Blog Business

As I've tried to jump back into blogging, er, more steadily, I find myself thinking about the blog roll I have over on the side, 'Blogs of Interest to Me'. I scroll down the list and recognize that fully half of the blogs I used to follow are no longer on that list because I did some housekeeping a while back and finally decided those folks weren't going to be blogging again anytime too soon.

Seems my list is getting shorter and shorter because, well, dang, there are a number of blogs in the list who have not updated in two years. Two years is a long time to be away from your blogging friends but I know some of the reason is the AOL Toss we got and some of the reason may be blogger logistics and let's add living life to its fullest to that list.

But I really wish some of you would come back to the fold. The reason your blog remains on my list, even in an inactive state is because some of you were the first on-line friends I had relationships with and as foolish as it seems, that was and remains important to me.

Further blog business requires me to now find a little extra time to add some of my blog friends back on the list and also add some new blogs as well. Come one, come all! And to those of you who are formerly AOL-J and are on the 'Formerly AOL-J' list on Facebook, yippee! It's so easy to find you!

I am trying to back off a bit from Facebook, not because I don't love it because anyone who knows me on or off Facebook knows that I love it - for whatever reason or reasons. My dear, dear sister-in-law (and friend) refers to me as a Facebook Freak. Be that as it may, it's fun and inexpensive entertainment and a great way to keep in touch without burning a hole in my brain from over use of the phone.

Of course, one could argue that letter writing the old fashioned way would keep us in touch too. Which reminds me that I owe Deb a return letter from just about a year ago. And that birthday card I was going to send my cousin? Yeah. No. E-mail is just as easy a way to keep in touch but it's not as much fun as the immediate satisfaction of Facebook. I guess I look at Facebook as one gigantic nationwide chat room or instant message session.

I've added the 'Follow By E-mail' option to my side bar and I've attempted numerous times now to add a favicon so that when my blog name appears in your favorites list there's a picture instead of the orange 'b' in front of the name, but I either can't make the picture the correct size or it ends up not being square. :::sigh::: Just one more thing to learn.

I haven't tried and I don't intend to try the new blogger lay out. I've worked through the many changes on FB this year -- with more in our future -- and I'm done learning any new tech-type things until January 1, 2012 unless I am forced to.

There seems to be an ongoing struggle between myself and blogger about highlighting text and changing the font, the color, the size ... I'm pretty sure I'll figure that out somewhere down the road quite by accident. I seem to find out how to do things by 'Eureka!' moments, friends sending the directions or suddenly my brain clicks and there it is. Just like that.

I tried the Monetize your blog thing for a little while but found it too distracting for my taste, so that's gone. There are folks who use it and it seems not at all distracting to me on their blog. What's up with that?

Do you find it cool to know where your visitors are from? Or would just rather know how many people visit your page? Does it matter either way? I kind of like to know where folks are visiting from rather than how many. Seeing different cities, towns and countries reminds me of just how small the world really is. Or maybe, how big the world really is.

Blog Business. I'd better get on it. Then get back into writing. Really writing.