’s really annoying, and I have to figure out which of the dozens of tabs are the guilty ones so I can close it.
3. I also have either Mister’s music in the background or I’m playing music from my iTunes collection or iTunes radio at the same time. Again, it’s a fight for my brain and I get auditory overload. I don’t know too many people who can listen to multiple songs at the same time without some sort of discomfort. Do you watch tv and listen to the radio at the same time?
4. Some people out there, believe it or not, have not yet figured out how to turn the sound down or off on their computer. Volume settings are as foreign to them as C++. They end up getting blasted with music at top volume.
5. Some of us (not me) might want to sneak a peek at our favorite blogs while we’re at work, which ends up giving co-workers a not always appreciated musical interlude.
6. Auto-play music can seriously affect the load time on your blog. It might take a few minutes for all the text, pictures, and widgets to show up, but gosh darn it, the music starts up before I can read anything.
7. Exception: You are only allowed to auto play music if you are a musician and I’ve come across the front page of your website. THIS IS THE ONLY EXCEPTION!

What’s a blogger to do if they really, really, really want to feature their favorite music? There are a few options.

Go ahead and put the music player on your blog, but let the visitor decide whether or not to listen to it. Also, don’t hide it down at the very bottom of the page so we have to scroll for miles to find it. Alternatively, you can write a post featuring your favorite song or musician.

I’m going to use a weird analogy here, because that’s how my mind works.

Think of it this way: if you were over the moon about how delicious your favorite TV dinner was, how would you handle it? Would you force visitors to your house to eat it, shoving it in their mouths the second they walked through the door? Or would you forgo the assault on their taste buds and simply tell them how much you loved that TV dinner, and why it was so good?

Now substitute “TV dinner” for “music” and “mouth” for “ears” and you get a clear picture of what auto-play music is like for visitors to your blog.

Please, I’m begging you - stop the auto-play music. Now.

When I was a senior in high school, one of my English assignments was to write a story with a moral to it. As is a habit of mine, I whipped up the first draft of this the night before it was due and typed it up during lunch.

When I got to class, I let other classmates read their stories first, and listened to far too many that opened with, “Once upon a time there were some bullies.” It seemed every story was the same! Finally, I got tired of hearing the same story over and over again, so I raised my hand to read my story. This is that story.

I don’t know how I survived. My calendar told me it’s been three years, but in my mind and in my heart I know it was an eternity.

I loved city life. The excitement was so great that I could never sit still. So many sights, sounds, and smells to take in! I had lived there my whole life, and after all those years I knew that there was so much more that I had to see.

My mother died when I was a baby, so I never had a woman’s influence. My father and brother were the only family I knew. We had the best of everything, my father made sure of that. He didn’t want us to have to struggle. How ironic. He worked so hard for us to survive and he’s the one who didn’t make it. Strange the way things happen.

I came here when I was fifteen. The two day trip in a dingy old train didn’t thrill me, nor did the poverty-stricken town I ended up in. An old, austere woman approached me on the platform and instructed me to follow her. The only time I had met my aunt was in old photographs, but I could tell that the years had not been kind.

I didn’t talk much at my aunt’s farm. She had chores for me, which I did. I wasn’t happy about them. I didn’t exert myself, but I didn’t complain. I knew I had nowhere else to go. The monotony of the days meshed them into one. One long, dreary day that lasted three years.

Every morning I go down to the river to get water for the day’s washings. This particular morning I was more tired than usual, so I laid my head in a tuft of grass and closed my eyes.

When I opened them a few minutes later, everything seemed to have come alive. The trees, the flowers, the sky - they all seemed to have faces. I splashed water on my eyes and looked again, but the faces were still there. Everything had such a vitality that I never noticed before!

I couldn’t help but notice an unusual little flower sticking out of the grass. To anyone else it would have been an ordinary dandelion, but because I had never taken the time to notice it, when I finally did, it was unusual. It seemed to have a personality. This flower was so intriguing that I knew I had to keep it or I would regret it. As I was putting it in my pocket, I heard my aunt calling me. I opened my eyes, splashed some water on my face, and ran toward the house.

While I was cooking supper that evening, I went to wipe my hands, and I noticed the same little flower embroidered around the edge of my apron. It was as if my dream had come alive.

“What are you smiling for?” my aunt asked. “You’ve been here for three years and not once have you been pleasant about anything, so why start now?”

If only she knew.

Here I am after yet another three years, but it seems like no time has passed. Not a day goes by when I don’t notice birds singing or new flowers growing. My chores give me a wonderful opportunity to see different things around me. To anyone else, they are the same, but to me, every day brings something new . . .

After I read the first paragraph, my teacher stopped me and pointed out to the class the way I just jumped into the story, skipping the “once upon a time” type intro and immediately drawing you in. I remember being annoyed at the interruption. Once I finished my story, the entire class was quiet - very different from the clapping and cheers that everyone else got. After a full minute, one person said, “Wow!” I guess they liked my story. I buried my head in my hands. It was the first writing assignment of the semester, and I was worried about how I was going to top that. After all, aren’t you supposed to get better at something as you get further into a class?

I’ve been trying to write more, as I’ve really fallen out of the habit since my schooling days ended. I hope you enjoy this, and I’ll try to write more.

I don’t have a ton of pictures of myself. I haven’t been a ham in front of the camera since before I hit puberty. After that, I was much more interested in being behind the camera. Then one day, it seemed that I wasn’t really taking pictures anymore. Mister likes to take pictures, and it’s not that we don’t try to take any, but sometimes we’re just so busy living life to stop and take a picture, know what I mean?

I talked to my mom the other day. I remembered that Grandma had a couple of those collage frames in her dining room, and since the photos in them hadn’t changed for the last 15 or 20 years of her life, I can remember quite a few of the pics that were in there. I remember one in particular that is really dorky, but I want to put it on my about page. I was probably 7 or 8, at Grandma’s house in the yard, wearing a red t-shirt with white iron-on letters spelling my name. Very dorky, but perfect for an about page.

I uploaded some pictures and created a set of pictures of me on flickr. There aren’t too many, because like a lot of people, I’m very picky about what can be considered an acceptable picture of myself. You will see the picture from my header, which is me pretending to look at the sunrise over Salisbury Beach, MA. I say pretending to look because even though I had sunglasses on, it was really bright so I had my eyes closed while Mister took the picture.

I love seeing pictures on blogs - I think they can really enhance a story. What I don’t like, however, is including an image for the sake of having an image. I did that quite a bit when I was first starting out, but now I try to stick to pics that are in my personal collection. I also think that pictures help draw people in more. I don’t use pictures as often as I’d like to, but I’ve been trying to do something about that lately. Also, organizing the photos on my hard drive would help a lot - and probably provide me with some inspiration.

Do you like to take pictures? Do you use your pictures on your blog? Leave me a comment to tell me about your favorite post that includes your photos!

A lot of the professionals will tell you that having a well-written about page is essential. If you’re running a business, it certainly is. But what if you’re a personal blogger? Do you need an about page?

I’m going to go ahead and say yes.

I know that there are some blog platforms that, until recently, did not allow separate pages unless you were really good at hacking your code. I’m not here to tell you how to put up an about page. I want to talk about why I think they’re important for personal bloggers and what you should consider including in yours.

As personal bloggers, we write about our lives - the people in our lives, the things we do, and the things that interest us. We also read other bloggers, many of whom are like us in a lot of ways. So why do we want to read the blogs we read?

I asked this question not too long ago in my post What Makes a Personal Blogger Worth Reading? Often times, through link surfing or stumbling, I’ll find myself on someone’s blog who has compelling stories, or I’ve come across a post that’s clearly small chapter in a bigger story. I’ll turn to the about page, if it’s available, to find out more about the blogger without having to sit there scrolling through years of posts to get to know them. If I like what I see, then I’ll stay on their blog and read some more.

Think of your about page as an introduction. Tell your readers a little about yourself. You don’t have to give an in-depth biography, but a little bit of background is always nice. If you regularly blog about other people, introduce them as well. If you use pseudonyms, let us know who’s who. For example, when we’re reading a story about John Doe, it’s nice for newcomers to have a cheat sheet so we know that he’s your husband. If there are other things you blog about regularly, like crafting or cooking or whatnot, let us know that too. Basically, I want to get to know you a little bit, and the about page is the perfect place to do that quickly. The about page is a great way to help you make new friends in the blogosphere.

Here’s a compilation of tips I picked up from around the web for writing your about page:

• Have some personality - Your personality shines through on your regular blog posts, and you should show it on your about page as well.
• Let us know why you wanted to have a little piece of internet to call home. Even if it’s just to showcase your hobby, telling us why you blog can help us get to know you a little better.
• Photos can help add that personal touch. If you’re not comfortable showing your face online, then a quirky photo of you partially hidden behind something, a childhood photo, or a drawing can all help liven up the page.
• Tell us a bit about what you do. Nitty gritty details aren’t necessary, but tell us about things that are relevant to the topics you blog about. You’ll notice on my about page that I don’t mention what my day job is, but everything that is there can be found within my blog posts.
• If your blog name or pseudonym is unusual, tell us about that. More often than not, there’s an interesting story behind it.
• If you’re active elsewhere on the internet, let us know where we can find you. You might have a link to your Twitter profile on your front page, but put it here as well.
• Don’t include personal information that you wouldn’t put elsewhere on your blog. Keep it safe.
• Let us know where you are. You don’t have to give your exact address, or even your town, but I like to know what general part of the country or world someone is in. It can help readers get to know you better in a cultural sense.
• Keep it updated - if you wrote your about page when you were single, and you’re now married with triplets, be sure to change that in your about page! Again, it’s all about getting to know the person behind the blog.

What other tips do you have for writing your about page? What unusual element did you include in yours?

Today is my nephew’s 17th birthday. He’s got one more year of officially being a kid. It’s hard to image that he will soon be an adult. I still miss the little Bubba, but I also like the big Bubba. And yes, he’s big - not big as in around, because he’s a skinny teenager, but he’s tall - I think he’s up to 6′2″ now, or something like that. His voice is deep, he has to shave, and his feet are huge. What happened? Why do kids have to grow up like this?

He is growing up, though. He’s turning out to be a fine young man. He always takes time out to visit with me and Mister when we’re in town. And just three weeks ago, he called me so that I could say Happy Birthday to Messy J. She turned 11, but I don’t have a contact number for her. Bubba was at her party, and called me so I could talk to her. A kid his age who knows the importance of family is the kind of kid you know will be a great man.

Happy Birthday, Bubba. I love you and miss you.

In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve been posting a lot more. My new personal blogging series has inspired a renewed interest in blogging for me, and I’ve been spending a lot of time reading and gathering post ideas.

The 3 posts per week schedule has been working out pretty well for me. It’s not so much that I feel pressured, and as Mondays are designated as the Personal Blogging day, I’ve been able to come up with plenty of material without feeling overwhelmed.

With my renewed blogging interest comes the desire for a new theme. I’ve had the current one for quite some time now, and while I do like it, I think it’s time for a change. I have one picked out, but need to do some behind-the-scenes stuff before I can make it a reality (coming up with the moolah is one of those behind-the-scenes things), so I’ll be looking to do that by the end of the year. In the meantime, I did revise my header image a bit - spiffed it up so that it looks a bit more professional and used a cleaner font.

Another thing I’ve been doing is trying to get out and make new blogging friends. As an introvert, I find it hard to get out there and actually say hi, so I’ve been trying to do that a bit more. Comments and communities are a way to do this, and like I said, I’m trying. One thing I love about blogging is the community of it all, but sticking to the same 3 blogs to comment on is going to limit my world, and the whole point of the internet and blogosphere is to make it bigger.

Other things I have going on around the blog: slowly but surely revamping my categories to make them a bit more relevant, composing a Personal Blogging page that will include links to all my personal blogging posts in addition to links to other blogs and articles I find relevant, reading and writing and coming up with more ideas, and general tweaks here and there, like correcting spelling or grammar mistakes as I come across them in older posts. It’s never too late to edit an old post!

I’ve definitely been feeling the blog love, and been loving my blog a lot more lately, which is a nice change of pace. It didn’t take me too long to become a blogging maniac when I first started out, but eventually the blog had to take a backseat to real life, and my posting frequency dwindled to just a few times per month. But I’m back now, I’ve found my mojo, and I’m hoping it doesn’t leave me again!

What are you doing to feel the blog love? What do you do to keep that feeling?

I’ve got a bit of a thing for maps. It runs in the family, though to a lesser extent than trains.

Uncle N Period has a vast collection of maps (and train timetables, but we won’t go there). Once, we went into a Rand McNally store so he could find a map of Des Moines, just because he had been there once and didn’t have one.

I’m not quite that bad.

I do love to travel, and traveling overseas a few times has done nothing to satisfy my wanderlust - if anything, it’s fed the monster. Maps help me remember my travels, and inspire the desire to travel more. I still have the old maps and guidebooks that I brought with me when exploring new locales.

I’ll always stop to look twice at anything map-related. I loved this article from Apartment Therapy on 10 Unconventional Map Decor Ideas. I can spend hours wasting time and traveling vicariously on Google Maps - especially when I can get a ground-level look at things on street view. And when I stumbled on Kottke’s Maps Ahoy round-up of his best map-related posts, I was gone for days.

I’m a visual person, and can orient myself best when I can see on a map where I am in relation to everything else. I have no hope of being able to find my way around otherwise. When I moved to Las Vegas, I spent hours studying road atlases and online maps of the city to figure out where I was going. Even before the trip, I spent hours plotting my route, and would still spent time every day going over a map to see where I’d been and where I was going.

I fantasize about the day when I can have a giant world map on my wall and be able to put up tons of flag pins to mark where I’ve been. Right now it would still be a bit empty, with pins mostly in the USA and a few in northern Europe and Canada. I want to do it when I can put up a ton of pins to show how worldly I am.

For now, without a real need for paper maps, I live on Google Maps and peruse the internet. But should the need for a paper map arise, I do know how to fold one.

I got a comment on my Personal Blogging Crusader post asking what determines whether or not a blog is personal. I hadn’t previously come across anything to answer that question, so I asked the Google Gods and came up with… nothing.

Then I went to Wikipedia, in hopes that I might find something there. Their article on Blogs offered a little bit. “The personal blog, an ongoing diary or commentary by an individual, is the traditional, most common blog.” There are other types of blogs defined on that page as well, but I think the best way to determine what makes a personal blog is to look at the niche.

Pro bloggers always talk about defining your niche. A niche would be the specialty, or subject, your blog focuses on. There are lots of niche blogs - blogs about blogging, technology, politics, decorating, parenting, cooking, and tons of other subjects. I decided a long time ago, when I was wondering whether or not I was a good blogger that my niche was ME. My answer would be that if you can confidently say that your niche is you, and that you write about many different aspects of your life, then you have a personal blog.

Another question that was brought up was that of advertising. Laura asked if the presence of ads on a blog factored into deciding whether or not it was a personal blog. My opinion is that ads have no bearing on what type of blog you have. That determination is made solely on the content. For example, I have a few ads in my sidebar, and I also use affiliate links and have an Amazon store. Reading my blog, however, there should be no doubt in anyone’s mind that I have a personal blog.

Does this mean that if you mention anything about you or your life that you have a personal blog? Not necessarily. For example, Young House Love bloggers John and Sherry blog about all their home improvements, but recently shared that they had a baby. That doesn’t necessarily turn it into a personal blog. Instead, they used this information to show a new series of home makeovers, showing us how they transformed their third bedroom into a nursery and their guest bedroom into a multi-functioning guest room/home office/playroom. While they could have shown these changes without sharing their exciting news, telling their readers small tidbits about their personal life helps keep the main subject matter relevant and bring it into focus so readers can relate better.

On the flip side of that, you can also have a niche on your personal blog. Just because you blog about yourself and your life doesn’t mean that you can’t bring in other interests. I don’t know about you, but I’d be bored with my blog if all I ever did was tell you about my day. Blogging about other things, such as the music I like or this personal blogging series, allows readers to get to know me a little better, because they know not just what I’m doing, but what I’m interested in.

What about you? What do you think differentiates a personal blog from a niche blog?