blog — Page 15

Paring Down

October 4, 2017 at 9:29 am by Claudia

What did Don and I do before FaceTime? Well, we talked on the phone like everyone else, but since this has been a year of a lot of time spent apart, though late to the game, we have enthusiastically embraced FaceTime. Seeing his face grounds me, as does hearing his voice. He has a great voice. I just finished a session with him before he headed to rehearsal.

On Sunday, the cast flies to New Orleans. They will be teching the show there. Not a bad place to put on a show, right?

Blogging update: Yesterday, after having given it a lot of thought, I deleted the book blog, Just Let Me Finish This Page.

Yes, I did. I hadn’t posted there for 6 months. 6 months! I found I was feeling guilty about it, but not really wanting to maintain the blog. I haven’t been writing as many reviews – just a few lately through TLC Book Tours, and I post those on this blog. There are many books I could review as I get offered advanced copies and I still might review them, but if I do, I’ll do it here.

The fact is, maintaining more than one blog is a lot of work. And I find that I am less and less inclined to do that. Maybe it is related to the fact that I no longer feel any ambition in that arena. (Thank goodness!) I love my blog, and I love posting every day. I am happy with what it now is, and feel no need to get more readers or have it be anything other than my little journal here on the Web. I found myself feeling tremendous pressure to read for the sake of reviewing and then feeling guilty because I wasn’t doing that.

I want to read because I love to read. At my own pace. For myself.

And the blog was linked to this blog on my host and I no longer wanted to worry about spam and hacking attempts or worry that someone would hack into this blog via JLMFTP. It takes too much energy and dealing with that kind of thing on this blog is more than enough.

So, it’s gone. I feel a twinge of sadness, but only a twinge. Since I haven’t posted in so long, you would probably not even notice its absence, but I wanted you to know, nevertheless. And if you do have it on your blog list, you can remove it.

The only reason my other blog, Through a Lens Daily, is still up is because it’s on Blogger and I can just leave it there. I also use it to catch up on other blogs through the blog list on the sidebar. I haven’t posted there in years!

One girl. One blog. And there you have it.

Happy Wednesday.

On Tuesday

October 3, 2017 at 9:44 am by Claudia

It takes a bit longer each morning for the light to sneak its way into the kitchen and living room. It’s colder, too, and I grab my shawl when I come downstairs. It’s that time in the fall when the mornings are cold (yes, I caved and turned on the heat) and the afternoons are warm and sunny. The seasonal change has definitely made its presence known here.

I deliberately stayed away from the TV news yesterday until the evening news came on. One must be informed, of course, but I also have to find moments and pockets of peace in my day. But, oh, my heart breaks for those who are suffering in this senseless tragedy, those who have lost loved ones, those whose lives will never be the same.

And, I don’t want to hear another politician who gets money from the NRA issue a statement about ‘love and prayers.’ If you ‘love,’ then show us that love by taking action.

I spent a lot of time working on the blog yesterday. Some plugins weren’t performing well – still aren’t, but I’m trying to remedy that. Because of a php update (don’t ask me to explain – I can’t) some of the plugins I use stopped working correctly. One of those was the plugin I use for Comment Replies. Many of you were trying to leave a comment and getting a message that it wasn’t working. It was, but who wants to go through that every time? I was getting the same message when I tried to reply to your comments. Plugins are the way in which WordPress sites can be modified and enhanced. The problem with them is that some developers stop updating them and they no longer work as they should. For some reason, comment reply plugins seem to suffer from this more than others. I finally found a new one that works, but if you’re use to seeing your name and email already there when you go to make a comment, you’ll have to re-enter it. More work being done today and I then I hope that’s it for a while.

Sometimes maintaining this blog is a pain in the tush.

Impressionistic early morning morning glory.

Happy Tuesday.

Off and Running

August 1, 2017 at 8:45 am by Claudia

I’m afraid I am low on photos for today’s post. Everything I shot (albeit very quickly) yesterday was blurry! I was blurry myself as I worked in the kitchen cleaning walls and cleaning the wood floor around the stove, which has a grease build up that I am having the hardest time eliminating. I swear I’ve been scrubbing it every day for over a week! I’ve googled, I’ve tried all the suggestions, but still can’t eliminate it entirely.

New rules for new stove: spatter guards, which we used to use and had somehow stopped using, less oil (Don tends to use too much), clean up every night after using the stove – well, we do that anyway, but more extensive cleanup. Maybe, eventually, a hood. Two questions: Do you have a hood and does it really help with all of that? And do you have any suggestions as to cleaning the wood floors?

In the meantime, I have to start work on the script today, so after I finish writing this post, I’m headed upstairs to the office for Act One of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. And then more cleaning. We want to paint that wall before I leave so that it’s all set for the eventual delivery and installment of the stove.

(Like I needed something else to do before next Thursday!)

It’s getting hot again here – and humid – so I’m also spending a big chunk of time watering the plants and the memorial garden and chicken wire fence garden, which can really get hit by the sun. I am reminded that I have to write all of this down for Don – instructions on watering, instructions on how to make up the bed. Not that he doesn’t know how to make up a bed, but our California King involves putting the blanket on in a certain way, and certain pillowcases go on certain pillows. You understand. Oh, and instructions as to the house plants.

I was thinking this morning about how, during the course of my almost ten years of blogging, I have gone through so many stages: starting out on Blogger, making the decision to insert some modest ads, moving to WordPress, for a brief time, obsessing about income for the blog and making it a money maker, abandoning that eventually as something I wasn’t interested in or even remotely committed to, and now, taking the amount of ads down to just a few. I have all the income I need from the blog – enough to pay for the costs involved – and I can’t remember the last time I was interested in a sponsored post. Not to say that might not happen again, but basically, the blog is where I want it to be. I no longer feel the need for it to be anything other than a daily journal of my life here at the cottage. I arrived at this stage of the blog a few years back, but as I remind myself today – It’s such a relief!

Oy.

Happy Tuesday.

Paring Down

On Tuesday

Off and Running

Lambs Like to Party

A Note

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