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Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Getting up the nerve to go live

This is blog entry #4 and I'm sitting here wondering when I'll get up the nerve to go public with this whole thing instead of it just being my own personal diary.

If you know anything about me, you'll know I'm a deadline-oriented person. Also a bit of a procrastinator - ok, a HUGE procrastinator - which is why I'm just now starting this whole blog journey about six years after I first started toying with the idea. So I guess I need to just set myself a deadline.

But the problem with self-imposed deadlines is that they are too easily moved for an endless number of inconsequential little reasons.

  • I don't have enough content yet! I need to write just one or two more entries. THEN I can go live.
  • I need to add visual interest. Gotta pick out photos to add, and THEN I can go live.
  • I need to talk to the Big Guy and make sure he knows I'm going to be talking about him.
  • Things are REALLY busy at work this week. I'll go live this weekend.
And my personal favorite...
  • It's not perfect yet.
Did I mention I'm also a perfectionist? Yeah. Totally.

For instance, I decided to start playing with adding free stock images to my blog. Like the one below. But you see what I have to put below the photo? Giant horsey attribution line. Gag.

It's not perfect yet.

Stock Photography: Homework Picture. Image: 223552
© Photographer: Johnlric | Agency: Dreamstime.com

Saturday, July 27, 2013

None of their damn business

I know I want to make a go of this whole blog thing, but I'm struggling to find my niche. Do I want to be just another recipe blog? No. But is anyone interested in reading about my hum-drum daily life? And do I really want to put all that out there anyway? No and no.

So I started trolling blogs on BlogHer for inspiration. I found something interesting while there. Something that strikes a nerve with me and I find constantly irritating me in myriad places - from magazines to television to, now, blogs. There are nine sub-categories under the "Family" heading. Not one is for DINKs (that's "double income, no kids") or otherwise childless (by choice or otherwise) couples. However, under "Work/Life" there is a Childfree sub-category. I think, great! Until I start scanning the posts there. Over half of them are from either parents talking about childfree couples, singles, people who've lost their children, or people who are currently childfree but are completely focused on trying to have children. Then, about 75% of the remaining half are trying to defend their position as childless by choice because of the near-constant vilification of DINKs by the parent crowd. ARGHHHH!! 

So maybe my niche is DINKs in the Kitchen? I dunno. What I do know, though, is that this is a minority that needs to start standing up for itself. We need to start providing resources for others like us, and we need to make the parent population out there understand that childfree couples are not deficient or cold or selfish or pitiful or secretly envious of them. We simply choose to live a different lifestyle than they do and we wish to do so without judgment from others...because it's none of their damn business why we live this lifestyle. Sometimes it's a conscious choice and other times it's not. But it is always, first and foremost, none of anyone else's damn business.

Wednesday, July 17, 2013

It's the little things

Last week, after two days with no Internet at home (first world problems) waiting for a Time Warner service man to come to the house and it still not being fixed when he left, I dug deep to find my inner geek and headed out to Best Buy in search of a new modem and some home networking advice.

I met the most awesomely helpful little dude at Best Buy who convinced me to try just one more signal booster to go with my new modem and the new wireless router I bought a couple months back. I went home with all my *expensive* new toys and set about trying to figure out how to hook it all up by myself without going on a shooting spree.

The dogs were there for moral support, but as usual were otherwise completely useless. I've got to say, the most painful part of the whole process was sitting on hold with Time Warner for nearly an hour. If you know me, you know that patience is NOT my strong suit. The Big Guy came home in the middle of the adventure and he made me look like Job in that department. But I got the new modem all hooked up and we were back in business. So I let the Big Guy take over and set up the booster. Within minutes I was standing in the middle of my family room with full wifi bars showing on iPad and iPhone.


The Big Guy got quite a kick out of my extreme happy dance. But come on, this was SIX YEARS in the making! So the moral of the story is...don't give up. Dig deep and find that inner determination to fix that one little thing that's been making life more difficult for you. Sometimes it's not really as scary as you've convinced yourself it would be.

Tuesday, July 9, 2013

Learning to live again

I have a project I should be getting started on, but what am I doing? Writing my first blog post.

Nearly a year and a half ago, I posted on Facebook that I was toying around with the idea of blogging. An acquaintance offered to help me get started, but I declined. "I'm too busy." That's been my mantra for the last three years. And at that time it really was true. But this weekend I realized that it's not really true. I'm not always "too busy." It's just become a convenient excuse for getting out of things I don't want to do and for being a horrid time manager.

Recently some things have happened in my life that have granted me more free time than I previously had. I'm trying to get myself motivated to take control of my life again and start being a better housekeeper, a better wife and a more productive employee. But it's hard, yo.

In the midst of all this, I'm trying to learn to live again. I remember the first few years the Big Guy and I were married, I had time to do nearly everything I wanted to do. My house was tidy and clean. Laundry was done and put away. I read books...often. I saw at least one of my girlfriends almost daily. On the weekends, my girlfriends and I would cook and bake and play. Sometimes on weeknights too. If I sat down to watch TV, I often worked on a project simultaneously - copying down recipes, doing cross-stitch, organizing photos.

So why don't I do any of this anymore? Why is everything such a chore? I'm pretty sure depression has something to do with it, but I refuse to go to the doctor, who will likely just want to give me a pill for it. So I'm going to start blogging. And cleaning house. And cooking up a storm. And taking walks. And reading books. And just trying to learn to live again in general.

Step one: Post this blog.