Thoughts on Blogging

This is my elephant. It has nothing to do with anything today (or yesterday’s post either).

When I began blogging 12 years ago, I had no idea what it was about but boy oh boy, it was fun.

Maybe blogging was new then, or maybe I was behind the times (a common occurrence in my life). I began looking for other blogs to read, and hoped that one day mine would have as many followers and commenters as The Yarn Harlot, The Pioneer Woman, lively discussions like Stuff Christians Like or maybe a community of regular commenters like the Entreleadership blog when Chris LoCurto was the writer plus the host of the Entreleadership podcast.

Instead, I have a small (microscopic in the blogging world) readership. Whenever it seemed to be growing, something broke and then I lost my subscribers. 

My subscribers don’t seem to understand that they can go to my website and click on the Blog button to find the blog if the subscription stops working.

Many of my real life friends don’t read my blog; many of my customers don’t know I have one, if they even know what a blog is.

When I read blogs and articles about blogging, marketing, and promotion, I feel like a loser.

When I learn that people I know are reading my blog and realize that I know or have met most of my readers, I feel quite happy. This isn’t some impersonal marketing gig; this is the real me, connecting with the real yous. (Don’t you think we need a plural for “you”? “Y’all” feels phoney, because I am not Southern, and “all y’all” sounds particularly phoney, but it does work.)

Here are a few more thoughts about comments:

  1. Sometimes my readers comment which I REALLY appreciate; otherwise I wonder if I am just making noise and no one cares.
  2. Sometimes my readers email me and then we have a private conversation.
  3. Many of my readers have no idea how to comment.
  4. The comments have to be approved by me before they appear, so sometimes people write a comment twice because they think it didn’t work.

And here are some thoughts about blogging:

  1. My blog has built real life friendships (Hi, Dan!), strengthened other friendships (Hi, Sharon!), made long-distance friendships (Hi, Jennifer and Cheryl!), and provided a way for family to stay current (Hi, Laurie!).
  2. Blogging has helped strengthen my writing skills.
  3. Blogging allows me to publicize things, which is useful as a Facebook avoider.
  4. It keeps me accountable, working steadily, staying focused; all are a little harder when working alone.
My guess is the front orange kitten is Pippin; the gray is probably Georgia (R.I.P.), because Jackson’s face is narrower.

Wonky and Weird

You may have noticed that my blog is looking a little different, a bit wonky and weird. The headline looked broken for awhile, and I am no longer able to put in the tagline of “In which the Central California artists [bloviates endlessly about her art and life]”.

The Thing, the big ShutDown, showed me that my website is inadequate. When drawing lessons were forbidden and my commissioned work was completed, I learned about web design. (Actual design, not coding – no need to be impressed here.) I spent a great deal of time figuring it out on paper, typing it on the computer, and sending it off to my web designer.

Last week he started working on it. So far, the results are wonky and weird. This is due to the nature of the work, not to any ineptness on the part of my web designer.

Eventually, the site will focus on custom work, AKA “commissions”, which is Artspeak for a piece of work done to the customer’s specifications and tastes and desires.

The blog will remain the blog; it might look wonky and weird for awhile, and then either we will adjust to the new look or it will return to normal in appearance.

Meanwhile, thanks for hanging out with me and my elephant.

This is my elephant. It has nothing to do with anything today.

P.S. “I before E except after C. Weird.”

If Life’s Too Short, Then Why Do I. . .

Life is too short for things like drying dishes that will dry themselves. Why do I want to save all that time? So I can do things that don’t make sense to other people but bring me pleasure and satisfaction, things like:

  1. Bake my own bread (What’s wrong with store-bought?)
  2. Make yogurt from scratch (What’s wrong with store-bought?)
  3. Bake cookies every time Trail Guy wants them (What’s wrong with store-bought?)
  4. Bake cookies any time someone asks me to (What’s wrong with store-bought?)
  5. Make hummus from scratch (What’s wrong with store-bought?)
  6. Try to grow food despite the bugs, heat, bad soil, gophers, birds, deer, etc. (the continual triumph of hope over experience keeps me gardening) (What’s wrong with store-bought?)
  7. Garden with friends in their yards (What?? hard physical labor for free? Yeppers.)
  8. Knit my own sweaters and lots of socks
  9. Write real notes and letters
  10. Email instead of text (I do text to people who will otherwise ignore me)
  11. Blog 5 days a week
  12. Refuse to get a microwave or dishwasher or trash compactor

What’s on your list?

Perhaps this post should be titled “What’s wrong with store-bought”? And maybe the real question is “What’s wrong with me?”

Pippin – the color and temperament of honey.

Life’s Too Short To. . .

As an adult, I made some decisions about things that I no longer had to do because I was now the boss of my life, not traditions or shoulds. It evolved into an ever changing list, one that I thought you might enjoy.

Life is too short to:

  1. dry dishes
  2. iron jeans
  3. wait in line at a restaurant when my food at home is just as good and it is quieter there
  4. wait in a doctor’s office for hours. Instead, ask how far behind he is and go for a walk, do an errand, sit in the car and knit or listen to the radio
  5. read boring books
  6. watch movies about war, violence, adultery, or other difficult topics
  7. wash my car before driving to Mineral King all summer
  8. thoroughly clean the house every week – Instead, I just keep it picked up, stay current with the kitchen and bathroom, hang up clothes and make the bed, vacuum the main places often, and get on with living.

What’s on your list?

How To Subscribe to This Blog

Does this topic make you want to hide under this quilt and nap?

Good morning, Blog Readers.

My blog has 2 different items that you may subscribe to. This confuses many people, so today I will tackle item #1. 

How to subscribe to THE BLOG:

You may subscribe to my blog. This means that each time I post a new entry, you will get an email. The email will contain the whole post, or you can click (or tap) on it and go to the blog on my website. 

It is not necessary to subscribe to be able to read it. Subscribing means you will get an email; not everyone wants 5 emails from me per week. No offense taken. Do what works for you.

If you are looking at the main blog page instead of the individual blog post, you should see the thing circled in the picture above. If you are reading the individual blog post, the subscribe dealie doesn’t show.

If you fill out the subscribe dealie, you will get a confirmation email. Follow the instructions there, and you will start receiving an email each time I post.

Yeppers, a little bit boring today. Tomorrow will also be a little bit boring. It will explain how to subscribe to the newsletter.

Thank you for reading.

Email me if you want help! Oh no, do I need to do a whole tutorial on that?? Say it ain’t so! My eddress (in words instead of regular email format so that the Bad Boys of the World Wide Web won’t bother me) is cabinart at cabinart dot net.

P.S. “Blog” comes from “web log”. Take away the “we” and the space, and you get “blog”. The “log” part is the word meaning “journal”. It is a journal on the world wide web. 

 

9 Things Learned in May

“Alta Peak and Moro Rock”, oil painting on wrapped canvas, 10×30″, $500 plus tax
  1. We are having a garlic shortage. Why? Was there a “blight” in Gilroy? Does our garlic come from China? Do people cooking at home use more garlic than restaurants? I’m glad that 4 bulbs I planted survived and are ready to harvest. This is tricky stuff to grow, because the gophers like it and nearby weeds keep it from getting very large.
  2. When someone commissions me to make custom art, even if I show every single step of the process and the customer approves, sometimes there is disappointment. So, I learned to be more involved in the process, offer design opinions and not assume that the customer knows his mind. (Why has it taken me 33 years to learn this? Is it a lesson that I knew, but put on hold for some customers? What’s wrong with me? Can this artist be saved??)
  3. I can live without the library. I don’t like it, but I can do it anyway.
  4. Frederick Russell Burnham was a big deal explorer, adventurer, soldier, miner, and friends with Teddy Roosevelt. Born in 1861, died in 1947, and buried in Three Rivers! I am reading his biography, A Splendid Savage by Steve Kemper. SINCE THE LIBRARY IS CLOSED, I guess you’ll have to buy a copy if you want to read it. (Mine is borrowed from the friend who told me about the guy). Here. Use this link and I might earn a quarter from Amazon. (It opens in a new tab so you won’t lose your place here.)
  5.  I don’t exercise enough. Thought I was in decent shape until we hiked to Timber Gap, when I was sure that someone had both stretched and tilted the trail. Will I exercise more and harder now? I DON’T FEEEEL LIKE IT. (Oh yeah? Do you FEEEEL like hiking without pain?) I think the ongoing battle with the inner lazy fat girl will never cease.
  6. It is vital to print out on paper any book that I am designing. I almost took a shortcut and skipped that step on my current project (a private book that will only be available to the person who hired me.) The better version of myself printed it anyway, and I was appalled by the formatting errors, and 5 typos. FIVE – appalled, I tell you! Big lesson learned – ALWAYS print it to proofread on paper; I will find things that I missed on the screen.
  7. Cars get dirty just parked in garages. Weird.
  8. My nephew can write music and sing! Want to hear him? The link here is to his latest song “Slow”.  Austin Harms (tap or click on his name)
  9. The painting above was included in the last email newsletter I sent out, and several people referred to it as a mural BECAUSE I DIDN’T IDENTIFY IT AS AN OIL PAINTING FOR SALE! This reluctance to appear “sellsy” is NOT helpful to my newsletter subscribers (and you can also become a newsletter subscriber by using the SUBSCRIBE TO ENEWSLETTER thing on the blog, but it doesn’t show up on a “smart” phone so you’ll need to be on a desktop or a laptop). A friend whose business it is to help people with their social media helped me learn this. #Hashtag Hostess Angele Black is BRILLIANT at her business!

What did you learn in May?

Unintended Good Consequences

Some of these I have already mentioned. Just trying to remind us all that there is always a silver lining. Always? Usually. Usually? Often. Often? Sometimes.

While on a walk this week, I stopped to visit with my friend in her yard and ended up working with her there for awhile.
  1. Less traffic.
  2. No mo ro bo (Robot calls have stopped at our house.)
  3. Less rushed with a looser schedule. (No, I didn’t say “loser”.)
  4. More time to pull weeds, both here and with my friends.
  5. Time to redesign my website.
  6. Catching up on To-Be-Read stack of books.
  7. Wearing Crocs exclusively, no matter what the outfit.
  8. More time with my cats, Tucker, Jackson, and Pippin.
  9. Time to make jelly from elderberry juice frozen who knows when.
  10. Can knit during a Zoom meeting, which would not be acceptable if we were meeting in person.

    What have you noticed as a good unintended consequence?

Saturday Thoughts

  1. I went to Visalia for the first time in several weeks and the lack of traffic was nice.
  2. I drove a little over the speed limit, and was passed in a blur by every car that came near me. Fueled by frustration, rebellion, and a desire for adventure, no matter how small?
  3. It troubles me that I was not carded at the grocery store when I was there during the Senior Hours. (And those hours are probably the reason for the light traffic. . . who else goes to Visalia at 5:45 a.m.??)
  4. Many of the bulk bins at Winco are back! These are the ones overhead that require pulling a lever rather than the ones below that provide a scoop so you can reach in the barrel and gather your own food.
  5. The library sent me a notice that I have 2 books due today. Well, yes, indeed, they have been due since March, but the drop-box is locked. But maybe the notice means the library will be reopening soon!
  6. I started a new project that will be on my blog next week.
  7. A drawing student came to my home, set up her own table and chair in my driveway, and we had a lesson. This worked because it wasn’t hot this week. No photos – I often live my life without documenting it, particularly when it involves other people. 
  8. Here is an article that explains how viruses are spread, describing which behaviors are high or lower risk: The Risks
  9. Here is an article (long, helpful) about the unintended consequences of the shut down: SJVSun.com
  10. Farewell-to-Spring wildflowers are thick around Kaweah Lake: beautiful pinky-lavender flowers that make me sad. The green is gone and the heat is on its way.

P.S. The reason it troubled me to not be carded is that I wanted people to say “You couldn’t possibly be a senior!!” Vanity, vanity, all is vanity. . .

Questions

 

  1. Why in a town called Three Rivers do people buy water?
  2. Why do people wear masks when they are alone in their own cars?
  3. Why does IHeartRadio play the same commercials as many as five times in a row?
  4. Why do people only return phone calls after you’ve given up waiting for them and have left the room (or the phone)?
  5. Why do people tailgate?
  6. Why is there so much conflicting information about The Virus?
  7. Why do I knit faster when I think I might run out of yarn?
  8. What happens to worn out batteries on electric cars?
  9. WHAT AM I GOING TO WORK ON NOW THAT MY COMMISSIONS ARE COMPLETED??

I’ll figure out something. Always have.