everybody shout it

For the last little while, my personal challenge has been to try to write something here, every day, during the week.  That sort of fell off the rails the past few days for a number of reasons.  Writing about why I haven't written feels like it will help me get my blogging butt back in gear again.

1.  Work.  Things have been pretty busy at work and normally, I try to take a little break for lunch every day and I write at that time.  That hasn't happened during the past few days I've been in the office.

2.  Fall Clean Up.  I took Friday off last week and missed another lunch hour.  I'm trying to use up some vacation time which I can't really carry over.  I spent the day, well a good sized chunk of it, either outside in the garden, cutting stuff down and raking other stuff up or getting some chores done inside the house.  My garden was overdue to be "put to bed" for the winter.  It looks great now and we lugged 5 large bags of yard waste to the municipal composting place on the weekend.

3.  Doggie Time.  Recently, we decided to be more vigilent about walking the dogs on a regular schedule.  If I'm honest, they are kind of lazy, so are we so it's easy to just take short walks, or toss a ball around in the yard.  That's not enough exercise for them or us.  With the time change, we're trying to get in a longer walk each night after work, before dinner.  That's shifted our evenings around a bit but I kind of like it.  The dogs seem happy about it and we're enjoying it.  I do find that now, after dinner, I feel like doing more than just plopping on the couch.

4.  Housework.  I hate it, a lot.  It needs to get done though and I'm always happy when I come home to a clean house.  With my new found post-dinner energy, I'm doing one biggish housework each night before I head to the computer or TV.  By doing this, it is freeing up more time on the weekend to be outside running around with Mark and the dogs.

Looking at that list, I realized that I can probably squeeze a little writing time in between the walking thing and our dinner.  That's what I've done tonight.  Feels like the walk will help clear my head and hopefully, inspire me to write something, anything, each week day.  I figure the more I do it, the better it'll be.  I hope I'm right.

On that happy note, I'll leave you with a little gem from The Beat.  I've been listening to them a lot just recently.  Forgot how much I used to love them and am really enjoying them again.

have a day

I really wanted to write something today and post it here. I'm trying to write more and post more, even if it's boring or silly, it's a habit I'd like to establish.

So today was bananas. I just got home about 10 minutes ago and normally I'm home by 4:15. Work was busy and I'm happy to help out but, this cut into my serious writing time.

 So, alas, I shall share a video with you instead, in keeping with the theme of "it was twenty years ago today" from Friday:

It's impossible to frown while you're experiencing the Spree and once again, I'd like to remind you about their Kickstarter projoect. I wrote about it last month and would encourage you to check them out and support them if you can.

faking it?

A few months ago, I either got an email or saw something via twitter about a blogger conference in Toronto. Now, I hear about blogger conferences all the time, the big ones in the states that some of the writers of my favourite blogs go to. I never considered going to one because, over the past few years anyway, I've not exactly been "blogging it up” and thought I’d feel out of place around actual, real bloggers.

Something about the Toronto conference intrigued me though so I looked into it. The location was certainly handy to me, the price was something I could actually afford and it was for women so it held a lot of appeal. When I attempted to register (only a couple of days after tickets went on sale), I found out that it was sold out. I decided to register for the waiting list. Figuring that I would never be offered a spot, I promptly forgot about it.

Fast forward to yesterday. I get an email from the conference letting me know that a spot has opened up and they will hold it for me for 48 hours. Panic quickly hit me. Could I still afford it? Would I be able to get away from work? Should I even go considering I’ve written maybe 3 posts this year? After discussing it with Mark, I thought I’d just jump in with both feet and sign up. So I did. This morning. Yikes!! It’s called Blissdom Canada 2011 and this is the 2nd year that they have held it.

If I’m honest, I miss writing here. I did pretty regularly for a long time and then just sort of stopped. I blame twitter and facebook. Once I found facebook (I think in 2006) and twitter (again, I think 2007 so a while ago), short status updates became so easy that I got lazy and ignored my blog.

Since that time, I moved it onto blogspot for my own sanity and ease of use. I thought it was easier, I’d be more inclined to write. This has not been the case so far. I’ve been doing this, or something like it, under this banner (if not this URL) since around 2000 (I think, it may have been 2001). My hope for the conference is that it’ll inspire me to get back at it. Maybe it’s working already, after all, I’m writing today. Yay, go me!