Don’t have a lot to say today, but I did want to note the 5th birthday of my blog, All the Pages Are My Days!! Like a lot of bloggers (but not Doc and Dave, my original blog heroes*), I no longer try to post every day. I do post when I have something to say, and that’s working well for me.
The blogging medium is a powerful one. With very little effort, one can put up a very functional site, and more importantly, can update it whenever there’s a need. As a result, I actually have 4 blogs in total:
All the Pages (The one you’re currently reading, updated every 2-5 days.)
::luminosity:: (The light within, my photoblog. Updated every 4-5 days with a new image)
Little Sweden, USA (A blog about Lindsborg, usually updated at least once a week with the Lindsborg Update (which is also available as a podcast.))
Midsummer’s Day (a blog about Lindsborg’s Midsummer’s Day celebration, updated as appropriate.)
I’ve grown a lot as a result of blogging. When I was younger I thought about becoming a writer, but the closest I had come was never missing a chance to contribute to our department newsletter. I once went 10 years without missing an issue! Anyway, though I now see how far I have to go in terms of becoming a good writer, I have made some progress and would now list writer among my avocations.
I would also credit blogging for facilitating my development in the web technologies area. I’ve become technically proficient in a number of areas that I was directly exposed to as a result of blogging and these skills have dovetailed quite nicely with opportunities at work where I’ve been able to leverage what I’ve learned as a result of my blog activities.
Finally, there’s the whole social aspect of blogging. I’ve met, both online and in real life, countless people that I would have never known if it weren’t for blogging. I currently keep track of a few dozen blogs (thankfully, folks *don’t* post every day!) and the variety of insights and perspectives I gain is invaluable.
Related to that, I’m fascinated by the visitors to my sites, wondering, for example, if someone views a recipe I’ve posted, “did they make that dish tonight? did they enjoy it?” There’s no way to know who my visitors are (unless they tell me; come on, don’t be shy, post a greeting in the comments!), but I can tell what pages folks view. My infrequent posts about Yorkies are the most popular, and there’s also a lot of seasonality and topicality regarding what drives visitors to the site. (People search for Maui in the spring, and I got a lot of hits for Mission Accomplished in early May.)
And so, for not having much to say, I’ve taken quite a few words to get here. That’s something I didn’t realize about non-goal oriented writing … if you let it, your writing goes where it goes, and you really don’t know what you have to say till you’ve said it.
In honor of the occasion, I flickr’d up a Creative Commons licensed birthday cake photo to share:
Thanks to razzlefrazzle for the image.
* Jeneane was also one of the first bloggers I started reading regularly; like many of us, she’s now an occasional poster, well worth reading!