Why I am a bad blogger

"Twitter - it only works if you reply."

I can't remember who said it, but it's true. I'm not very good at the replying bit. The same goes for blogging. It's better if you actually interact with the bloggers you read and leave comments. I'm not very good at that. It doesn't help that I do most of my blog reading via Google Reader these days. That means an extra click at least to get to a point where you can comment. On most of the blogs I read, I'm a lurker who never comments. I suspect this is bad blogging etiquette.

My problem is, I'm shy and I don't like networking. Twitter particularly is like one big public networking event. To get anything out of it beyond shouting your witticisms (or more likely, that weird dream you had and what you ate for lunch) into the aether, you need to reply to other people's tweets and start an interaction. I find it intimidating to reply to people I haven't actually met. Even the people I've been following for years via their blogs and now Twitter. I'm too shy to say hello.

Of course, I should know by now that good things can happen when you interact on the internet. That's how I met my husband, after all. My sister started a blog, partly on my recommendation and it changed her life. She lost weight. She went to the US for 3 months to stay with someone she'd never met. Crazy! She still spends time interacting with other bloggers and etsy-ites on forums. I think she reads fewer blogs than I do, but she interacts more.

So, what I am to do? Learn from my sister and my past good experiences. After all, Rob was a random internet stranger when he made that first comment. Now he's my husband. I'm so glad he commented and even more glad I replied. Who knows what other good things might happen if I say hello to people I read and follow more often?

hello there!

I'm not dead! I've just been a bit busy. In the last er, 6 months since I last posted I have been mostly finishing my MA dissertation. It's done and I handed it in a month ago. Now I'm unemployed and should have a little more time on my hands for blogging and generally being sociable online.

Things I could blog about:

We've been married over 18 months and I still haven't finished blogging through our wedding pics. Anyone still interested?

Pretty pictures from our holiday in March, Portmeirion in April and my birthday trip to Colchester Zoo (where I met this gorgeous giraffe).

Spending time at L'Abri at the beginning of October.

Church ups and downs.

Knitting.

Auntie-dom (soon to be doubled).

Life, moods and reading.

Any requests?

Compare and contrast

contrast, originally uploaded by the pig wot flies.

Here we are on holiday in Cornwall last month. This was a particularly foggy day towards the beginning of the week, when I made Rob drive all the way from our cottage near Helston to Penzance (which was less exciting than I thought it would be) then to Land's End in the fog, and back again and then go on a (short) muddy walk to find an ancient village. He was not impressed. But I enjoyed myself.

More pictures from our holiday here .

underwater

fish please? a video by the pig wot flies on Flickr.

Last week we were on holiday in Cornwall, celebrating our first wedding anniversary. (yay!). I have lots of pretty pictures and a few videos to show you. Here's a taster.

zesty

Today's good things include this plate of fruit. I made St Clements cupcakes (from Red Velvet Chocolate Heartache) and these were the oranges and lemons I used. Shown after I zested them for the cake mixture and before I juiced them (actually I only used half a lemon and half an orange) for the juice.

The cupcakes are coming with me tonight when I go out to meet up with knitters and spinners and spend the evening being knitty and friendly.

There's roast lamb roasting in the oven, along with roast potatoes, butternut squash and carrots.

Rob's been working at home and it's been good. We've not got in each other's way, but it was good to have lunch together.

The living room is a little cleaner than it was this morning. I bleached the sink (which I should clearly do more often).

I saw an image I liked - the fruit on a plate - and I took some photos. I like doing this.

good thursday

Today's good things:

The day started grey but ended sunny. Spring is coming!

I got some useful admin stuff done before lunch.

This afternoon's group therapy session went well. We had a new person in the group, which can sometimes be a bit unsettling, but I think the newbie will be OK. I had a wonder again about why I go to therapy and whether I still need it. I think I do. If nothing else it gets me out of the house and talking to people. :) I find it a good place to talk through things that are stressing me out or making me sad. There's also the rest of the group - I turn up for them as much as for myself. I'm going to keep going for the next while. It's good for me to think through whether it's still useful or whether it's time to stop. One day, it'll be time to stop.

Rob's working from home tomorrow. (This is a mixed thing. Sometimes I find it hard when he's here during the day when I'm used to being on my own. But sometimes I spend the day looking forward to him coming home so I can have some meaningful human contact.)

I started reading A Box of Matches by Nicholson Baker. It's a typical Baker book - little vignettes in one life. I think I like it. I like the duck, Greta. Rob's talked in the past about wanting a duck. It might be fun to have one, one day when we have a garden.

ETA: I'm getting my lost hat back! I lost my favourite handknit hat (this one) a few months ago. Someone at church thought she'd seen it. (In fact, I did't realised I'd lost it until she asked if I'd lost a hat. I knew I couldn't find it, but assumed it was at home somewhere). I finally followed it up with an email today (with the pic) and she has my hat and I'm going to get it back on Sunday. :)

good stuff

I've been a bit down in the dumps recently. When that happens, it's easy for me to view everything negatively and forget all the good things in my life. I'm much better at remembering negative things than good things. Rob keeps pointing this out to me and suggested I blog about what happened today, so that I remember it. I then thought it would be good if I did that _every_ day so I remember the good things. We'll see how long that lasts, but it's a good idea.

So. Today I had a meeting with my supervisor. Beforehand I was nervous and felt braindead and stupid. Actually, it was a very useful meeting, she was really pleased with what I'd written and gave me loads of ideas for how to extend and improve on what I had written. My supervisor is in fact lovely, always encouraging and really interested in my dissertation topic and in what I have to say about it.

So, yeah, good things. :)

time flies like a banana

My mac screen saver is set up to show me pictures from iPhoto from the last twelve months. It seems to do this in order, starting twelve months ago, which means I get a reminder of what I was doing this time last year (right now, lots of pictures from my hen night and our wedding :) ).

Today I noticed this one:



Taken 28 February 2010 and titled "We love you!". I assume Debs took it on her phone and then messaged it to me. It reminded me of this, posted ten days ago. Compare and contrast! Same grin on Debs' lovely mug, even bigger in the more recent one. But Sophia's gone from cute gormless baby stares to big cheeky toddler grin.

I love my (not quite as squeaky but still sooo cute!) cheeky niece!

I think I've forgotten how to blog

I can manage serious pre-planned posting like the wedding story (albeit intermittently) but I've not done regular off the top of my head blogging and thoughts for ages. Little things that occur to me go usually turn into tweets. Big philosophical/anxiety/depressed thoughts go into emails to my husband (mostly) and are too painful to share publicly. (Mostly they're momentary panics which I don't necessarily want to be on the interwebs for the rest of time. :) So that leaves, er, not sure.

I do have things to say sometimes. I think I could do with the discipline of writing more. If only to get in practice for the dissertation writing that IS GOING TO HAPPEN this year. So I thought I'd try.

It occurs to me that different places/means of writing have different psychological weight or depth of meaning to me. I'm supposed to be writing a list of things I want to talk about at a meeting with my supervisor on Friday (hence the procrastination of blogging). I could write this however I want. However. Typing into a Word document (well, the Open Office equivalent, I am a Mac person, after all) is too definite for notes. I have to mean what I say on a properly laid out page. Writing on paper is less scary, especially in biro. It's a scribbled note, noone expects it to look finished and the words are therefore less final, more tentative. I can be tentative in biro. Probably more so in pencil. The computerised equivalent is TextEdit. I find myself using TextEdit a lot to make notes on papers I'm reading, or to-do lists, or notes to myself. My desktop is littered with them. They're the computer equivalent of the reams of scribbled notes that are the precursor to a first draft - some complete sentences, mostly scraps, nagging questions, instructions to myself. It intrigues me that I find the scribbled note, in hard or soft form, easier to write than the finished paragraph, or at least anything that gives the appearance of a finished piece.

I think it's about confidence. If I don't have confidence it what I'm writing, I'm reluctant to commit it to something that looks finished. So, if you find me writing on newspaper in wax crayon, then I've lost it completely and have no confidence in my work. Although, at least I'd be writing. So maybe, even if it's a displacement activity, blogging is a good sign.

The pig wot got married - the entrance

When you attend a wedding, you seem to be waiting around ages for the bride to arrive and things to start. When you are the bride, it all happens very quickly. You stand around outside for a while, then in the entrance waiting for the music to begin. Then suddenly, you're walking up the aisle, trying not to go too fast but also wanting to get to the end where your very-soon-to-be husband is waiting for you.



This bit of our wedding is definitely a blur to me. I remember waiting, I remember suddenly realising the music had started and it was time to go.



I remember standing next to Rob and him whispering in my ear "You look wonderful!". I whispered back "So do you!" and he did - a tailcoat, waistcoat and cravat suits him. :) I barely remember the walk in between. This isn't the best photo technically of our walk, but it best captures the feeling - smiling so hard with happiness, looking forward to catch my Rob's eye, my Dad smiling beside me, everything else a blur.



This photo is from during the first song, I think. Barney said some opening words and then we sang. My bouquet was handed over to my bridesmaids, my Daddy flipped back my veil and we praised God together singing Come People of the Risen King.

Photos by Dave Routledge.

The pig wot got married - arriving

It's been a while since I wrote any wedding recaps! We've now been married for just over ten months and I'd like to get the story of our wedding day blogged before our anniversary. When I last blogged about the wedding, we'd just set off from home in a lovely white bug called Billy. We had plenty of time! I was keen to get going and get married. We took a good leisurely route from home, detouring a little (by accident) and still managed to hit town much earlier than we needed to. I didn't intend to be late (in fact Rob had threatened not to marry me if I turned up late!) but in this case, I didn't have much choice. The party of bridesmaids, brothers-in-law, small niece and mother of the bride took longer to get to the church than expected. My dad and I in the bug waited in a layby outside Trinity, fielding phoned updates as to where they were and being photographed by passing tourists. We also met My Granddad, aunt and cousins who were a bit lost and directed them to the church.

At last, they were there. It was time! We had the roof down by then and drove slowly along Trinity Street, round the corner and slowly down the shopping street leading to the church, with smiles and waves and the odd camera lens click all the way. It's so much fun being a bride and arriving in style!



Hayley helped us out of the car and said she'd see us later. I think I was too busy grinning and wanting to get things going to remember much of what was going on.



Dave lined us up outside the church for a few shots of with me and the maids. We're all grinning, even Barney, waiting in the porch to lead us in and get us married!



We lined up outside the church porch (a couple of really late-comers had to squeeze past us - you know who you are!) and Barney led us in a quick prayer. I took my Daddy's arm and waited for the music (the Prelude from Bach's 1st Cello Suite) to begin.

Photos by Dave Routledge.