Getting Started

I have many pages of bullet point topic ideas. I can feel the engine starting to engage. This is what I am doing. I am doing it right now as I type. I have to forgive myself in advance because I will never be able to make it perfect. It will be what it is. And what anybody else feels about it will not be in my control. There's that word. (Why does that word control my life?)

Inspired by my Friday podcasts, and with the habit of bringing my iPad with me to work apparently working, I got a few more cobwebs out of my head.

Did'ja ever take a "class" on how to use one of those binder/planner things back in the '90s? Before iPads and iPods and keeping track of everything with it's own handy app, some of us tried to organize ourselves with those things. I remember in the class I took, the one thing I took away from the whole thing, that I still find rings true, is if you need to remember something, write it down. The act of writing it down will allow your brain to stop worrying about it.

I think that's really all I'm trying to do.

Potty Eureka

I am too much in my own head, and I need to figure out how to express my thoughts and feelings successfully to others.

Mr. B and the Punch in the Nose

I have issues with confrontation. I will stand up for myself, or I will try, but if it turns confrontational, I don't know what to do.

Perfect example of this, a job I had a while back, a coworker's radio was too loud for me to concentrate and help people on the phone-which was my job, so I asked her to turn it down and she flat out refused. The first time this happened I was flabbergasted. I thought she was a little standoffish toward me, but I just thought it was because I was new. Not trying to make a deal of it or anything, because I didt know it was gonna become a deal, I just asked her nicely if she could turn it down, and she just said NO. I was incredulous and didn't know what to do. I think I tried it once or twice more, giving the benefit of the doubt, and maybe giving her a chance to rethink. But when it was clear that this was going to be a deal, and even a big deal, I just backed off.
I guess it wasn't worth a fight?
(I figured out later that there must have been some bad feelings in her part before I was ever hired, hindsight isn't actually 20/20, it just makes it easier to see the connections.)

The first time I remember standing up for myself, and it didn't go well, either.

I must have already been in school, because I knew one character in this story from school. Mrs. B was a teacher or librarian or school nurse, someone from school, and I knew her as a safe adult. She was fair with students, kind, fairly quiet, that quiet authority type. The antagonist in this story was her husband, a loud strange adult to my tiny child brain.

How this story goes, Mr. and Mrs. B went to the same church as my family did, and we'd offen see them and sometimes chat with them after service. My folks both worked in the school system so they knew Mrs. B outside of church, too.

When my folks would be occasionally chatting with Mrs. B, this strange adult that I really didn't know would sometimes attempt to chat with me, or I should say joke around with me, because all I remember was him teasing me that he was going to kiss me.

As I said, I really didn't know him, and he wasn't like any other adult men I had met before. I didn't really have teasy uncles even, all the adult men in my life were more the quiet authority type.

I. Was. Terrified.

I probably didn't understand that he was just teasing, only little brothers and neighborhood bullies teased, not adults. I don't remember planning ahead, but one Sunday morning, Li'l Shelly had had enough, and I told him in no uncertain terms that if he tried to kiss me I was gonna punch him in the nose. I think I even remember shaking my tiny fist at him. I was standing up for myself. I thought.

My parents were shocked that I would talk to an adult like that, of course I wasn't going to punch him, I was probably prompted to apologize. I remember serious scolding in the car after embarrassed scolding in public.

I realize they didn't know I was afraid if him kissing me, Li'l Shelly had never told them. So they just saw a child speaking rudely to an adult. But I didn't realize that at the time.

Did I somehow internalize that standing up for myself was wrong?

Dammit!

I think Asshole Shelly ate all the Combos.

Oh Lord, Please Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood

Looking back on my life, now in probably my second half, I see many many miscommunications and missed communications I have been a part of. Some of my earliest memories involve how I felt when I wasn't able to communicate, or being misunderstood.

This post maybe works as my disclaimer. I need to work through things in my head. I am choosing to work through some things here on this semi-public form of communication. (So far, still a hidden gem even to the one who is working on his own things just the next seat over.) I'm not trying to hide, but I'm also not planning on doing any push posting or tweeting of this stuff.

If I tell a story of Li'l Shelly, it's not to point fingers, I'm only telling the parts I remember, and I realize there are many other perspectives than my own. I'm not sure how much to even trust some of the memories, they are very old.

Sometime after I turned 40, I realized that my 'normal' face, that is, my face when I am not specifically trying to smile or talk or anything, my 'normal' face is a little frowny. The corners naturally turn down somewhat. Our faces get older, things start sagging on our faces just like other places. So my kinda frowny face can look like I'm angry or sad when I'm not. I decided I didn't want to put that frowny face out to the world, if it doesn't represent the me on the inside. And I started making a conscious effort to smile more.

That might be a really stupid analogy, but I'm trying to say that I'm not too old to make things better around me and in me. And I'm not afraid to seek out those places that need upgrading.

And examining some of the stories in my head, some of the memories, some of the old feelings, I think will help me find the frowny places that I want to change. And I will report back on the changes.

Trying to like myself...one section at a time

I just took a glamour shot of my feet and posted it on the facing book. OMG could I be any lamer? I have been told twice in the last two weeks that I have cute feet. And neither time was it flattery from the person giving me my first ever mani pedi yesterday. I do have cute feet. And if I'm going to be nicer to myself, I guess I need to appreciate the little things about me that I do like.

FYI

I want to punch pre-menopause in the neck.

Can I Speak My Mind? *

I've been doing morning pages for about a year. Morning pages are a suggested activity in the book The Artist's Way. The idea is to write first thing in the morning before you're distracted. I, of course, have modified the instructions to fit what I can and will do, I use the computer instead of the suggested handwritten page. This modification has worked, the other times that I tried to consistently do morning pages, and tried to follow the instructions, I gave up.
I'm working on exercising my creativity and get some good mental habits going, and I have found that doing the morning pages has definitely led to more writing, though sporadic. I even got a cheap-O microphone for my iPod touch to record voice memos when I have an idea in my head, but not the time or inclination to type it all out.
So I feel like I'm wanting to find that next step.
I'm also really thinking about my voice, finding or re-finding, or maybe just redefining how I write. I write very differently for my private morning pages than I do for a stupid face book post or the occasional blog post on one of my regular blogs. (by regular I mean publicized and actually read by people)
Why the difference? It's good to take the time to capitalize "I" and use the spell check on something for public consumption, but how much do I censor myself?
This question came to me partly from a face book conversation my boyfriend had with a friend. The BFF (that's Boy Friend Forever) was just writing exactly what he felt. In a conversation with a friend who has very different opinions, and all of this was basically in public. And I sometimes wonder if parts of my family or old friends think about de-friending me just for 'liking' something they don't agree with.
I guess I grew up being very careful of feelings, or imagined feelings, and trying to do what was 'right', as it was taught to me. And now I'm wanting to explore actually letting myself out of my restraints.
I mean, what would happen if I actually said what was in my brain?
So I'm challenging myself to practice writing things that actually matter to me, and writing them in a pseudo-public arena. Maybe even, evening pages? I'll fix up the blog, delete a bunch of crappy old posts 'what kind of _____ are you?' and make it look nice. I may make it more public when I'm more comfortable with what I'm doing. So for now, if you've found me, congratulations!







*Remember the Christopher Reeves Superman movie? And the dumb "song" Lois Lane thinks/sings at Superman: Can You Read My Mind? We made so much fun of that part of the movie in my junior high. It was a bit of a catch phrase, granted probably for only a week, but it stuck in my head. That's what I hear when I was titling this post.

Two Thousand Ten

Happy New Year. Duh. Obligatory thing to say today.
I really like saying Two Thousand rather than Twenty. I know some people say it's like saying Nineteen, no one ever said One Thousand Nine Hundred. That'd be just stupid.
But saying Two Thousand instead of Twenty for me is expressing that we do now live in the future. We are past The Year Two Thousand and well beyond. Well, we are beyond. Later generations will not say that a mere ten years is 'well beyond' of course, but it feels like that to me.
So much has happened in the last ten years. Every ten years has had a lot happen, of course, but the last ten feel like more happened. Of course, comparing the ten years of grade school to the ten years of being a divorced mom of boys, changing jobs not by choice, finding the lesser of the evils, being happy with what I have, still looking for myself, and working on being who I am, well no comparison. I'm just at an age where more things happen. Again, duh.
I will not make a resolution. Resolutions are things that are likely to get broken. I will use the new year, the new decade, the new day, the new week, to reconfirm the things I am trying to do, be they big or small. Being more healthy. Not gonna talk about that much, but it's in my head. Being more social. Facebook, here I come! And working on the things I do like to do. Everything can't be easy, even if you like something, you still have to work to get better. Music. Art. Writing. and writing includes blogging.
This blog is not for public consumption, so I know I'm echoing to crickets right now. and that's ok. That way I can feel completely comfortable to be me.
So Happy Fucking New Year. And here's to a wonderful Two Thousand Ten!!

Crazy Lazy

It's pretty sad to admit that I have been wearing my usual hairstyle over 80% of the time, not because it's my favorite way to wear my hair, but because I'm too lazy to look for earrings.
Pathetic.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPod touch]

TV Trash Talk

#1. Good Morning America: What happened to news anchors having actual names? Because of their silly names, I felt yesterday like Letterman was hosting the Oscars again. "Ju Ju." "GiGi"

#2. Dairy Queen Commercials: OK, the waffle cone cup, and the soft serve ice cream meeting, falling in love, and starting a family is cute. Well, it's cuter than a caveman at least. But I'm just wondering how the writers decided that the waffle cone thing needed to be male, and the soft serve should be female. For various phalic/yani symbolic reasons, it seems it should be the other way 'round, but especially when they visited the fertility doctor, and the waffle cone thing finds out he's not lactose intolerant. The way they played that scene, I really think that should have been the female character saying that.

#3. Lil' Bush: OK, we all get it, our president is stupid. We can't wait for the next administration to come into office, black, mormon, female, doesn't matter, couldn't be worse than what we have now! But this show makes me done with the Bush-bashing, it's just so tired. Let's find something actually funny again, please.

Summertime...

Hmm, since my blog name is a song title, maybe I should title all my posts with song titles.
Anyway.
If you're actually here and reading this, you did some extra work, and I should be rewarding you a little more. But I sometimes don't know what to say. This blog isn't really private, so I don't want to say something that could hurt someone who might wander in here. So if I want to be able to say exactly what I'm feeling, maybe I should rethink again the completely private blog. So here I can't say so-and-so is arragant, and so-and-so is gossipy, and so-and-so is a baby. But that's kinda how I feel right now.
So summertime.
I'm a 9-5er. (Ok, 8-5, but the song and the phrase is 9-5, so I always say that). My guy is basically a second-shifter. He's also a 4-day-a-weeker, but that's a different story. And now in the summer, my kids are on the second shift (or third shift) too. My oldest kid got a job, literally on the second shift, but they both like to stay up late and sleep late. I like that, too, but I work daytimes, so I can't. So here I am, awake and up since 8. That's actually sleeping late for me, since I have to be to work by 8 normally. Here I am in a quiet house, which is a nice change, but it feels so weird. I can't do much of anything or I'll wake someone up. I guess if I had my 'druthers, we'd all be on the same schedule, because I feel like I don't have enough time with any of them. So I'm just a little meloncholy right now.

Happy Day, Fool!

(Read the title in a Mr. T voice-it's not meant to be rude)
Happy April. Wow. Sometimes April really seems exciting, reaching it, I guess I mean. It usually signifies that spring is really here, we probably won't have any more snow, we can start gardening soon, some flowers are already up, and we can make definate plans for summer. Sometimes in March, it still seems like summer will never get here.
We had such a weird winter here. So mild at the beginning, we didn't even see snow at all until I think it was New Year's Day or New Year's Eve. We broke high temperature records in November and December. We thought we might go all winter with no snow, especially since the last couple winters were so mild. But when it started to snow, it kept snowing! I love snow (and I took lots of snow pictures), but this snow came with bitter, and I mean BITTER cold temps. So that's all over now! It's actually April!!
I hope the weather is beautiful in your neck of the woods!

Back Where I Started

So I've mentioned before my work saga. I had a job I really loved, but they relocated, and I had a heartbreaking decision to make, finally making the only decision that was right for my family at that time, to stay here in our little town. So I had a bout of unemployment, a secretarial job, and a staff assistant (glorified and slightly better paid secretary), and finally have worked my way back wor-wise to about where I was. But the part of the story that I haven't shared is the part about my transportation. Working at my job I loved, I had a nice little stationwagon, fairly new (and for a family who does not buy new cars, fairly new means 10 or less years old), sporty, fun, drove back and forth to my long-distance boyfriend's house just fine. Until one day it threw a rod, and just died. Luckily, I was close enough to home to get a AAA tow for only $20. And this was within 2 months before my last day at work at my job I loved. My great friend sold me an old car he had, and let me work it off doing odd jobs for him, and my dad fixed the things that had to be fixed. I'm very surprised that the old Honda lasted so long for me, over three years. But it finally died last fall. My parents were wonderful enough to loan me their mini van while they were gone, the last almost three months, and we've been saving for the next state car auction. To make a long story short (all together: too late!), we found a nice mini van for sale last weekend, my folks were back in time for dad to check it out for me, and I am now the proud owner of a 1997 Ford Windstar! So now I have a good job, and a good vehicle, and I feel like I'm finally at about the same stage I was...three and 1/2 years ago. Long, tiring trip, but I feel sooo releaved to be here!

All around the BlogBerry Bush

So I'm finally getting some web/blog things cleaned up, fixed up, put down, rearranged, etc. Here's my latest update: I've already sung my swan song on my food/recipe blog, and will soon on my TV blog. I just haven't been keeping these blogs up well, so I'm taking them off my chore list. Blogging should be enjoyable, not a chore. I love keeping up my projects blog, and this place is where I dump the rest of the thoughts, so I'll keep working on it.
My guy and I are starting a new project that will be on the web, kinda a blog, see the info here. With a new big project coming up, I wanted to clean up some of the old stuff. I still have an official personal site, but before this weekend, I hadn't really touched it in over a year. Now I'm taking photos off there, as long as I have flickr pro account, I don't need to eat up so much bandwith on the personal site. All this cleaning up and rearranging takes time, and I feel like I'm still getting the blogger beta bugs under controll as well. So lots of computing time in my future...

A thought on Thoughts

I'm already fast on my way to sleepy land, but just wanted to get something out of my head. My new job, in addition to being better suited to my abilities, and actually making me use my brain, in addition to bringing home a little bigger paycheck, has another added benifit: time to think. When you're anywhere in a reception/secretary/assistant type of job, you are often busy with busywork all day long. Answering phones alone is enough to drive some insane. My new job is so quiet. My phone rings once or twice a day, and it's usually my kids. So my brain actually can think about things. I've found it wandering off on some tangent, while I'm concentrating on the numbers in front of me. It has a good time, and figures things out. I think it's all good.

What next?

So lately I've been experiencing an unfamiliar feeling. I'm not even sure what to call it. Let me attempt to describe it, by giving you the background. When my old job that I loved "left me" and moved to a different city, I had some time to think about what kind of a job I wanted to get. I'm not talking fantasy dream jobs, I was a single mom, and have a great need for stability, so I was thinking practically. I thought about what I loved at my old job, what I didn't love as much, what talents and skills I had, adn what the opportunities in my town were. The biggest thing I didn't love at my old job (and also was one of the things I loved the most) was the work hours. You decided that yourself. A lot of times it was completely awesome, you didn't have to punch a timeclock, fill out leave slips, ask permission to leave, decide to take a long lunch when you weren't that busy, or even go garage sale-ing on Friday mornings like my former boss would do. (After she checked in, and made sure there was nothing pressing, if there was an issue that needed taking care of, of course she'd skip the garage sales that day.) Other times, it wasn't as much fun. If your project had to be done by a certain date and time, you had to figure out how to make that deadline, and some things in your timeline were based on factors you couldn't control, so sometimes you might need to work on a weekend or evening to meet your deadline. Because there was no official time off, you might feel obligated to work on a holiday that most people had off. I also kinda messed up myself, vacation-wise, and only once did I actually take a whole week off at the same time, and I was there for 6 years. That was my own fault, and I took plenty of random days off, like snow days with the kids.
Anyway, I decided, in that time of thinking about what to do next, that I wanted a regular 9-5 job, that I wouldn't have to work any weekends or holidays or evenings. Part of this decision was based on the fact that there are hardly any other businesses out there like my old job that I loved, in the work hours catagory. (Or any other catagory, for that matter) I decided that I wanted good benefits, and lots of time off. Work-wise, I was pretty flexible, I have done many things in my work life. I wanted something that would be interesting, challenging, and pay well. I decided to look for a job with the state for the benefits part, and lean toward office work for starters. Working with people I could stand was a given, I didn't even put that on my list.
My first state job was as a secretary. Not that exciting, but pretty good after being unemployed for nine months. Not great pay, not even good pay, really, but it was a start. No bringing work home with me. I did however, bring other things home from work, like bad vibes! Most of the people I worked with, including my boss, and other superiors, were great people. Problem was, I was stuck in a room with another secretary. And she was passive-aggressive, bossy, rude, uber conservitive, opinionated, and down-right crazy. I couldn't get out of there fast enough!!
I moved on after just over a year, to a staff assistant position. The title and pay were better, but I was still a secretary, basically. Not terrible, but not challenging enough, and not good enough pay. Love most of the people. I say love not loved because I'm still with the same people, in a different position. It's been not quite two months so far. It's challenging, pay is very good, great co-workers, quiet (as apposed to answering 4 lines all day), and I'm in a different part of the building where I can actually get my favorite local radio station, KZUM!! (you can listen on-line, so check them out)
So now, I appear to have met said job goal. And it's giving me this weird feeling, that I don't know how to describe...

Work Update

Well, I've been in my new position for a little over a month now, and yes, I still love it. The first full paycheck will come next week, then I'll REALLY love it! The only part that is strange, not great, is that I don't see everyone anymore. At the front desk I saw pretty much everyone every day. Some said hi, some waved, some stopped for serious discussionor just gossip, some just walked by, but I saw them all. Now, I can go in, go straight to my desk, and unless I bump into someone in the bathroom or at the candy or copy machine, I might only see 5 people all day. And I had plenty of mindless work to do, so I could chat with whoever happened to stop by, and still work while I chatted. I guess I'm not getting my quota of chatting in these days. But I don't have to chat with people I don't really want to chat with, either. I mentioned this to one bathroom-bump-into-buddy, and she likened my old position to a bartender. I think that's about right. I got to listen to everyone's complaints whether I wanted to or not, it was just part of my job. Now, I'm the chef, behind the scenes.

Flocking New Year!

Through flickr I just found an awesome new web browser, flock. It has a lot of cool features that I like. It RSS's within the browser, I know other browsers do that, but not in a great way. Flock RSS's like Bloglines, which I have been using for a while. Flock won't change my using Bloglines, because I'll keep the Bloglines going, and use the Flock RSS for a different catagory of blogs.
One thing I love about Flock is it connects to flickr right in the window, like part of the address bar. You can turn it off and on (and it also will link to PhotoBucket, which I've never used, so don't know much about) and see several photos from all your contacts, or just the newest public photos.
Oh, by the way, I just went PRO on flickr, part of my xmas present, so I'm all over it. Especially now that I'm back at my own desk and my own keyboard.
I haven't figured out all the cool parts of Flock yet, I just found it last night. I know it could be just infatuation, like I sometimes get with new web sites or web tools, but I think this one is really a keeper. It combines some of the things that I couldn't do with Safari (and used to be able to do on the pc), with some great new fun things. It works awesome on my sunflower iMac.
So everyone, for the new year: Go Flock Yourself!!

threes

Remember the old saying that death comes in threes? Maybe it's an old wives' tale, I've heard it from many old wives.
I was just thinking that it's interesting how, James Brown, Gerald Ford, and Saddam Husain will all be linked together in death, having all died the same week. Strange trio.

Crappy Birthday

It's always jarring to wake up realizing you are already late, especially on your birthday! (Yesterday was mine) Out of three of us who should all set and wake up to alarms, somehow we all didn't get ours set. So it was emergency mode first thing. It worked out ok, and I wasn't late for my third day of my new job.
My new boss is, among other postive adjectives, sweet. There was a 'welcome' present and card on my desk the first day, the second day there was a Christmas present on all of our desks, and yesterday she was disappointed that she hadn't known ahead of time that it was my birthday. So I wouldn't be surprised if there is another card and/or gift today. That was one of the shining spots in a rough day.
The day wasn't that terrible, just rough getting going like that. And I had a couple disappointments, but they were mostly silly. One of the shining spots in my day was the guitar shred threat down on Colbert Report. It was soooo funny when it took him a little while to get the 'blood' on his hands. The whole thing was funny. So I fell asleep with a smile on my face.

Last Day

Tomorrow is my last day in my old job. I have 5 boxes of work crap packed, and I brought home two grocery sacks of crap that needed to come home. I am so over the old job. Time to move on.
My current (for just one more day!) supervisor had the choice of how long to keep me. Of course, two weeks is the tradition, and if it was a new job outside the same place, you would always give those two weeks. But since this was the same department, it was up to my current boss to decide how long I had to stay. She wanted the whole two weeks from me. That is fine and fair. But really, I wouldn't have had to stay that long, if she would have given me up. (She even joked about chaining me to my chair)
I have done everything I needed to do, as far as teaching the other girls how to do what I do, in one week. I could have done it in a day if I had to. So this week I have been 'helping' them. Mostly already out of the loop.
I'm ready to move on. And get to the good and the bad of the new situation. Just tired of having to hang out for two weeks.

New

I just got a better job in the same (for lack of a better word) department of the part of the state government I work in. I'm going from basically a secretary to a mid-level paper-pusher. I'm jumping several pay catagories. This is more where my experience and knowledge would be valued. I was under-employed for the last 2 1/2 years. I am very excited for this move. I am tired of answering phones, opening mail, and taking everyone's shit.
I think I am in an interesting position right now, being that I was one of the receptionists for a long while, and treated as such. It will be interesting to see how people treat me, in my move. I am so thankful that some people, like the ones doing interviews, can see past a current position, to the actual value of an employee.
In all fairness, the goofs who have treated me like crap thier servent didn't have my resume in front of them when they did so. I will wipe the slate clean, and give everyone a new chance. And I'm interested to see who gives me a new chance.

Lost and Spirituality

Based on the title of this post, it seems it might be a post for the television blog. But this post is more on the subject of spirituality, and the show Lost just happened to play into this topic.
I watch very little television on weeknights. We have the TiVo capturing what we really want to watch, and I don't want the kids to get distracted. Most other school years, the kids have watched 1/2 hour to 1 hour after supper, this year except for Friday nights, the tv isn't being turned on. (They still watch after school, that's their free time)
So the shows I watch are on the TiVo, and me and my guy watch our shows on the weekends. All this is background for the point of this post.
Last Thursday, a work friend who also watches Lost started to ask me what I thought of the show. I told her I hadn't seen it yet, and explained our TiVo situation. She was very excited with her new theory on the show, and still wanted to tell me her thoughts without spilling what was on the show. That's great by me. Now, she's not one to be reading a lot of blogs about her favorite shows, as is evident by her 'new' thoery that the island is some waiting point after death, the trials the plane crash victims are going through are determining where they will go. And even the title of the show is meant as a clue to the spirituality behind it. (I like to see people excited about their shows and their theories, and I didn't tell her that other people have already thought of that) It's a good thoughtful theory, no matter who thought of it first.
So my point, and ponderance of the week, here is that after she told me her theory, she said she had only told me because she knew I was a "spiritual person" and I'd understand.
This is the part that has me pondering. I am a spiritual person, but she and I have never talked about spirituality. The closest we've ever gotten to the subject was that she attends the same church as my grandmother. How did she 'know' that I am spiritual? And does she realize that her definition of 'spiritual' is probably very different from mine. Does she get some 'vibe' from me that I'm on that wave-lenght? Is she basing her presumption on my work ethic and how I deal with people?
This is the thing that's makin' me go 'hmmm' this weeek.

Me & My Blogs: Part 6

So now I have basicly 4 blogs, three very specific and this one to dump in whatever else I want to say. I was posting fairly often on the other three, whenever the spirit moved me. But I wasn't getting around to this blog, I was posting more on one blog one week, heavy posting on another on a different week, it wasn't balanced. So I figured out a plan.
Here is a little secret about me, in case you didn't know, I'm a little anal/OCD/rules-oriented, I like to plan and list. So here's what I figured out: I could post on the three topic blogs twice a week, and on this one once a week. I set up goals on Joe's Goals to help me remember when to post on which one. Monday and Thursday are for the tv blog, Tuesday and Friday I post to the food/recipe blog, I update the project blog on Wednesday and Saturday, leaving Sunday for this one.
I know. I'm insane.

Me & My Blogs: Part 5

In May 2006, just a few months ago, I really hit on the idea I was looking for and I started a very specific blog: My Techincolor Addiction about my television veiwing and reviews. Note I went back with the Technicolor theme, which I love. ;p
I decided, and I hope this is true, that people might not come back and visit a blog that is all-over-the-place, unless they had a personal connection, either they know the person, or they connect with the writer on enough different things, but if the blog is in a certain niche, and the reader has an interest in same niche, they will come back often.
My Techincolor Addiction started in May 2006, and has had well over 1000 visitors so far. That shows me that my 'niche blog' idea is working. I revitalized the food blog, which even when I wasn't posting, was getting hits. People love recipes! My third of my 'niche blogs' is the project blog, probalby the one I'm most proud of: See Shell's Schemes, which features my projects, past and present. This one is still finding it's audience, but I'm pimpin' it all over. Interestingly, I started the project blog on June 20, 2006, four years to the day after starting my origional blog.
Last but not least is this little blog. This is my rambling blog. Where I say things that won't fit in the other three. The one that no one will read, but that's ok. (That way I can make little inside jokes)
Next up, blog-wise, Surprising Shell, outlining everytime I got startled or surprised throughout the day, What I think of You where I give my opinions of all I meet, and Our BM Log, the name should say it all.

Me & My Blogs: Part 4

Or A Dip in Memory Lane:
So my first blog, Technicolor Day was about anything and everything going on in my life. Very boring blog at first, I must say, blogging about bumper stickers and what I was watching, quotes, bad sites, and other such crap.
Later, I rambled about projects I was working on, goals I was workng toward, games I was playing, and more tv. I wanted to be read by more than myself and a handful of others, and wondered how to make my blog more interesting.
On a whim, after recieving a breadmaker as a gift in December 2004, I started a very specific blog: It's a Breadmaker, Thanks!. It was the beginning of me seperating my one blog into several specific blogs, but it may have been too specific, as the first six months, I only posted about using the breadmaker (now it's a full-fledged food/recipe blog).
These last couple years, the Techinicolor Day blog saw much less posting, including posting about maybe quitting blogging alltogether. And I started to work with iLife, making a more family blog there. (e-mail me if you want that link)

Me & My Blogs: Part 3

My first blog came to be named Technicolor Day. I guess now is as good of a time as any to explain my whole name thing.
My parents named me Michelle Renee (with a little French thingy over the second e), but I was always "Shelly". My mom explained to me that she wanted me to have an 'official sounding name' if I ever wanted to be a doctor or lawyer or something. Good call, mom, I know or have heard of plenty of silly sounding named people trying to be taken seriously. I however, have never found it difficult to be taken seriously as Shelly or Shell (or even shells), but I think it's cool to have a bonus name. Especially with a great Beatles song, and a cool French middle name. Anyway, I digress...
In my college broadcasting career, I saw that most of the DJ's didn't use their real name. At times, I think it was from embarrassment over actually being on the college radio station for some, but also for privacy. So I went about thinking up my 'radio name'. One of the other gals used her middle name as her first name, and made up a fake last name (in some states she still goes by this alias), so that got me thinking about using my cool middle name. So I switched my middle and first names, with a slight twist on my first name to make a 'real' sounding last name, and viola! Renee Mitchels was born.
I have always played around with the color of my hair, and more so in the college years, so it was likely at this time to see me in different hair colors every month, or even week. At one point, someone (and the very cool part is that I'm pretty sure it was The G, my good friend in college, my BFF and life partner now) introduced me as "Renee Mitchels, Your Technicolor DJ". I loved it! I always used the whole phrase after that.
Fast forward...Me trying to come up with a name for my new blog...thinking back to college days and cool radio names...I thought at first that I wanted to sign my posts with "Renee Mitchels, Your Technicolor Blogger". But playing around with the whole technicolor theme, I decided my blog would be named "In Technicolor". It would be like a 70's sitcom (which my life often is) and they proudly, and often musically, announced the show was "in Technicolor". I thought that would be cool.
Well, you know what they say about the best laid plans of mice and men or some such. The name was taken. Thinking fast, I temporarily, or so I though, changed it to Technicolor Day. My few fellow bloggers that I shared my name delema with, all agreed they liked that name better. So it stuck.

Me & My Blogs: Part 2

In the beginning, I tried Blogger, and it was good.
Seriously, though, I tried several other free blog services, and I emphasize free, I hate to pay for any blogging things, I'm just frugal that way, and I still occasionally try out the latest-and-greatest blog service, but I always stick with Blogger. I used their blog-spot for hosting at first, but this was a long time ago, when they didn't host your blog pictures for you, so I did at one point switch to ftp-ing it to my own space, when my uncle gave me some free space. When Blogger started hosting our pictures, I did come back to the blog-spot hosting. Oh, there were some other features, I don't even remember now, but you could only get them with Blogger Pro, and as I said, I don't want to pay for blogging things, so I was extremely glad when they offed the Pro feature, and gave all of us those features.
One tip on the hosting of pictures. If you don't have or don't want to use other picture hosting, and you want to put some buttons or pictures (or even a new template) on your Blogger page, but not as a blog post, you can still upload the picture as if you were going to put it in a post, then just copy and paste it where you want it.

Me & My Blogs: Part 1

I started blogging in 2002. My man and I were dating long distance, we had really just begun dating at that point, let's see...we started dating October of 2001, and I started blogging in the summer of 2002. I had heard about blogging before that, from various sources, had read a few blogs, but not on a regular basis, and had some interest. He had recently started a blog, and one of his best friends had been maintaining a blog for a few years before that. My guy had, he told me, published a newsletter of sorts when the internet was a baby, and was going to blog now in that same tradition. I'll be honest, I started the whole blog thing because he did. But not directly because he did. As I said, we were long distance, and we had tried the late night IM's &/or phone calls, but they just didn't work for us who had to get up in the morning. Reading his blog made me think that this would be a good way for us to communicate with each other. Plus I had hopes of maybe other people reading it too, so I started a blog.

What's it all about, Alfie

So this little blog is my last in line blog, and tends to get left behind. I post something to my other blogs every other day or so, and by the time I'm ready to post something here, it's time for me to do something else, or I just have run out of steam. But this blog is for me. My say whatever, do whatever, kiss my arse if you don't like it, I'm not going to censor myself blog. That being said, I have nothing to say today. ;p