Ok, so things didn’t get finished with the changes on time… family issues came up (but that’s another post.. lol)
So they may continue for a couple more days.
But it’s been kind of interesting going back through old things.
Originally this blog was my attempt to combine the several blogs I had running at that time into one, more reflective of my life in general, plus it kept things updated more.
So the categories had originally been set up to match each of the previous blogs, to be able to sort them out easier for the readers only interested in one particular area.
But of course things changed as things went on into more topical categories, and it never quite got matched together well.
But the more I’ve gone through old stuff, the more I’ve realized how drastically this blog has moved from where I’d originally aimed with it. Somehow, all of the other areas that I’d intended to merge together one by one just sort of stopped getting posted much.
The last time I posted anything creatively written? 2008. Anything of art or craft? 2009. Anything of memories of the past, or processing of things I’m wrestling with? Honestly, fairly recently, but the vast majority of those have been kept as private with a handful of exceptions a good while back. The reflection on verses sort of comes and goes, as does the life analogies section. Some of the other categories I actually deleted, as there was next to nothing from the topics of that old blog that ever got picked back up again here.
But lately, even the ongoing life commentary and daily living stuff has gotten condensed into short periodic updates rather than the original processing as it happens sort of thing that I’d originally worked with as my first blog.
And I think part of that is a reader change, though that may be sort of chicken and egg as to which causes which. Where I previously had mostly other bloggers reading, a good number of which I only knew from their blogs, it’s dramatically switched to lurking people I know from other place… most of whom don’t have blogs, and about half of which I only even know that they are still reading here because I’d long ago connected to a different stats program that gives me more detailed information on location, internet provider, browser and computer type. (Bet I probably just freaked out several of them at the realization that I can guess who they are by the same stats visiting repeatedly from the same company internet on a mac from a certain suburb of chicago, and other sets of combinations lol)
I found myself looking at some of the earlier comments, and realizing how much I miss hearing about the lives of some of my friends who don’t blog anymore.
And maybe even more the friends that do, but have now changed their blogs into just being about a very narrow topic such as scrapbooking or couponing or bible lessons and no longer involve their real life except as maybe a brief illustration or occasional pic.
And that’s pretty much exactly what I was trying to avoid doing with the creation of this blog, and attempting to bring the different aspects of my life together as a more reflective whole.
With that in mind, I think that at this point I am going to try to get back to the original purpose of things rather than just continuing on the current path, even when I’m feeling like some of the topic areas are probably not what a lot of readers care much about. And to try to get more into the everyday real life, messy and sometimes raw as it ends up being sometimes.
So for right now, the categories have changed into more broadly grouped areas. If you notice on the menu bar, there are actually some sub-categories underneath some areas that may end up expanding or may not… we’ll see how it goes with those, but they seemed like they still justified a separated category.
And in a less unified move, I’ve eliminated the main page going directly into the most recent posts. There is still an “all posts” feed, which I hope will still be the main direction, however, giving a landing page also makes it easier to sort out which posts are of which topics…. especially when they can vary a lot. If you just want the book reviews, click books and you don’t have to be frustrated trying to find them in the middle of everything else. etc.
The “tags” I’m not too sure about. I know that they do help find things and narrow things down, but I’d removed the list a year or more back, mainly just because I wasn’t using them. Which isn’t because I don’t like them per se, but mostly just a convenience thing…. because the majority of my posts that aren’t book related are written in an offline program on my computer that does both journaling and allowing blog publishing (macjournal if anyone is looking for one), and while it does ask me for category and whether or not I want to allow comments when I hit to upload an entry, it doesn’t ask for tags. It can do them, but it requires finding it in the menu to add them, which I never get around to doing. I always plan to go back in and do them from the wordpress side later, but that doesn’t happen either.
So while I’m tagging some of the newer posts as I’m going along to reclassify them into the different categories as needed, I’m not sure if I’m going to re-add a tag system to find them easier by tags or not.
So.. that’s the logic behind the recent tweaking of things around here. It’s sort of been in the processing for a while, but was waiting until classes were over to tackle messing with it.
