KirstenL4W

When we last left our feisty heroine, she was thinking about packing up and moving back to Blogger. I even started moving some of my posts back (copying and pasting, since the utility linked in the comments didn’t work for me). But I lost my enthusiasm. Then, when I was leaving a comment on another blog about it, I mentioned that I was torn but also really really wanted the Thesis theme. Have you seen that? It makes almost all the back end stuff super easy. It takes care of a lot of functions that normally need plugins. I watched the videos about Thesis and I am more in love with that theme. Now I just need $87. Hint, hint. It really looks like the theme to end all themes, the creme de la creme, the most perfect theme ever. And I want it.

The other thing that happened is that as I set up a test blog and started moving a few things over and playing with some of the other elements on the old blog, I realized that I lost quite a bit of the knowledge that I had. Some of the upgrades on Blogger have done that, and me not being there for over 18 months was the rest of it. Because of all that, I lost interest. WP really does so much more than Blogger can ever offer, no matter how many hacks are put into place, and whether or not I want or need that functionality, I like that it’s readily available.

I’ve been thinking about blog posts a lot too. I actually have a list of post ideas for the upcoming weeks, in which I will talk about my favorite color, collections, the beach and me, some more books I read, and more. I haven’t had ideas in a long time and it feels really good to have some inspiration again. While it may not up my post frequency, because I am still brain dead and lazy at the end of the day, I do hope this sort of inspiration continues because it really sucks to get online night after night, check for comments and such, and stare at the blog without any inspiration.

Oh, and exciting news! I will have a guest post on another blog coming up soon! It’s my very first guest post, so I hope it doesn’t suck too much. I’ll let you all know when it comes out.

So there you have it, that’s where my mind has been as far as the blog is concerned. Have a great weekend!

Inspired by a silly little meme going around Facebook (rather, it went around Facebook a few weeks ago), I thought I’d list all the states and mark the ones I’ve been to. I want to go to all the states, so considered them all marked for that. All the states that have comments are the ones I have been to, and airports don’t count.

• Alabama - drove through on I-10 in 2006.
• Alaska
• Arizona - I live next door to Arizona, so yeah, been to Phoenix a couple times and Kingman’s Route 66 museum.
• Arkansas
• California - Mister is from CA. We go to visit his family, and once in awhile to go to IKEA.
• Colorado - first visit to CO was in 2003, when I stayed with my mom’s cousin on my way to Vegas. Mister also used to live here, so we’ve been to visit Zac.
• Connecticut - my uncle Caboose lives in New Haven, so I’ve been to and through CT tons of times.
• Delaware - I’ve only been on I-95 through the top part of DE on my 2006 x-c road trip.
• Florida - My grandparents and great-grandparents lived here when I was a wee baby, so I’ve been when I was 1 and 3. Disney World in high school, and now my sister and cousin live there, so I’ve been a few times.
• Georgia - through on I-95 in 2006
• Hawaii
• Idaho
• Illinois - through on I-70 in 2003
• Indiana - through on I-70 in 2003
• Iowa
• Kansas - through on I-70 in 2003. Stopped for the night in Salina.
• Kentucky
• Louisiana - through on I-10 in 2006
• Maine - My stepdad is from Maine, so I’ve been a few times. Shopping in Kittery and Freeport, visiting the step-fam in Bangor and Lewiston area, Acadia National Park, and good eats in Portland at the Great Lost Bear.
• Maryland - I had a pen pal in middle and high school. I went to visit when I was 19, I think, and she showed me a bit of Baltimore. Also drove through in 2006.
• Massachusetts - My home state. My family still lives here.
• Michigan
• Minnesota
• Mississippi - through on I-10 in 2006
• Missouri - through on I-70 in 2003
• Montana
• Nebraska
• Nevada - I live here now. Vegas Baby!
• New Hampshire - I was born in NH, and live there until I was 6, then moved back when I was 16. Spent ages 16-25 moving back and forth from MA to NH.
• New Jersey - My mommy grew up here, and I still have family there. Been there tons of times to visit Aunt Bird and Uncle N Period and the rest of the family.
• New Mexico - through on I-10 in 2006
• New York - Lots of opportunities to visit NYC when visiting the family in NJ. Also used to date a guy who lived in Albany, and I’ve driven the Thruway a bunch of times on my way to Toronto.
• North Carolina - through on I-95 in 2006. Also went to visit a friend in 2005.
• North Dakota
• Ohio - Connected from I-90 to I-70 in 2003, and stopped for the night outside of Columbus.
• Oklahoma
• Oregon
• Pennsylvania - Grandma had a childhood friend from Doylestown, whom we went to visit when I was in high school. Also been to Philly a couple of times with Uncle N Period, and through in 2006.
• Rhode Island - (believe it or not, the only New England state I’ve never been to.)
• South Carolina - through in 2006 when I had to detour and see my sister in Florida. Stayed in Holly Hill at Uncle Police Chief’s house, which was nice because I finally got to see their new digs since they moved out of NH.
• South Dakota
• Tennessee
• Texas - through on I-10 in 2006. It took forever (note: Texas is huge and takes forever to drive through). Stopped for the night in Kerrville.
• Utah - through on I-70 to I-15. I-70 is desolate and there’s like, one stop from Grand Junction, CO until you hit I-15.
• Vermont - through a few times on the way to Montreal. Also went with a friend to visit her BF who was at college near Montpelier. Oh, and drove Rt. 9 through the southern part of the state once. That was fun.
• Virginia - through on I-95 in 2006.
• Washington
• West Virginia
• Wisconsin
• Wyoming

This might become a semi-regular feature here. So many other bloggers do round-up posts, featuring either what they’ve read on the internet or all the posts that have been done on their own blog for a certain time period. I quite like those kinds of posts, because I see things that I might have missed and find cool new stuff to read. So, without further adieu…

Here’s what I’ve seen on the internet this week:

• Diesel, the very funny guy who writes at Mattress Police and runs the Humor Blogs directory, is trying to publish a book called Mercury Falls. If his blog is anything to go by, then this will be a great read. He’s going to self-publish once he gets 500 people signed up for his interest list, so head over to the Mercury Falls website to read an excerpt and sign up. And I promise, he won’t spam you. I think I’ve gotten 2 emails since I signed up, and one of them was a confirmation.
• One of my favorite house blogs has moved! John and Sherry, who blog about their awesome house and all sorts of other house-related things, can now be found at Young House Love. They share why they changed their blog’s name, and of course keep us hungry house peeps happy with their latest decor-related posts. If you haven’t already, go check them out. I swear, you’ll fall in love with their house.
• Fresh Peaches, whose blog, Such Cool Stuff features all sorts of great handmade goodies found at Etsy and other places around the web, is now featuring music! Now you can find cool new music worth listening to as you cruise the web for crafty goodies!
• Even though I don’t always practice what I preach (due to nothing else but laziness, really), I do place a lot of value on organizing and decluttering. I’ve even written about it before. Recently, Mandi at The Simple Nest posted 10 Questions to Help You Declutter. If you’re looking to declutter, read the list as it really helps asses what you have and what gets to stay or go.
• Moggit is a new find - a decor-focused blog, but more along the lines of what not to do. Like Cakewrecks, but for home decor.

Well, that was kinda fun to write. I think I’ll be taking advantage of the “star” feature of Google Reader - possible even the new “like” feature, both of which I can access when I’m not at home, and also StumbleUpon so that I can bookmark stuff I liked reading so that I can share it with you. Enjoy!

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what I want out of my blog. Every now and then, I think every blogger goes through this, and thinks about what they can do to spruce up their blog. But this time, I haven’t been thinking about sprucing up the design or adding/subtracting features from my blog. Quite honestly, there’s one thing that’s been standing in my way: Wordpress. Yep, you heard me right. Since I’ve had WP as my blogging platform, I don’t feel like I know my blog as well as I used to. All the different parts of the template confuse me, php is a mystery, and after more than 18 months, I still don’t know the first thing about the database. I fumbled my way around FTP to install a new theme, and even trying to customize it seemed a heck of a lot harder. And frankly, I don’t have the time to learn all this stuff. When I started out, I had a job that, well, I took advantage of my time there. I did a lot of my blog work at work for the first 6 months. I don’t have that kind of time now, and it’s been a huge stumbling block with my blog.

The constant need for updates on here, that bugs me too. Like I said, I don’t have the time to learn all the technical stuff, and while my web host, Snoskred, works hard to keep it all updated, I’m sure it’s a job and a half, and not one I’d want. The more time I spend on WP, the less I want to know about all that backend stuff. I just want to write, then go out and read other blogs. Comment, spend time on Twitter, Facebook, etc. The fun stuff. The back end of it may be fun for some of you, but not for me. It’s frustrating. I only want to get into the coding part when it comes to my design, and I don’t even enjoy that part of it on WP as I used to at Blogger.

So yeah, I’m contemplating going back to Blogger. I still really love my design on there, one that I worked really hard on and was actually able to get all the spacing and other nit-picky things perfect on. I know I can take my domain with me, and I know it would be a lot of work getting all my posts updated on there. I already set up a test blog and tried importing my blog, but that didn’t work, so I’d have to copy and paste all of them. But I know that backdating works. I’d have to change all my backlinks, which would be a pain, but it can be done. And I can set up a backup blog on wordpress.com, just for backup, though blogger does have an import/export feature now. I know it seems like it would be taking two steps back, but staying on wordpress feels like keeping way too many features that I just don’t need. There’s a lot that wordpress does that I don’t care about, don’t know about, and don’t want to know about. I just want to have fun with it all again.

Has anyone done this - gone back to a free, hosted blog after being self-hosted? How did it go? Any tips? I’m seriously thinking this over, because like I said, I want it to be fun again.

My mind is everywhere, so you get bullets today.

• Work has been nuts. I don’t get too much into work on the blog, but um, yeah, certain pieces of office machinery need to work if I am to do my job. Especially when my job’s entire existence revolves around said machinery. IT fixed it today, so hopefully the rest of the week will be better. But I think it’s one of those weeks. You know those weeks when everyone is super stressed? Yeah, one of those weeks.
• I’ve been blogsurfing a lot lately. I added a bunch of house pr0n blogs to my reader. One of these years I’ll update my blogroll so you can all see what I’m reading these days.
• Speaking of reading, I’m reading the book Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West right now. I finished up another book (post coming soon about that one), and was looking for some bedtime reading that was mildly challenging, so typical chick lit was out. I can tear through a chick lit book in a couple of hours, and for bedtime reading I want something that will take a few weeks. So back to the book. It’s interesting, but so far I don’t think I’ll read any other books in the series. I might go back and re-read the entire Oz series, which I read in 6th grade. I was such a voracious reader back then. But one day I was introduced to the Great Wide Interwebs and my book intake was drastically reduced. I’m trying to change that, even if the only reading I do is at bedtime.
• Motivation. I haz none. I don’t feel like cleaning the house, even though there are chores that I know need doing, and it bugs me that I’d rather be lazy than clean. I haven’t been eating healthy lately either, and I kinda don’t care right now. I don’t even feel like cooking. That’s probably the worst one - cooking. Cleaning, I might be able to get up enough motivation to do that on the weekends. Maybe. But cooking, that I just don’t want to do. At all. Not because it’s freaking hot outside. I just don’t want to think about what to eat. I especially hate shopping, because I buy a few things for meals then I don’t feel like making the meals out of them. Having a hard time with that. I might get motivated for a meal here and there, but it never sticks around for long. The motivation, that is.
• I started cleaning my desk this past weekend. I spent a good deal of Friday on it. I emptied the box that was under my desk, filed some piles, and lost steam. I still have piles, or rather, one pile, on my desk. It doesn’t really look like I’ve done much to my desk at all, except that the box has been replaced with a pretty aqua-colored file cart. I’m at a loss as to what to do with the rest of the stuff. I’m sure that if I was well-rested and tried to tackle the rest of this stuff, I might be able to get through most of it. But organizing my stuff is another thing that I’ve been utterly unmotivated to deal with lately. I want to be organized. I just don’t want to do the work it takes to get there. I need to do something to find my motivation.
• My cousin made me laugh. Apparently he injured himself over the holiday weekend. It involves fireworks, but it’s not like you think. This was more like a Jackass stunt - the sort of thing that Bam would do to his parents. Except my cousin did it to his friend. And half the town. The injury happened during the resulting mayhem, and is the most popular post on his Facebook page. He’s still laughing about it, even though it hasn’t healed yet. Love ya, E!

That’s all I got for now.