Oct. 2: Birthdays and blog challenge review

Before I do anything else, I want to offer sincere apologies to two of my friends whose birthdays I let pass unacknowledged. I am greatly ashamed, and offer the following super-duper lame explanations.

Hawaii Laura, I don’t really have a good excuse but-cept that I was on Facebook for just a very short time on LaurApeber 30 and missed the reminder (not at all because I lost interest in the month after KimJenber/JenKimber ended). I contacted the Hawaii Department of Transportation and had these signs made and installed throughout the islands. My guess is that you’re too busy out paddling in the surf to travel via highways, so here’s a pic:

Margaret, I’m gonna use the hardly-on-Facebook-on-Monday excuse for you too, and add that I’m also kind of a jerk. I rented out letters and space in the West Hills to apologize; here’s a picture in case you missed my message:

(This is obviously that one section of the West Hills in which there are no trees and also let’s pretend there was blue sky this week. Yes, let’s do that.)

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Blog Challenge Review Time

So. In September I challenged myself to blog every day. With one exception, I got a post up each day of the month, and it’s time to reminisce. Cue the music.

• It was fun, mostly in the beginning. By the end it was a little less fun and felt kinda chore-like.
• It prompted me to work on my blog design, which I hadn’t tweaked in a very long time. The background, the color scheme, the layout… it’s a big change. As it’s much bolder than I’ve had before, I’m not sure how long I’ll keep it, but for now I think it’s fun and cheery.
• It sort of prompted my mom to start her own blog. THAT might be the best result of all. Yay, Mother Mary! (Check out what she posted this morning—a tale about my mother in all her passive-aggressive glory.)
• There were days I felt extra-stressed to get a post written. Mostly those were the recipe days, in which I had nothing recently-made to share and knew I’d have to either make something or word the post so it sounded like I’d made it recently. My real accomplishment is that, except for the seasoning, the recipes I posted were made specifically for this blog challenge, but please do not ask me to do that again.
• (Why were there so many recipe days? Because I created this challenge with Sherilee, whose blog is deliciously recipe-heavy. I must have been drunk when I sent her my list of topic ideas and said, “Add whatever you want.”)
• I’ve tried bunches of different ways to write blog posts using my iPad, but nothing works as well as my tried-and-true method on my oh-so-cumbersome laptop. Knowing I would have to lug it out every single day was annoying.
• It definitely helped my chances of success to share the challenge with someone else. If I hadn’t been worried about the Wrath of Sherilee™, I may not have lugged out the laptop every day.
• (Sherilee is really not that wrath-y, but I know we would’ve given each other grief if either had failed.)
• I can’t make any promises, but there’s a good chance the desired result—getting back into a habit of blogging regularly—might actually manifest itself. Mission accomplished, right?

Thanks to all of you who tuned in throughout the month, putting up with my inane rambling and leaving comments here and there. ‘Twas cool to have you along.