Yikes! What have I done?

Panic!  That’s what I’m feeling right now.   I decided a couple of weeks ago that I wanted (and needed) to understand how blogging worked so what better way than to sign up for the 2011 WordCount Blogathon created by WordCount’s blogger Michelle Rafter.  You can find her blog here http://michellerafter.com/

By signing up, you commit to blogging once every day in May.  Seemed like a doable thing to me two weeks ago.  After all, I write daily as it is and Lord knows, I have an opinion on almost everything so why not, right?

Now that I’m a part of the blogathon’s Google group, I’m learning that there’s, well, a lot I need to learn.  Setting up my blog took quite a bit of time and it’s just a basic shell of a blog.  It certainly won’t win any design awards!  I’ve decided that for the time being my blog won’t have any gadgets or a “cool” factor because honestly, I don’t have time to figure all of that out right now.

Then came learning how to use Twitter.  I already had a Twitter account so how difficult could twitter be?  Ugh…I underestimated my knowledge yet again.  Aside from having to constantly delete my tweets and start over because I can’t seem to say what I want in 140 characters or less, I’ve also learned that you need to know how to use hasthtags and that you can do group “tweets” on TweetGrid, TweetChat or HootSuite. 

I haven’t even begun to figure out RSS feeds yet, and the fact that I’ll be on vacation four of the 30 days has my heart doing palpitations.

Panic?  That may be an understatement right now, but in about an hour I’ll join my first “Twitter chat” with my blogathon groupies in preparation for beginning the blogathon next week.  I’m hoping that by 1pm, my anxiety level will have lowered. 

And since misery loves company, feel free to join along with me.  http://michellerafter.com/2011/04/18/2011-wordcount-blogathon-blog-every-day-you-could-win-these-prizes/

Our baby turns 21 today!

Our baby turns 21 today!  Wow.  Besides feeling old, I look at her, and I can’t help but think back to when I was turning 21. 

I remember that time quite well because it was a rather difficult time in my life.  I was midway through my third year of college and still unsure of what my major would be. 

Feeling completely lost, I stumbled into the college’s counselor’s office and told him my story of woe.  The counselor was a wonderful, caring man who helped me to realize that the field of communications is where I belonged.  After that, I was home free.  College was a breeze.  I began posting straight A’s and soon my deplorable GPA was on the rise.

I graduated a year-and-a-half later with not one, but two majors, and a respectable GPA.

On one hand, I think it’s a shame I didn’t seek out guidance earlier in my college years.  I would have found my path sooner which would have saved me a ton of grief – not to mention the stress I gave my parents during those troubling years.

On the other hand, I’m a believer that the trials and tribulations we go through are truly those character building moments.  They define who we are, and although they certainly are difficult to go through at the time, looking back, it’s clear that they are milestones and important battle scars.

Welcome to my blog!
Yes, I've decided to give "blogging" a shot.  Why, you may wonder?  Well, it's really a natural fit when you consider that I'm sitting at the computer pretty much 24/7, and I do get paid to write part-time.  Plus, my background is communications, and I've already jumped in to other social marketing and networking activities like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn...so...while I'm no mathematician, the way I see it is that this all equals to "give blogging a shot."

I've actually been thinking about trying this for a while, but they say "you should blog about something you are passionate about."  Hmmm... when I think about that what I'm passionate about, I have that look on my face like I did when I got caught daydreaming in grade school.  You know...that deer in headlights look.  That's me thinking about my passion.

I have to admit that I'm devilishy jealous of anyone who has always had a passion or knows what their passion is.  The people who say, "Oh, I've wanted to be a (fill in any profession here) since I was a kid," well, gee, yippy skippy, I'm happy for you.  But me, I can't think of a thing I'm truly passionate about.  I mean, I like a lot of things.  Probably too many things.  For example, I like to sing, but I'm no Celine Dion; and I like to dabble with my computer, but I'm no Mark Zuckerberg.  I like to play tennis and pickle ball, but not enough to talk about them in a blog.  And...there's lots of things in my daily life that I enjoy such as working out, writing, taking care of our dog, trying new recipes, and baking, but am I "passionate" about any of them?  Uhhhh, NO! 

So, after much thinking, I thought....well, I am semi-passionate about certain topics that come up so why not just start with that?  My perspective on...well....things!  Riveting, huh?  But that's the story behind this blog and that's where we'll leave it for now.