I have a dilemma. I like to write. I like to crochet. I like to write about crochet too. But I don’t just want to write about crochet. I have created several blogs in trying to allow for all my outlets/subjects. It’s not working. It’s a pain. Not to mention less effective for SEO. What I want is a single blog with two columns. One running the latest blog entries from my crochet world. One for the latest entries from anything else I feel like writing about, whether family or volunteering or just whatever. And I don’t want to use tabs to do it. In my experience, if it’s not an article plainly displayed on the front page, people don’t generally click around to look at it. Only about 1 in 150 visitors ever click on one of my other tabbed pages on this site. My post about spider webs gets better results than the tabs do! So the way I see it, the best optimization is to keep a running commentary on the front page where the majority of the hits will land. Two live columns running different subjects at the same time. (sigh) I’ve been reading everything I can find this morning, until my eyes feel crossed now. Ugh. Time to stop.
So how to do this? I’m still trying to figure that out. I know how to program it into FrontPage for a regular website. (Yes, I know FrontPage is old, but it’s what I have.) I don’t know if it’s possible in WordPress and I’m not in an educated space to re-write CSS, yet. I’m playing around with ideas, thinking maybe using an RSS feed in the side bar widget is the way to go. But not sure if I like the results yet. So the site will be evolving a bit as I have time. Having some thumbnail photos is important. Having a variety of content is important too. For now, you’ll notice an RSS feed for one of my other blogs in the side bar. I’m not sure if I’ll keep it or not, but will let it be for now. Maybe see if it results in anything quantifiable.
Mind you, I’m supposed to be packing for the move today. Right now. My world should be packing boxville. But I need a break. I need an outlet besides hands and knees sorting. Good Knight! I had no idea I had that many books! Or that much yarn! I thought the 180+ skeins I’m going to sell off cheap was about 1/3 of my yarn stash. It is not. Try more like 1/5. And I’m not even counting what I donated. Me and my short-term memory forgot I stored some things already. But in spite of all this craziness with moving and repairing and painting and real estate research… I need to know that my website and writing are going to be OK. I need to keep my toes cool in the pool of handmade reality. I can’t afford to forget and lose momentum in a field I’ve worked hard in, just because I need to move to a new home and it won’t be as easy as I hoped. I need to keep at least one toe in each reality operating in my life. Deadlines for the winter show season are already being laid and even though the holidays are far away to everyone else, for those of us in the handmade world, it’s time to make final decisions and solidify plans and commit $$ to table fees banking on shows months away from now. I’ve put in application to both Heartsy and Quite Unique, hoping to help thin my inventory down so it does not have to be packed up in a hot warehouse for the summer, potentially ruining my product. But they are both currently behind on applications. And I’ve already donated more than I should for business. Which means I can’t pack or sell the majority of my product right now and I still have to be concerned with the appearance of my websites and yada, yada. Bah! Too much! I need to use my outlets to stay sane. That is after all how I got started in them. I am a much nicer person when I get to write, or crochet, or play my piano, or beat on my drums. Much nicer. More patient. I smile more. Or frown less as the case may be. My son keeps saying I need to hug my Ugly Dog more. Perhaps I need to listen.
Crochet is necessarily mostly packed up, so that isn’t really a satisfying outlet right now. And I need writing to be easy. I need to write about more than just my crochet news or research. I am bored with the same things all the time – I want something different.
So we’ll see. As it is, I know just enough about how to do some coding, but not enough to keep from being dangerous and screwing it all up. Sometimes I just want to take a hands-on class, but without all the homework, ulcers over grades and late night studying. Understanding better what I’m doing would save me time in life. But keeping up with technology can be a full time job in and of itself.
Then I have to evaluate whether it’s all worth it or not. Part of me says I need to be careful about investing time too heavily into the virtual world. Virtual time spent is not time spent with my kids, my friends, I’m not even sure arguably that much time spent with my customers. The energy invested into it cannot really be inherited by my kids when I die. If the virtual world disappeared tomorrow, what would there be to show or prove for all the work? After all, the only reason why it exists is because we say it does. We give it permission to. We give it importance, value and existence it would not otherwise have and honestly doesn’t have to a majority of folks who don’t know it or aren’t interested.
Well, there I go getting philosophical again. But after all, life is shifting. It’s time to think on evolution and the merits of what we’ve gained so far. Is it really all that?
Well, OK. Time to get back to laundry and boxville and a nice dose of paperwork after that.
Crochet Liberation Front:
Aberrant Crochet (TM) 
Sounds like there are some interesting transitions in place. Once you figure it out I think that you’ll have a really unique and creative site/blog!