Thoughts and things untyped

When I sat down earlier today, I didn't explain part of the obstacle that has made blogging harder. Well, I suppose there are a few things.

1. My laptop has finally given up on my. (This is my personal laptop, I suppose I should clarify--though I don't really know why you need such clarification.) My iBook G4 has been my blogging tool of choice ever since I began in 2004. But sometime within the last year, as I'm sure I've mentioned at least once, something got jammed into the disk drive slot. And while the machine still functioned, the drive was constantly trying to eject whatever had been placed there by the kid(s). So, there was always a bit of whirring and clunking and general distress.

But I soldiered on, writing, surfing, and syncing from it. Until, around Christmas the whirring and clunking transformed into a serious, sustained grinding. And I knew that pulling the plug was inevitable. But all of my digital pictures and iTunes music was on that machine! What would I do?

Everything important was backed up onto a portable external drive, so I wasn't worried about losing stuff. But I didn't know how I would be able to move my iPhone dependencies away from its original home. And then someone at work reminded me that even if I was syncing my iPhone away from a Mac and onto the home PC, it was still looking at iTunes. And so I installed the latest version of iTunes on the PC and hooked up the separate hard drive.

After about thirty minutes of downloading, hey presto! The home computer was brimming with all of my songs and podcasts again. I have to made a few adjustments to get my contacts loading in the right place again, but it was painless. (I had mistakenly feared I would have to re-rip all of my disks.)

But then . . . the real test. Syncing the iPhone to a PC rather than a Mac. I just took the plunge and plugged it in. A few minor things were lost (nothing I can't reconfigure), but in a weekend night's work, I was back in business.

Yet, this transfer causes a problem, as we are all competing for use of the computer now. Sarah and Grace want to watch videos or play computer games. Hannah wants Mickey Mouse Clubhouse stuff. I want to blog, surf, and sync. Lynda also wants those same things. And there is only one machine, one keyboard, one chair.

Now, this shouldn't really affect me that much since my second problem about not blogging is . . .

2. I never have time to do it until the kids are asleep and then either I have to a.) work or b.) don't want to do anything at all, much less think of something interesting to say or construct something worth displaying. And that second impulse has been another problem.

3. In the past, I was sort of rigid about my blogging expectations. I tried not to do more than one post per day, figuring (stupidly, probably) that maintaining something of a schedule would encourage people to look for the site and establish expectations. I guess I thought that if I was throwing out small things all the time, who would possibly keep up? But doing one, larger thing on a more predictable basis would encourage constant viewership.

Now, I realize that my minuscule following probably doesn't deserve such "strategy." But you've gotta start somewhere and with some expectations, right? Yet, as work pressures and life made the schedule break down, any readership expectations dried up quickly, I'm sure. And then there was . . .

4. My Twitter account, which gave me a different digital outlet for quick "blog-like" hits and thoughts and ways to throw out links. As I have used Twitter more and more, my WWYG?! blog has suffered more and more. And I've tried to find ways to work the two together into a partnership of sorts, but I don't know how to do it effectively. And so that is part of my ongoing struggle. Not to mention the weird mystery of Tumblr. How might THAT work? (And yet, I know it would only make things worse, most likely.)

So, those are all reasons for why things have been challenging here on WWYG?! in recent months. And those are things I didn't have/take the time to write down this morning. But if I can loosen myself up a bit and not be so narrow minded in my posts, I'll be better at throwing down this stuff more often. It'll be longer than a tweet and more substantial than anything I want to say on Facebook.

Now . . . I've got to

1.) straighten up the kitchen and
2.) kick Sarah off the PC, so I can start prepping my photos for the upcoming Disney Day 2 post. (Really! It'll happen!)