ideas – New England's Narrow Road

blogging, writing, — Making Time to Blog

There comes a time when I say to myself; either do it or don’t. Decide already and move on! It’s been that way with blogging for a while now for me. My online business keeps me very busy, and since it’s my bread and butter, I am disciplined and do it every day. I even work weekends, so I have no problem with the design part of my business. That is because I enjoy it, mostly. I never run out of ideas for designs to try on various products I sell. But that is the easy part of my business. Promotion is a big part, and that means writing, as in blogging.

Often I will enjoy writing. When an idea is born and takes flight, I can write and write. Too bad most of those ideas come in the middle of the night when I know I will forget them by morning. However, I now have a new iPhone, and as I’m learning how to take advantage of it’s apps, I see that I can “speak” a message. How about telling my phone, using the notes app, about my great ideas? No pen and paper and lights on in the night required. Just my groggy voice speaking my idea into the phone. (I knew I needed an iPhone!)

After reading The Daily Post article on blogging “Three Thoughts on Sustainable Blogging Resolutions” I was inspired to make some changes in my attitude about blogging. It doesn’t’ matter that I don’t plan to do exactly what the writer suggested, reading the article was enough to make me realize that I need to do something productive. And as it goes with my design work, the end product will probably be a lot different than I visualize in the beginning. My new attitude is positive!

My excuses for not blogging range from no time, to no inspiration. I don’t write because I feel like it will fall flat. What is the point of writing something that is horribly boring and dull. Who wants to read that? So here is my solution. Although I realize that a good, long post is what helps in the rankings, not every post needs to be a masterpiece (according to my scale). I love photos, and when the weather is good I tend to take a lot of photos myself. It’s easy and fun to share photos, whether they are my own or borrowed from a public domain site, like Pixabay. A short post with a nice photo can fill in the gaps between my big stories.

So there you have it. These are just a couple of new ideas I plan to follow going forward. This is not my only blog, so I will have to do it times 5, but I am hopeful that the days to follow will bring better posts. And with that, I will be a more focused blogger.

Getting “in shape” is all relevant. It depends on what kind of shape you are in in the first place. And my shape is getting rounder by the day. So I’m not in good shape.

First of all I don’t really care that I am a size 12. I am in midlife, have given birth to 4 kids and sit at a computer all day working. I won’t ever be a size 8 or probably even a 10 again. I don’t care. I have no one to impress and just care about being healthy… and I know it is not healthy to lead a sedentary life, which I hate to admit is happening.

Yes, I am writing about the boring and all too many times written about – weight loss, but not really. I just want to be in better shape. I won’t get much smaller, but I refuse to get larger. I am acquiring a spare tire around my middle that is quite depressing and I know it’s from sitting at this computer so much. There is no movement happening!!

Today I had a hard time finding clothes to wear when I went out to the DUMP!!! Now that is bad.

My excuses are these: I don’t have a yard of my own and I used to work constantly in the gardens, digging and expanding and weeding – all that. I have no incentive to do that now. It’s not my yard and I am just doing it for someone else. And who knows how long I’ll even live here. There is no future in it, if you know what I mean, and you might not, but anyway….

Same thing with the house. It’s not mine so I take care of it, but don’t spend time wondering how I could make it cuter or nicer. Again, there is no point. Those are the two big changes in my life and because of them, I have to concentrate elsewhere and it happens to be working online. So I sit from 3 or 4 AM until at least 3 PM with a few breaks in between to let the cats in ..and out…and in… and out…AND I do laundry and dishes etc. to make myself move.

I’ve had excuses all summer for not going walking in this beautiful area. We’ve had one of the hottest summers in recent northeast history, the besides that, when I have walked, the horse flies have been so horrendous that I wished I had just stayed home. Also, there are ignorant people on my road let their dogs run out and bark at me when I walk. So I’ve gone walking very little.

Today I got a brilliant idea. My rental is a ranch, but there is a cellar with a straight flight of stairs going down to it. I am going to use those stairs to get into better shape.

I am going to set the timer for an hour and when it goes off I will walk up and down my stairs for 3 minutes. (I checked to see how long I could do it and 3 minutes is a good starting point – I told you I was out of shape!)

Then I will set the timer again and do it again. All day I will do that and it’s got to help some! Three minutes every hour? Who can’t spare that. No excuses!!!

In 18 minutes I’m going for a walk.

Check out this funny postcard by my friend Tom aka Swiss: