KirstenL4W

I’ve never been one to make New Year’s resolutions, at least not with any amount of seriousness. This year is no different. I do, however, have goals. I always have goals, but I’m not always so forthcoming with what exactly those goals are. So, without further adieu, I give you my goals:

Health

I’d like to get my weight on a downward slide. I’ve been overweight for too long now, and my weight has inched up over the past few months. This is not acceptable. Not only does nothing look good on me, I’m way out of shape - a point that was driven home when I went to the mall the other day. A simple walk around the mall at a leisurely pace totally kicked my ass, and I had to take a nap when I got home. No, this will not do.

I’d like to eat healthier. I’m not talking about swapping out microwave meals for their slightly less evil counterparts, either. I’m looking to severely limit the amount of processed foods in my diet. They’re so prevalent today, and so not good for you. It’s a process, and I’m not going all out just yet. I’ll work on this by focusing on planning my meals around healthy protein sources and veggies, and trying not to look at all the crap on offer at the supermarket.

Also in the eating category, this goal is intended to save money: I’d like to make it a goal to eat out as little as possible. Sometimes it’s necessary, like when we travel, but other times it’s not. I’m going to try my best to bring healthy lunches to work so that I’m not tempted to spend money on an unhealthy meal.

Home

I really need to get this place organized. It’s not a total pig sty - I mean, give me a little credit - but we do suffer from Horizontal Surface Disease. You know how every flat surface in the house will get covered in STUFF? We got that. I need to figure out a way to get stuff organized and figure out some systems that work with my I-don’t-want-to-deal-with-it-itis. I want to figure out a way to keep things organized with the least amount of effort possible. Still working on that one.

Blog

I spent a good deal of Saturday going through my reader and blogroll to sync them up. I need to do a better job of keeping up with that in the future. It’s too easy to add things to the reader and forget about the blogroll.

I want to try to post a bit more often. I’ve been really slack on that over the past year or so, and it’s just not acceptable. I really like my blog, and interacting with all of you, and posting more than 3-4 times a month will help with that. Also? If I want to sharpen up my writing skills, I need to do something other than stare blankly at the computer when I get home from work.

Since I’m still lusting after the Thesis theme, I’d like to buy that and get it installed on my blog sometime. I think it will be just the thing to help me do more with my blog without having to learn a whole bunch of nasty code, which I just don’t have time for.

Those are the main things I want to work on this year. I’m sure I have other goals, but right now I think I’m coming down with a nasty cold and it’s preventing me from working to my full potential.

What are your goals for the next year and beyond?

My poor, neglected little blog. Every day I think, Today’s the day! The day that I’ll finally write that blog post. I don’t know what to write about, but I’ll get a post up, somehow.

Yet it never happens. About once a week I force myself to write something, anything, so as not to neglect my readers, my fans, my adoring public. Ok, that’s going a bit too far. Why don’t I write more often?

Life gets in the way. That’s an easy excuse. We all have jobs and family that keep us from being on our blogs as often as we’d like.

There’s nothing worth writing about. That’s another easy excuse. It’s hard to come up with something witty and original. Being a perfectionist, I have a hard time writing for writing’s sake. Every time I sit down at the computer, I want to write that perfect post. You know the one. It’s the post that leaves you feeling exhilarated when you hit that “publish” button. The one where you eagerly check your stats every hour to see who’s reading it and who has commented on it. The one that you keep going back to so you can re-read it. I want every post to be like that.

I have a hard time writing about the day to day of my life - not because it’s hard to write about, but it bores me. You’d see the same posts, day after day. I don’t write about work, so that cuts out a huge part of my day. I don’t really write too much about my husband and what goes on between us, because he prefers that I keep that a bit more private. And I don’t write about my feelings so much because my husband prefers that I talk to him rather than read how I’m feeling on this blog, so that’s another post idea that won’t really be happening. That leaves two kinds of posts: observations and themed.

Observation posts can be easy to write, if when observing something I immediately write a post in my head then get myself to a computer before the inspiration for it is gone forever. That’s not always easy.

Themed posts, such as my On The Internet or Bedtime Stories posts, can be easy to write but without much in between, they will get boring - as if I have nothing else to say.

I want to offer a bit more of myself in this blog. I’d love for this blog to get little bit bigger (not too big, though), but I just don’t know how to do that right now. I don’t know how to do everything that I want to do.

How do you make your blog what you want while staying firmly planted in real life? What would you like to do with your blog if you could?

This is where I’m supposed to offer up all sorts of lame excuses as to why I haven’t been posting, like the lure of the TV with all sorts of Halloween movies (not scary ones - I don’t do horror), but I won’t do that. All I’ll do is promise to try and get a proper post up sometime this weekend. Maybe I’ll do another On The Internet post, since by now I must have about a hundred different things to post about, using the various methods I have to keep track of them. But first, let me catch up on some more blog reading.

As I’ve started doing more On the Internet posts, I had to come up with ways to keep track of everything I was reading that I wanted to share. I don’t have any one method, but I thought I’d share the methods I do use.

• Add a star - Google Reader and Twitter both offer this option, though on Twitter it’s known as “Favorites.” I use this as a quick and easy way to flag items that I want to be able to go back to later, and I can un-star them when I’m done.
• StumbleUpon - I only have this installed on my home computer, so it’s the least-used method on my list. But if you are on a computer that has you signed in, it’s a great way to bookmark stuff worth mentioning, and sharing it with others who might not necessarily read your blog.
• Email - yep, good old fashioned email. During my lunch at work, I read news and try to get through a few items in my reader. For news items, I tend to just email them to myself. It’s pretty easy - just go to File > Send > Link by email (in IE) or File > Send Link (in Firefox). This method only works if you’re using an email client that is installed on your computer, like Outlook, which I use at work. If you don’t have that, then copy and paste the link into a new email message.
• Paper notes - Yes, I still have paper notes. Not sure why, because if I’m reading something on the computer that I want to share, I can use any of the above 3 methods, but once in a blue moon I am actually away from the computer. That’s when I’ll write down a website that I might want to check out later or ideas that come to me when I’m out in the field. See, have the very inefficient and not at all organized habit of putting the paper on my desk for future reference. (Yes, my desk at home is a mess.) Then, when I get to my desk and decide to sift through all the papers, I can decide if I still want to write about it or share the link.

That’s what works for me, and I think that I capture about (wild guess here) 95% of the stuff I want to share. If you do round-up or link posts like I do, what methods work for you?

Remember when I said that I was trying to have more discipline about posting? Yeah, that hasn’t happened. Mostly because I worked in the garage over the weekend. Mister and I hung shelves to organize our stuff from a pile into something that looks more organized. Of course I don’t have pictures, because I’m just that good about blogging and documenting every mundane aspect of my life for all the internet to see.

Anyway, on Sunday I went grocery shopping (yay!) and then sat around being sore from the day before. I sat around on the sofa downstairs, not in front of the computer. Hence no scheduled posts, so I’m writing them on the fly. I’m not so sure I like that. I felt so organized and so ahead of the game when I scheduled posts last week. This week, not so much. Perhaps this weekend I’ll be able to knock out a few posts. Along with shopping for my nephew’s birthday. Which brings me to another thing - what in the heck do I get a 16 year old boy?

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!

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.

I was going to blog about it last week, but I never got around to it. It’s like that a lot these days. But we had an event here at the blog - my blog turned 3! March 14 was the big day, so on Saturday I figured we’d really get into the celebration and have a cake.

Pay no attention to all the fingerprints on the monitor.

We’ve also been taking full advantage of the Netflix account that I got Mister for Christmas, so we’ve been watching quite a few movies lately. Last week we watched Clerks, since I’d never seen it, and then Clerks 2. The first Clerks was ok, but I felt like it tried too hard to have lots of clever dialogue and as a result didn’t have enough substance, but Clerks 2 was freaking hysterical. Yes, I go for low-brow humor that leans way too close to the inappropriate side of things.

My Mom’s looking forward to her trip to Sweden in May. I want to go. I went, once, in 1996, but that’s a story for another day. Anyway, I’m sending my mom with a shopping list for me because she wanted me to spend way more money on stuff for her when I was there. Mom, here’s my list:

• Two more ceramic tile/trivets to hang in my kitchen to fill out the space that one lonely one occupies now. Content is irrelevant, so long as it’s in Swedish.
• The latest edition of Sköna Hem. It’s a home magazine, and you’ll find it at a place called a tidningskiosk or bokhandel.
• If you happen to make your way to a great Swedish IKEA, I am in need of more spreaders like these because mine got misplaced in the move. The ones at IKEA are a bit over $3 US, but if you see them elsewhere for a bit more that’s ok too.
• Anything with Linnea flower on it. You have enough of this stuff and I don’t.

Now, if Princess Vespa decides that she can live without her industrial strength hairdryer and deal with a tiny travel one, she can fit all this stuff in her suitcase and more. Be sure to visit Aunt Bird for lessons on how to pack for an international vacation, mmkay?

I’m going to wrap this post up a bit early. I had more that I wanted to say but in looking up one of the links above, I found a boatload of Swedish gift shops online and I need to go investigate.

Everyone’s been talking about how social networks are all the rage.  They’re the latest best way to promote your blog, business, whatever.  Before I go any further, I do have one thing to say.  Are these new “social networks” any different than old-fashioned networking?  I mean, besides the fact that they’re online.  Networking, by definition, requires that you get out there and socialize with others, with the purpose of promoting whatever you’re there to promote.  So “social networking” is a redundant term, IMHO.  Is there such a thing as anti-social networking?  I don’t think so.

Ahem.

Anyway, I’ve been using social networking sites a bit more lately, specifically Facebook and Twitter.  Of course, being the dork that I am, I’m not using them to their fullest extent to promote myself and my blog.  Sure, the links are there, but I’m just popping in to say hi and see what everyone else is up to.  I have a day job, so being on these sites all day to yell “Look at me!!!” is just not possible.

Facebook is one that I resisted signing up for.  I have a MySpace account that I rarely check, so the idea of signing up for a similar site didn’t appeal.  That is, until more and more friends started sending me invites.  It was slow at first; I had a small handful of friends and that was it.  Then came a surge of my Imaginary Internet Friends - friends from a site I’ve been frequenting since 2001, the same core group of people who keep that site alive and some of the best friends I’ve never met.  After that, old classmates started finding me.  That one freaked me out a bit.  I’m still trying to block out the whole middle school experience, and high school wasn’t my favorite time either.  I wasn’t exactly what you’d call “popular.”  Now, I am friends with more people than I was back then.  It’s just weird, but at the same time it has been fun seeing what others are up to.

Twitter is what is known as “micro-blogging.”  You’re limited to the number of characters, so it’s basically blogging by text message.  I really didn’t get the point of it, but I signed up to figure that out.  I’m still not sure I understand the point, other than you can’t always be at your computer to blog.  I can tweet from my cell phone using ordinary text messaging.  I had a few people I was following, until just like Facebook, my IIF’s suddenly appeared.  I still have a lot to learn regarding how to use Twitter, but I’ve been enjoying it thus far.

Now, if I can actually delurk myself and participate a bit more on those sites, I might be able to promote my blog a bit better.

I’ve felt a general dissatisfaction with my blog theme lately.  While I do like my theme, I find myself wanting a bit more from a theme.  I mean, I have a free theme so it’s pretty easy to tell when another blog has the same great taste in themes that I do.  But I’ve been growing restless lately.  I’ve even been considering a premium theme, but I won’t commit to something like that unless I’m 1,000% sure that it will give me what I want.

I’ve also been thinking about my old space, the one I had before I switched to WP.  I’m pretty satisfied with what I was able to do there (just not satisfied with the abilities of Blogger, which is why I switched).  Here’s what I like about the way that space ended up:

• The headers for the date and sidebar widgets.  They’re bold, and do a great job of delineating the sections and highlighting the text at the same time
• The proportions.  The sidebars are slightly wider than the ones here (195px vs. ~175 here), and at 950px the entire thing is 50px wider than this one, which means it doesn’t feel as cramped.
• The thin double line between the body and sidebars is a definite marker between the spaces, yet remains delicate and unobtrusive.
• The same double line border is around both the header pic and title of my blog.  On the new one, the KirstenL4W title (there only so a name shows up in your readers) just kind of floats above the header pic.
• The symmetry!  I almost forgot about that one.  I’m the kind of person who likes symmetry, so having a sidebar on each side appeals to that sense of balance.

And for the WP blog:

• The calendar like date stamp.  It keeps there from being too much text at the top of a post, what with the post title, author, and categories.
• There’s a white text area and I can have something else for a background.  It leaves open the possibility of having a patterned background.
• The menu bar.  The fact that I have one at all is one of the big reasons I switched to WP.
• The header image.  This particular theme supports a custom header image, which means I just upload whatever pic I want and move it around within the box for an instant, decently proportioned header image.  It’s easy to do and makes changes easy, if I wanted to do that.

A few must-haves for any theme are:

• 3 columns.  I really like having dual sidebars and I’d really feel like something is missing if I didn’t have them.
• I must be able to have a header image without a lot of tricky coding to make one work with the theme.
• The proportions need to be right.  Things should line up to the exact pixel, and there should be proper spacing where necessary to make things easier on the eyes.  Sorry, but after working for a few years as a receptionist in a graphics studio, I’ve learned to recognize and appreciate these often-overlooked design details.

I could go on to list the things I really don’t want in a theme, but if I start looking then this list might get too long, so I’ll just leave that alone except to say that I don’t want a magazine style theme.  I think magazine style themes are too business-like for a personal blog, and I don’t like seeing them on other personal blogs.  If the elements I really like and want are in place, then I would think that the theme will do a decent job of omitting the don’t wants.

I’ve really not seen any free themes that are condenters right now.  I’ve uploaded a few and tried to work with them, but once I started trying any customizations, they quickly fell out of favor.  That leaves premium themes.  The two I’ve seen that have promise are Thesis and WP Remix.  Does anyone out there have any experience with either one of these themes?  What about them do you like and not like?

In the meantime, I’ve done a bit of sprucing up.  The blue-gray was getting old, so I created a new header image from a photo taken during the recent vacation that Mister and I took to the east coast.  This was taken at Salisbury Beach, MA.  I was looking out towards the ocean (trying not to get blinded by the sun) as the sun came up.  It’s a bit more colorful than the last picture, and I complemented it by changing the background to a soft seashell color and defining the borders around the image, body, and footer with a deeper color.  The menu bar looks a bit sparse because of the borders everywhere else, but I think if I tried to put a border around the menu bar buttons, then it would look a bit crowded.

So quit hiding behind your feed readers, stop by and let me know what you think of the new image and colors.  And if you have any experience with the above-mentioned paid themes, I really want to hear from you!