Category: blogging

Value

Shamelessly stolen from Live From Silver City who stole it from NewMexiKen.

Herewith, the value of my little blog:


My blog is worth $5,080.86.
How much is your blog worth?

The paltry $5k is FAR more than I would have thought given the venerable NewMexiKen’s blog is worth some $27K. He’s been at his blog for four years! (by the way, HAPPY ANNIVERSARY! That’s a huge accomplishment).

I’m also celebrating a milestone of sorts. The post this morning regarding the Bonds swat into the history books represented my 100th post. I started this crazy thing in March, on St. Paddy’s day, to be exact. It seems I should have racked up more posts by now…but oh well, I still consider 100 posts to be an accomplishment. The days of staring at the screen with rampant writer’s block surely account for some of the gaps.

And then there are times like today when I’ve written four posts in advance….who knows about the mind of a blogger?

What’s an "e" among friends…..?

I love me some Arnold Vigil. I read his column in the ABQjournal all the time but have never blogged about him, mainly because he seems to say it all just right. I usually can’t even comment more, he got it and wrestled it to the ground with perfect words.

Mr. Vigil is the epitome of New Mexico to me, and reading his column makes me homesick. I usually need a hug after reading his hilarious stuff…..(heh!)

But I just had to put up something today. He wrote a column so spot on that I had to highlight it.

I believe the quote of the day is thus, “…it’s not that they didn’t teach me, it’s just that they taught me wrong.” A feeling shared, I’m sure, by the many victims, er, students of the vast New Mexico public school system.

Today Mr. Vigil takes to task those who forget that our chile comes with an e, not an i as in chili. Now…both chile and chili have value…I enjoy them both. And I’ve often enjoyed some chile on my chili….

This whole topic came up again in reference to that kerfuffle in Madrid, (briefly blogged here) where the folks in that small town didn’t take too kindly to some east coast outsider wanting to have a festival there (and capitalize on the popularity of the movie “Wild Hogs”.) The guy totally blew it (and forever marked himself an outsider) by dropping a big fat steaming “i” where once an “e” should be.

This quote has forever endeared Mr. Vigil to me (as I’ve ranted in these very pages about the “Christmas” issue):

“Personally, I was afraid that if they did spell chile the other way, they might have got our upstanding lawmakers to temporarily change the official state question as well. That’s right, “Red or Green?” would have changed that weekend to “Mustard or Mayo?”— much more palatable to the rest of our hamburger-eating nation. And the official answer, you ask? Why, “July 4th,” of course, a colorful splattering of both condiments, with maybe some Taco Bell hot sauce thrown in.”

Ha!

Note To Mr. Vigil: ORALE! You got it right, brotha!

: scowl :

I started this blog on March 17th, St. Patty’s day. And during that time, my job was so very utterly slow and monotonous that I was able to whip out my posts every day, usually before noon. A sense of pride filled me every day I hit the “publish” button and had my post done for the day. I felt like my “real” work was done, I’d posted, and then I could jet about and enjoy the day.

In the recent weeks, a lot of things have happened. My boss went to another group. My boss’ boss (the Director) went to another group. The tyranny that reigned in my organization came to an end. We are all like prisoners emerging from solitary confinement. We blink in the sunlight of our new Director, an amazing woman with both compassion and actual “soft” management skills. She’s already done wonderful things for us….including buying not one but TWO cakes.

CAKE!

Celebrations and dancing and cries of “we love the new mommy” abound.

But new Boss Lady comes with a price. She took on our team, but her boss, the Vice President (in what I’m sure is his infinite wisdom) said she didn’t get to shake off her old team. She had to take us on IN ADDITION. So Boss Lady is VERY busy. Which means delegation of work…..

Add to that a new company wide project that directly affects the small team that I manage, and suddenly, we are in the spotlight with A LOT of work to do.

I’m not sure how I feel about this, to be honest.

On the one hand, this is stellar for my group and possibly the advancement of my own career.

On the other hand, when things were quieter, I was actually devoting time to my creative work including this blog.

So now I have amazing work success but it’s not fulfilling.

A conundrum.

Meanwhile, my posts have gotten spotty at best and it TORTURES my over perfectionistic soul.

I can’t let go of my creative work. It fills my heart and soul. But I can’t let go of my day job. It fills my bank account and my refrigerator (and the bowl of the hungry feline that owns me).

Meanwhile….I’ve had to switch the balance of “business” Barbie from “artist” Barbie. We both have big boobs but one of us is *really* tired and discontented.

(Ok, comparing myself to Barbie is laughable…but roll with it….)

Unsure how to solve this. Watch these pages as I’m sure this will be a running theme….

Meanwhile….back to work. Grudgingly.

Yes, we have no post-anas….

We have no post-anas, tooooooday!

It’s a bad day when work gets in the way of your real life. That being said, watch this space because warm posty goodness will be coming your way soon enough.

Meanwhile, back to the Gods of Corporate who own my ass today and I’m not sure how I feel about that.

Wait, yes I am sure how I feel about that. It sucks. A lot.

Happy Anniversary!

It was one short month ago today that I began this blogtastic journey.

I can’t believe it’s *just* a month because it seems like much, much longer.

It all began on St. Paddy’s Day, March 17th with this post.

What have I learned in my 30 days as a blogger?

1) Blogging every single dingle day is a LOT harder than it looks

2) There is a great community out there of bloggers and some wildly smart people blogging some fantastically smart, wry, witty stuff. I am humbled by what’s out there.

3) I have a LOT to learn about the blogosphere, blogging and all the associated technologies. RSS feeds, vlogs and Flicker, OH MY!

4) There is such a thing as the blogger state of mind. Natalie on her kick ass blog Petroglyph Paradox nailed in perfectly in her April 14 post “Perceptions”:

“Sometimes, I wonder about the lives of my blogger buddies. I wonder how someone actually lives beyond the anecdotal words of their blog. I wonder if they experience the same smelly, downtime or wake up with a story in their head or if they too, drive down the road, see something, and then say to themselves, ‘I’m gonna blog about that.’ “

I do this all the time. See something and then think what angle I can take to blog about it. I have a tiny notebook in my purse crammed with snippets of thoughts. Many of which have made their way to these pages.

5) I have learned that I am a chicken. Only a few folks in my life know about this blog. I know soon I need to come out of the closet, so to speak, and tell my unsupportive family that despite my Clark Kent-ish day job…in reality, I’m a writer, I have a book on Amazon and I’m a blogger….and then deal with the consequences.

Baby steps.

6) My blog is just as valuable as anyone else’s blog. What I have to say matters. Even if only to me. And having the courage to put it out there actually does take courage.

7) Blogging is good therapy. Boy can I get some stuff off my chest!

8) The feeling of elation I get after completing the post for the day is as addictive (more so, actually) as any drug or drink I’ve ever known. That satisfied feeling is something I crave. (addiction number 2 is looking at the webtraffic statistics)

9) I’ve always said I work best under deadlines. Doing this every day and only missing one day which was then properly made up for and backdated has proven this to me. I thrive when I have a deadline. I do some amazing work. It’s why I kick butt at National Novel Writing Month.

10) When I set my mind to something…look out. It took mere days from deciding I wanted to do this to execution. It’s a fact of my personality I actually admire. Should serve me well in my continuing quest to be a writer that people actually pay to write.

So today is a day of celebration for me. I’ll blow out the candle on a celebratory cupcake and go nuts.

Thanks to all readers, your webtraffic brings me joy.