Blog

Like the new background? I'm still searching for "the look" of the blog. It's a little girly, a little dramatic and hopefully easy on the eyes. Just like me. Hehe. I've watched a bazillion tutorials on how to customize blog stuff but I cannot for the life of me figure out how to center the header. Anyone know?

The blog has been a work in progress for a while. For at least a year, I have felt like I should write. I have a degree in English Literature and spent many years writing. Writing papers, writing fiction, writing reviews, writing letters, writing ads. I had an opportunity to write for a monthly publication a few years back but didn't feel qualified and passed it up. Dumb, dumb move. This blog has become a way for me to polish my rusty writing skills.

I have always enjoyed writing. When I was a kid, I wrote and illustrated stories all of the time. I even bound 1 of my books by sewing up the cardboard back with yarn and covered it with floral fabric and ribbon. Most of my stories were about Native Americans living on the shore who ate abalone. I think I just liked the word abalone. Still do actually. I knew I loved literature but never knew I could devote my college years studying it. A great advisor suggested that I invest my time in college studying what I loved instead of learning a trade.....actually, this advice seems kind of stupid now that I think of it. I studied, I learned, and I wrote.

Then I graduated and had nothing left to read or write about. Let me rephrase: I had nothing left required to read or write about. I felt empty and useless. I had a great job and was pretty fulfilled at it but I didn't have the excitement and the pressure of having 3 huge papers to complete over a weekend. You know you're a nerd when research papers tickle your fancy. I tried to make every job assignment that required writing like a homework project and write my heart out over notices to vacate or internet advertisements. It wasn't quite the same.

Somewhere along the way, I gave up a dream of writing anything. I stopped thinking up witty emails and I quit editing my Facebook bio to sound just like me. The most creative writing I was doing was on greeting cards. My mom gets the best notes from me in cards. I'm her creative child. And then I started the blog. I love having a project and an outlet for the words arranging and rearranging themselves in my head. And I love getting new followers/readers. It keeps the pressure on high for me to know that people other than my friends are reading. Sometimes knowing that my husband is reading makes me completely self-conscious. I just want him to think I'm smart. What if he thinks the blog is dumb? Oh I couldn't deal with that. 


So I have the blog now. I don't really know what my focus is or where it is going. I hope to inspire and encourage, but mostly I just write. Some of the topics are not interesting. Some of the formatting is wonky and drives me CRAZY. But I love having the readers and comments and opportunity to hone my skill. And until I find the perfect background and figure out how to center the darn header, my writing will have to be enough to represent the "feel" of the blog.