Part 1 of 4: In the sun

Three weeks. I haven’t managed to post in three weeks! The days really crept up on me like bad spandex this time, just a little more silently and stealthily. I’ve been doing my usual things, just a few more dozen of them than usual. So in exchange for my absence, I humbly offer you some beautiful butterflies and flowers today.

People think I must spend simply acres of time on the computer, due to my being a geek, and at work that’s true. But at home, outside of comics and digital manuscripts, I tend to avoid my computer. I wrestle the dog and cook and sew and since it’s summer, I’ve spent time sweating on edible plants and weedy trees outside. Also, lately, I’ve been building websites, which has taken up what little time I spend on the computer at home. Ironically, one reason I’ve neglected the blog writing is to create a new blog template. Hmm. Methinks I should remember Content Before Design.

I also just realized my third blogoversary was yesterday! I started my blog in 2007 after playing around with a bunch of short-lived and hopefully no longer extant websites and blogs. I was mostly practicing HTML and CSS. In the process I wrote various silly pages on trivia, ancient manuscripts, recipes, traveling, and other exercises in existentialism and futility. I recall writing something called the League of Extraordinary Monkeys at one point.

One day I put together a page on crafting, and it turned out I had more stuff to put on that page than any other page. So my next experiment was a crafting blog. I tried LiveJournal, Blogger and Typepad, but really they aren’t so much fun when you want to get your hands dirty. And at the time, I was all about doing the coding myself, all from scratch.  Actually, I’m still into that, and it takes forever. Anyway, I migrated to WordPress next and I’m still here.

My first few posts were random, and then I wrote about making beer. My dad and I made a batch of beer (which didn’t turn out at all) and I wrote about making it, and the ingredients, and all sorts of stuff. I took pictures. I made chemical diagrams. I did research. And it was awesome, because it was intellectually interesting, and I got to do something fun with my dad, and because of the blog I had a reason to record it in words and images. And now I have that memory preserved, like many others. I can go back and read all about the things I’d normally forget.

Anyway, I’ve uploaded pictures, an Im going to start updating about all the various things I’ve been doing since I wandered off into la-la land three weeks ago.  Like flaming dogs, and muslin, and tailoring, and more!

A few updatey type things

It’s been rather rainy and chilly here lately, which I’m enjoying very much, although it seems like everyone else just wants warm, sunny weather. Despite the frostiness, spring is soon to arrive. As evidenced the pictures gracing this post, which I took while walking to work one day after a night when it froze and even snowed. Leaves were damaged, but the flowers were undeterred.

I think it’s worth noting that I actually sat down and messed with the stuff (sidebar, pages, settings, etc.) on this blog the other night. I think some things hadn’t been futzed with since June 2007 when I started this blog, and others have stayed static since the redesign in October 2007.  I’d love to do another redesign, and restart the Index of Indie, but that will have to wait for available time, so I thought some tidying was in order. My blog’s making me feel a bit claustrophobic, it needs trimming. But I did like that I put the projects I’m working on in there.

Wesley graduated from the first round of obedience training last Monday. He is now an occasionally obedient dog. I’ve gotten mixed reactions about dog training – you all can rest assured, obedience training does not turn your dog into an automaton and there aren’t any choke collars involved. Our trainer Tara and co-trainer Amanda have been great, they love dogs, and they actually specialize in difficult, aggressive dogs, which Wesley is not. I love people who love animals, and don’t give up on them. Anyway, Wesley is still very much puppy-like and doggy. Just the other day he ate my wallet and license, the plastic on Jeff’s new tea mug, part of my shoe, the cheese crackers from a friend’s purse and an entire box of Kleenex. We are doing intermediate obedience training because Wesley enjoyed the classes so very, very much, him being an intelligent dog who likes people, activity and treats. I enjoy that he’s not chasing the poor cat as much, and that he’s ceased trying to dislocate my shoulder on walks.

I have sadly suffered cooking fail twice this week already, and it’s only Wednesday. On Valentine’s Day I did my usual and cooked Jeff dinner. The baked vegetable baklava turned out well, as did the saffron rice, however I … sort of melted the falafel. I used a recipe. I shouldn’t use recipes. The last time I made falafel I just invented it as I went and it turned out beautifully. Then tonight I tried to make red beans and rice – another recipe! – and burned the ever loving hell out of a dish I’m eminently familiar with and is only rice and beans, after all. I must be tired or something. I’m off my game.

I’ve been working really hard on my stack of crafting organizational items, and am proceeding quite satisfactorily. I’ll have some show-and-tell once I have some acceptable lighting. I am enjoying the time sewing very much. I should do this more often!

Meta CbN 3: Rise of the Machines

{Editor’s note: My occasional dyslexia strikes again. My title originally said CnB. Crafter Night By. Nice.}

As I wind this to a close, I have to thank all of you for your patience with my weird aside. In my life, I think it’s important to step back sometimes and consider what I’m doing. Why do I have this blog? What am I doing with it? Is it worth the time and energy? (Can you tell I’m an introvert? All this self-reflection nonsense.)

Part of why I reflect is self-preservation. I do internet work in a world that can feel hostile to technology, and here I am blogging and being a webmaster. Fact is, the most common comment people have said to me, in my years of techie/computer work, is that they dislike computers. The equivalent of going up to a teacher and telling them I dislike education because I’m not comfortable with it. I’m often frustrated by responses to work I do that are tinged with doubt, suspicion, and cynicism. It’s disheartening. I try to understand, but my long tenure, early start and love of learning new things means I know I don’t really get it. So I check myself sometimes – my motivations, my work, my responses – and see if I’m doing something I believe in. The truth is that what I really believe in is people, and communicating with them, and enabling them to do the best work they can do, and have fun too. A computer is nothing more than a tool that, when used right, can be amazing. Like a pencil, but more buttons.

So I’m finishing Merlin’s good blog ideas with the thought that what makes a blog good is that it’s human. It’s unique and expressive, it’s inconsistent, it has weird bumps, it’s obsessive and thoughtful, playful and complicated. Somebody really lives in that virtual house, and participates (give and take) in a community. With that,

• Good blogs are weird.

Blogs make fart noises and occasionally vex readers with the degree to which the blogger’s obsession will inevitably diverge from the reader’s. If this isn’t happening every few weeks, the blogger is either bored, half-assing, or taking new medication. — Merlin Mann

So, I guess this is about the time I’m vexing readers with my diverging obsessions? Mmm hmmm. Yeah. Guilty. And there’s the crafting for charity posts, and the index I ran out of time to update. And yes, my blog does make *ahem* fart noises that make me cringe (perhaps not so publicly as Stephen Fry, but still). To wit: the weird cat thing, the pet costumes, all the mistakes I’ve fessed up to, the occasionally grumpy post, the 7 months of one quilt. But at least we’ve established I’m not bored, half-assing or on new meds, right?

The fact is that I figure some people will roll their eyes at my Star Trek obsession, or think I’m silly for talking about controversy, or not care so much about charity, but if none of it were here, well, I guess I wouldn’t be able to do my first point (Good Blogs Have A Voice) very well, right?

• Good blogs make you want to start your own blog.

I don’t know that my blog will inspire anyone else, but I was inspired to start a really good blog by reading other blogs. I’ve read Wil Wheaton’s blog for years. I learned HTML in 1998 and had my own lame “blog” in the pre-blogging platform days. My husband also “blogged” pre-Blogger but was more consistent and had prettier websites. A friend of mine from high school had the first craft blog I ever saw (she created the Alien Illusion Scarf in the Stitch ‘n Bitch book). Then I found myself consistently reading the blog of a friend of my husband, and that made me think about consistently blogging. And then when I was in graduate school and sundered from my crafting, that I realized crafting was something more than a hobby and less than a career. So a year after quitting school, I threw up a WordPress blog and wrote about my dad and I making beer. So it began.

Last but not least.

• Good blogs know when to break their own rules.

My rule is that I only post about crafting. So.