Blogging Life

Another Christmas has come and gone. So often I find myself commenting on how time flies. The space between each blog entry is filled with so many happenings. It's hard to pick and choose what's worth sharing. I try to balance this blog between my own day to day life and information I feel is worth reading. I hope that the day to day stuff eventually becomes as worthwhile as the informative articles I type up. 

The difference between an internet blog and a personal journal is simple: the audience. By publishing my posts online, it opens my life up to readers. Rather than just recording memories and feelings, I'm trying to collect a following. Or at least, I think that's the idea. Maybe that's a little too narcissistic.

I want to take things I find interesting, useful, important, or inspiring -- and I want to share them. And in a selfish way, I hope that stories from my own life will fit into that collection.

It will take time. I have a lot of big dreams and goals to accomplish over the next few years. My mushing adventures are only just beginning. I want to buy a house with a generous portion of land so that I can begin my homestead. I want to raise backyard chickens. I have so many things to cook, so many pictures to draw, and so many photographs to take.

As 2011 comes to a close, I can't help but look back at all the changes it brought. Most good, some bad, but all necessary. Bring it on, 2012. I've got this.

What's the Point?

Don't worry, this isn't going to be a self-pitying entry about my qualms with the universe. I don't mean "What's the point?" as a rhetorical question, as people often do. I mean it quite literally. What's the point to this blog?

A friend of mine has been working on a blog of his own, and has been trying to streamline his thoughts and interests into a general theme. He got me thinking about the blogs I read, and my own blog, as well.

The blogs I read have very little in common with one another. A fashion designer in Brooklyn, a dog musher in Alaska, a farmer in upstate New York, a mother and her cancer-fighting baby in Kentucky. Maybe because they're all written by strong women? They all have qualities I admire; primarily, strength and independence. Only a few of the blogs I read are written by men. (And most don't even update anymore!)

Blogs are an evolution of the personal diary; a hobby often associated with the female sex (though I'm not sure why -- is keeping a record of your day-to-day life somehow feminine?). I've always kept diaries, journals, and now, blogs. My first diary was a big, blue, spiral notebook. I mostly used it for stickers, but I did scribble out some entries. They were riddled with spelling errors and hard to read, chicken-scratch handwriting.

I went through a long phase of starting journals and then immediately destroying everything I had written. Pretty much sums up my pre-teen and teenage years. So much angst for no apparent reason.

Then came the internet. I think I have had every online journal/diary/blog imaginable. Livejournal, Deadjournal, Xanga, and more recently, Blogger and Tumblr. I know there are others, I just can't remember them all.

But what's the point? Why have I always been so inclined to record my ramblings? And publicly, no less? Part of it is to feel important, I'm sure. To broadcast my thoughts and ideas, as if they somehow matter. Many hope to gain a following, some sort of e-fame, through their writing. I admit, that would be exciting. But I've been writing for years without any clear audience, and I don't show any signs of stopping.

My blog (diary, journal, etc.) is for me, above all else. It's something to keep track of my existence -- to prove that I exist. To share what I care about to anyone who might be listening. I don't write to change anyone's mind, but to open it, if only for a minute. And while I don't write about anything earth-shattering or unique, I hope to at least offer an alternate perspective: my perspective.

So when I ramble about dogs, cooking, and hiking, I realize I may bore the masses. But one person might adopt a husky, buy a bread machine, or go for a walk in the woods. And that's all I can hope for.

Okay, Fine, I'm Back on Blogger

Just a quick update -- you may have noticed I transferred a bunch of my Tumblr entries back onto this Blogger account. I haven't decided where I'll be settling, permanently -- heck, I might post new entries on both. I'm leaning towards Blogger, though, simply because it's more customizable and I follow more blogs on here.

So if you follow me on here, stay tuned for more updates.