I've had this blog for FOUR YEARS, you guys. Four. Years. Note how I didn't say "I've been blogging for four years," because, well, I haven't exactly been churning out the posts of late, but still. If my dwindling annual post count is anything to go by, you can expect at least eight posts this year! Might even get up into double figures! Anything could happen!
Hello. I'm still here.
I have thoughts. I have words. I just don't seem to be able to put them on a page. Rest assured, though, I'm not lying in a puddle of sadness listening to The Wind Beneath My Wings on repeat. I'm just quietly getting on with things, "things" currently being obsessing over nappy bags and eating my body weight in cake.
I hope to find time and strength to write something more substantial soon. In the meantime, here are some reasons I love the internet, because I do (today at least).
1. The internet doesn't tilt its head sympathetically and ask how I'm really doing. I appreciate this.
2. The internet does, however, send me wonderful little gifts. Like a beautiful pair of earrings and a lovely wee card and bottomless support, courtesy of a private parenting group thing that I'm in. The kindness of internet friends continues to astonish me.
3. Remember last year when I wrote a guide to eloping to Edinburgh for East Side Bride? Well, my Alabama bride got hitched! She also hired my friend Lauren (no brainer), who told me they took lots of my advice and that the wedding was - and I quote - "fantastic." It makes me so happy to have played even a teeny tiny part in the wedding of two strangers from the other side of the world. Thanks, internet.
4. And speaking of East Side Bride, this post broke my heart a little bit. Planning something happy in the midst of something sad sucks. It just does. But it helps to know you're not alone. Thanks again, internet.
5. The internet lets me imagine I am the kind of person who will spend upwards of £90 on a super stylish waxed canvas nappy bag handmade in Wales with vegetable-tanned leather handles and an organic cotton lining, when in reality I am the kind of person who will probably buy a wipe-clean rucksack thing made of recycled plastic that is half the price and comes with a free changing mat. Hey, a girl can dream.
6. I love the internet because I can blog nothing for six weeks and then, one unremarkable Tuesday evening, sit down and put some half-hearted words into the world and nobody will hold it against me. (Nobody might read them, either, but that's ok. I write for you, but I write for me more.)
7. Lastly, thanks to the internet, I now know that Badger Hair Dresser was a genuine occupation in 1891. So was Bottom Knocker. If that doesn't cheer you up, nothing will.
Tell me why you love the internet. I'm in the mood for happy tales.
SEE ALSO:
Images: 1. Glitter tags and 'hello' stamp by Perrodin Supply Co 2. Lauren McGlynn Photography 3. Forest Bags on Etsy
Today is the third anniversary of my first ever post. I had intended to write something funny or profound or at least interesting to mark the occasion, but I couldn't summon the energy. So, instead, here is a spectacularly awesome gif by Laurene Boglio, the queen of spectacularly awesome gifs.
Once, when Fin and I first moved in together, to our tiny little flat with a sloping roof that meant he could only stand upright in 50% of the floor space, I burst into the living room wearing my black, slightly saggy gym swimsuit and, out of nowhere, proceeded to give him the worst rendition of the Single Ladies dance that has ever happened. It was, as you can imagine, hilarious.
That hasn't really got much to do with anything, other than I seem to have misplaced that youthful, exuberant silliness, both in real life and in blogging, and I'm not sure where it went. Might have to send out a search party.
In the meantime, thanks for sticking with this blog for the last three years. That applies to myself, too.
SEE ALSO:
Image by Laurene Boglio
1. You cannot read everything. Stop trying.
When I was a teenager, I kept a diary. I haven't looked at it in years, firstly because I'm not 100% sure where it is (a situation with extreme awkwardness potential, given that my brother now sleeps in my former teenage bedroom) and secondly because I know the first page contains some godawful emotive ramblings inspired by a visit to Culloden and I don't think I could cope with the crippling embarrassment of reading it.
If I could overcome these hurdles, though, I don't know that re-reading my diary would paint a particularly accurate picture of those years. My diary-keeping habits followed a set pattern. When I was wallowing in some overblown friend-related drama, or filled with unrequited yearning for the wise-cracking boy in my physics class, I would churn out pages and pages of painfully unselfconscious warblings. When, on the other hand, I was calm and happy - which was most of the time, because my friends were mostly lovely and physics boy quickly succumbed to my charms - I had no interest in writing. I was too busy doing.
Lately, with blogging, the pattern seems to have reversed. 2013 has been a profoundly crap year for me with one thing and another, and the month of October wins a gold star for being the Crappest of Them All. But instead of spilling my guts, I clam up. This is a public space, and I prefer to keep my dirty washing in the huge untended pile in the middle of my bedroom, where it belongs. And since all my washing is dirty at the moment (this is no longer just a metaphor; I really need to do some washing), I blogged precisely nothing in the entire month of October. Not one word. I think that might be a personal record (of lameness).
I am the queen of procrastination. I can put off anything, anytime. This blog is just one of many aspects of my life that have been put on the back burner while I deal with some Hard Stuff. But the time has finally come, my friends, for this to stop. Or rather, for me to start. Start writing, start thinking, start pulling myself out of the slump in which I've been wallowing.
To that end, I am going to attempt to drag this blog back to life with my bare and bloody hands, by going from one extreme to another.
This November, I am going to attempt to publish a blog post every day.
EVERY. SINGLE. DAY.
This harebrained scheme was inspired by a few bloggers I know who are participating in the Blog Every Day In November challenge. There's a prompt for each day, which I'm going to use as a vague guide, but I can tell you right now I have fuck all to say on the subject of "National Stress Awareness Day" (6th November), among others, so I will probably go off-piste a few times.
In all honesty, I'm not expecting to manage every single day. Fate may well intervene - work is extra busy just now, my mum hasn't been doing that well of late, and the end of November might as well be the end of the century if my ability to predict what might happen is anything to go by. All I can do is try. So here we go.
Wish me luck.
(Those of you who subscribe by email, I apologise for what I am about to do to your inbox. If it's any consolation, you're my favourites.)
SEE ALSO:
Images:1. Globo by Daniela Dahf Henriquez 2. Friedrich Kunath, Untitled, 2009
Before I literally blow your mind, my fellow word geeks will no doubt be aware that the controversial use of "literally" for emphasis, rather than to literally mean, erm, literally, has finally wormed its way into the Oxford English Dictionary. You might expect me to be appalled by this development, renowned stickler and all-round language bore that I am, but in fact I'm one of those irritating "eh, language evolves, whatevs" kind of people. I tend to believe that the dictionary should reflect the way we use words, rather than the other way around. Plus, and the importance of this cannot be overemphasised, it gives me an excuse to link to the big gay steamroller, a.k.a the second-best language-based internet-comic gag in the world after The Alot, so I think we all win.
Anyway. Now I'm going to blow your mind.
You know how it goes. You find a picture of a dog on a chair/dramatic floral arrangement/breakfast food and you think, "That would be perfect for my blog post/wedding scrapbook/secret Ron Swanson pinboard. I must know who created this masterpiece!"
I don't know about you, but if I want to find the original source of an image I've found online, my process (using Google Chrome) has always gone something like this:
1. Right-click on image.
2. Click 'Copy image URL'
3. Open new tab
4. Open Google
5. Click on Images
6. Click on the camera icon
7. Right click in search bar
8. Paste image URL
9. Click search
Nine separate steps. By the time the search results come up, I'm lucky if I can remember what I was looking for in the first place. I'm lucky if I can remember my own name. Surely there's an easier way?
YES. YES THERE IS.
Thanks to the Google Search by Image extension for Chrome (brought to my attention by the excellent Arial of Offbeat Empire fame), the process now looks like this:
1. Right-click on image.
2. Click 'Search Google with this image'
3. SIT BACK AND BASK IN THE GLORY, MY FRIENDS.
The results page automatically pops up in a new window. You've saved approximately 3.7 seconds of your life. Do it ten times, and that's 37 seconds! Just think what you could do in 37 seconds. You could do one and a half sit-ups. You could not-quite beat the world record for Minesweeper Expert. You could do a whole Countdown conundrum and still have 7 seconds left over to wonder whether Carol Vorderman is still using her maths degree. So many possibilities.
Fine, it might not be mind-blowing, but hopefully this wee trick will come in handy for those of you who have blogs or use Pinterest and get frustrated by the endless stream of uncredited content. And if it doesn't apply to you, well, you got a picture of a fluffy dog on a chair wearing a pompom, so I don't think you have cause to complain.
Happy weekend, people.
On a vaguely-related note, Rebecca at Florence Finds just posted a handy beginners' guide to Pinterest which I highly recommend, and not just because she named me as one of her top five pinners. Okay, maybe a little bit because of that.
Image of Cream LA by Studio Castillero via 100 Layer Cake
SEE ALSO:
Sounds about right.
NEW GAME. If you (or your blog) were an outfit, what would it be? Bonus points if you make a moodboard (I recommend Polyvore for the Photoshop-impaired).
Necklace: Amanda Deer | Dress: Joy | Shoes: Zara | Bag: Cambridge Satchel Company
PEOPLE PLAYED ALONG!
↣ Lisa of This Girl Is is clearly a total badass.↣ Cutest outfit ever (and not a red boot in sight) from Wendy of Red Boots.
↣ Screw my blog outfit, I want this one instead. Annie of Beard Today Gone Tomorrow has excellent taste.
↣ I also want this t-shirt, thanks to Michelle of My Creative.
↣ Trust Moz to take this game to the next (awesome) level, considering every detail from nail varnish to sunglasses.
↣ Better late than never, Kate! Cutest apron ever?
↣ The lovely Siobhan of Siobhan Claude Van Damme included a BOOK in hers. A book!
There's probably more to design than just covering stuff with glitter, but it definitely helps.
First off, let me say how overwhelmed I was (and still am) by your response to the blog's new look. Seriously, I can't thank you all enough for your enthusiastic support and kind words. I've been walking around with a smile on my face like a weirdo for two days. You guys are ace.
A few of you have asked about the glittery textures and more general how-tos, so here's a brief rundown on how to spruce up your blog, Kirsty-style. I am by no means an expert, so remember: Google is your friend.
1. Judge a book by its cover
Nothing irritates me more than wedding photographers with ugly websites. If I'm hiring someone to do something artistic and creative, there's no way I'm going to hire someone who doesn't know or can't tell (not sure which is worse) that their site looks gross.The same principle applies to web design. To me, designing a blog or website is a fundamentally creative endeavour. Of course it's not all about aesthetics - function is kind of important - but why would I take advice on design from a book that is badly-designed? No thanks.
Enter HTML & CSS, the prettiest book about web design you ever did see. This book is beautifully laid out, crystal clear and just plain helpful. It's a comprehensive, up-to-date guide that makes sense even to people who know literally nothing about HTML or CSS (like, well, me). There's also a stylish website packed with extra code and tools that is referenced throughout the book.
Maybe I'm just a sucker for a nice font and pretty pictures, but I loved it so much that I made my friend who is a librarian at a college buy multiple copies for her library. It's that helpful.
2. Invest in the basics
However, a book will only get you so far. Blogger comes with a set of uninspiring templates that can be customised, but unless you really know your way around them it's easy to go wrong. Wordpress seems to have a greater variety, but the more blogs you visit, the more you start to notice a certain sameness to the free templates. I wanted something custom, without the custom price tag. I had an idea in my head of the kind of layout I liked but no idea how to make it happen.
So I decided to bite the bullet and purchase a template. There are lots of free templates out there, but they're mostly ugly or over-complicated. When I found the Blog Milk shop, I decided good design was worth spending on (it didn't hurt that she had a flash sale for Alt Summit). There are also some lovely templates to be found on Etsy, like these ones by La Designerie.
Buying a decent template is like buying a decent bra. You've got to have a sturdy foundation before you start piling on the bling. Once I had the template installed, I could tweak and embellish it to my heart's content (for comparison, here's the unmodified demo of the template I'm using).
The good news, if any of you are thinking about embarking on a redesign, is that Blog Milk is currently giving away 19 blog themes (one of each design for Wordpress and Blogger). The giveaway is open until 28 February (that's tomorrow, in case like me you're still reeling from the fact it's nearly March) so if you're interested, get on it!
3. The internet is your oyster. Eat it.
Let's be clear. I'm not a designer. I know bugger all about the right way to design something. But by persevering, trying new things, googling and googling and googling some more, I eventually landed on something I was happy with. The internet is full of inspiration, resources, and generous, creative people willing to share their knowledge with you.
As ever, I started with Pinterest, pinning anything and everything that caught my eye. Slowly, repeating patterns of colour and style began to emerge and I was able to narrow things down. This is actually how I approach all of my creative projects, from weddings to lookbooks to displays. And I'm not alone: here's a great post from designer Breanna Rose on incorporating Pinterest into the design process. Once the Pinterest board had taken shape, it was a matter of tracking down fonts, resources and tutorials to turn those ideas into reality.
Bowing to the weight of popular demand (fine, two people, whatever), I've added a new credits page to the sidebar. Here you'll find details of every font, tutorial, image and resource I used to make the blog look pretty and feel good. The glitter textures have been a particular hit - you can get those here, from one of my favourite resources for creative bloggers and design hobbyists, Pugly Pixel.
Sidenote: Much to my excitement, I was included in Pugly Pixel's most recent Launched! post, a monthly list of relaunched/redesigned blogs. Woop! You can bet that is going straight in the Featured section of el Portfolio.
So there you have it. Three ways to jazz up your blog: a book, a template, and internet goodies. If you have any specific questions about anything, feel free to ask them in the comments, and thank you again for being so lovely. Really, the best way to jazz up your blog is to have awesome readers, and I've got 'em.
Images: 1 and 4. Pugly Pixel 2. HTML&CSS 3. Rose template by Blog Milk, Me & You template by La Designerie
So says Tamera, and I'm inclined to agree.
What with the nauseating cloud of positivity leaking out of Alt Summit right now ("If people don't like you, it's just because you're SO GREAT!"), I needed a little snark to kick start the weekend.
Happy Friday, folks.
{Background: Kevin Dooley. Quote: @verhext. Crappy photoshopping: alllll mine.}
Nothing makes me happier than being included on somebody's blog love list. Well, dogs wearing hats and making silly faces probably make me happier. But it's a close-run thing.
This week, I was delighted to see that a friend had included me on the list of blogs she reads most religiously (I'm assuming this means she puts on a special robe and lights a candle whenever it's time for some dogs-wearing-hats blog action. I'm not sure though).
I can't deny it stung a little to see that the first thing she had to say about A Safe Mooring is that I'm "not updating it quite so often any more." This is unquestionably true - the dwindling numbers of posts per month speak for themselves - but nobody likes to be reminded of their failings. Especially when the rest of the description was ridiculously flattering. "Hilarious, a bit angry and very eloquent"? I'll take that, thank you very much, but I can't say I've particularly earned it in the last few months.
It struck me last night, at about half past bedtime, that today is our second anniversary. Not Fin's and mine - that was last year - but yours and mine. You, the readers; me, the blogger. I've spent the last two years of my life in varying degrees of devotion to filling this blank page. You've left me 2,580 comments and I've squirrelled away every single one of them, to keep me going when words are sparse.
This year, there's no bunting, no celebratory blogiversary background (I was weirdly organised last year). Instead, some small gifts. First, a dog wearing a snood. You're welcome.
Second, a couple of recommendations for any of you who, like me, have been spending more time reading than writing of late.
Along the same lines as the ever-popular Google Reader 'Next' button (if you missed it, scroll to the end of this post for all the ways in which the Next button is ace), the following tip could change your life. Or make your blog-reading experience slightly more pleasant. Which is practically the same thing.
Have you ever added a blog to your reader, only to discover that the blogger in question has utilised the single most irritating tool in the blogger's box of tricks? I'm not talking about referring to themselves as a "mommy" when their only child has four legs and licks its own balls. I'm not even talking about signing off every post with some pixel-wasting nonsense like "Love and light! xo," or "Kisses and fairydust! xoxo," or "Dandruff and wheelie bins! xoxoxoxox". I'm talking about... THE TRUNCATED FEED (dun dun dunnn).
You know, that thing where the blogger gives you the first seven words of their latest post, and then just expects you to click through to their actual blog to read the rest? Well hey, guess what, annoying blogger? If I wanted to click through to your actual blog then I wouldn't have SUBSCRIBED TO READ IT IN MY READER, WOULD I? HMMMM??? I will not click through! I will control my own clicks! And my next click will be on the unsubscribe button! How do you like THAT?
If you, like me, find truncated feeds intensely irritating, then I am about to give you the best present ever. It's called fulltextrssfeed.com, and it does exactly what it says on the tin. You copy the link of the feed you want, paste it into the url generator, and out pops a lovely full text feed that will deliver the entire post straight to your reader. Boom.
To accompany this top tip, I would also like to humbly propose that you use it immediately to subscribe to the Writer's Almanac. I stumbled upon this a week or two ago and, once you get round the truncated feed thing, it is an absolute delight every single day. Literary snippets + heart-stopping poetry = a daily reminder of what good writing really is. I've even done the hard work for you: here's the full text feed.
And with that, I'm going to shamelessly steal the line that ends every epistle from the Writer's Almanac, because it sums up everything perfectly (and doesn't end with xoxo):
Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.
(Oh, and happy anniversary.)
The excellent, excellent pictures are from my new favourite Etsy shop, Whitly Craft Works. Anyone who knits snoods for dogs is clearly my kind of person.
The last three months were, frankly, a blur. I lived in three different flats. I spent four hours a day on various forms of public transport. I helped sign up over 300 people to raise money for charity. I went to three weddings, styled two photo shoots, wrote a grand total of seven blog posts. There was a mysterious and somewhat gross infection in there too, a lot of standing around awkwardly in shopping centres holding a pink bucket, not a lot of sleep. But it was good, I think.
Now I'm back. Back in Edinburgh, back at work, living in a fully furnished home and wearing clothes that didn't come out of a bag. Adjusting to life sans dishwasher, slowly.
Some things are new. I walk to work now, across a park, navigating a stream of students on their way to lectures. I don't live beside a lighthouse any more, but I do live on the edge of a great heap of urban wilderness, which makes up for the lack of sea. Smidgen loves it. I have carpets, and some new things on the walls that I kind of love. I have a new neighbour. Soon I'll have another, smaller, one.
I'm back at the same job, back in the same city, but it feels different. Maybe it's the change of scene, or the changing of the seasons (I'm a winter girl through and through) - whatever it is, I feel refreshed.
I read this excellent post the other day, by a blogger who has fallen out of love with blogging. I wondered, as I read it, whether the same might have happened to me. It's been a month since I last blogged. A MONTH. That's just embarrassing. And it's hard to start again, once you've stopped; I feel like I practically gave birth to this post, it was such a effort to get it out. Am I rusty, or am I simply done? Am I over blogging?
I don't think I am. I've loved it too much to just ditch it. Plus there are so many exciting things coming up that I could write about: Christmas! Blonde Bridesmaid's wedding! Artem, topless! So, here I am. Trying to take advantage of my new-found sense of rejuvenation, for as long as it lasts.
All of which is to say, hi. I'm back. How's it going?
Smidgen yesterday, checking out her new 'hood. I was convinced she was going over the edge.
And just like that, Style Me May is officially over. Time to reflect on how it went. A cursory glance reveals that it went the way of pretty much every other blog-related project I've ever undertaken, including the blog itself: it started well, gathered momentum, got a bit too intense, disappeared completely, then wobbled back towards a healthy-ish balance of quality, quantity and sanity.
(There's probably an uncomfortably strong argument for extrapolating this pattern to everything I've ever taken up in my whole life, but luckily for all of us I'm going to try and resist that urge.)
In common with every project of its kind, my Style Me May attempt kicked off in a blaze of enthusiasm. A sorry void had opened up in my life, excavated by a thumping boredom and fast filling up with worry and gloom. I needed a distraction, and Style Me May was it. I was going to fill that void with scarves and belts and carefully clashing prints! I was enthused! I was excited! I was styin' me some May like nobody's business!
That was Week One. Week One was fun.
By Week Two, the over-achiever in me was kicking into high gear. A collection of crap pictures taken on a phone in a poorly-lit corporate bathroom was no longer going to cut it. Out came the fancy(ish) camera. I started planning each day's outfit in advance, determined not just to fulfil the brief but to crush it with the force of my own awesomeness (I had lofty ambitions). I even photoshopped myself into a San Francisco street scene, for fuck's sake.
It wasn't exactly sustainable.
By Week Three I was flagging. I still wanted to do every challenge, but I was struggling to keep up and beginning to feel the (admittedly self-imposed) pressure. Something had to give, and that something was words. I had none. It was taking all of my reserves, both creative and temporal, just to throw on a decades-old Brown t-shirt and call myself preppy. There was no doubt about it; I was suffering from blogging burnout (and not for the first time).
But this time, instead of retreating into nothingness, I took control. I re-evaluated. I culled the list. Dressing head to toe in black on the sunniest day of the year so far? No thanks. Doing something weird with a hairclip just to try and contort my stubborn pixie crop into 'a new hairstyle'? Actually, I'd rather not. But stringing all my pearls together into one humongous pearl party? Sure! An excuse to wear my most favourite thing ever, a beautiful 1937 heirloom ring passed from my nana to my mum to me? I'll take that!
And so I hopped, skipped and jumped my way to June. What did I learn from this sartorial experiment? I was reminded, again, that overstretching myself never pays off in the long run. (Yes, three weeks counts as the long run, ok?) I learned, again, that quality trumps quantity, always, in everything. Except maybe when it comes to jewellery-based parties. And I found out that you can pretty much get away with wearing anything to work, as long as you wear it with sass and a nice belt.
In the end, I'm calling it a success.
So tell me, did anyone make it to the end of the month? Did anyone make it to the end of this post? And, most importantly, what's your favourite outfit from the month? I'm a wee bit obsessed with the neon birds, and rather enjoying Fin's straw-hat-and-windrunner combo...
Whoever found my blog by googling "guinea pig sexy outfits" has just MADE MY DAY.
Frankly, I don't know why you'd need to keep searching once you'd seen this. Job done, surely?
Unless you mean a sexy costume for your guinea pig, in which case 1) eww and 2) might I suggest the lederhosen?
(You might also be interested to know that high-heeled flippers have recently overtaken fake ponytails as my most bizarrely prolific search term. The internet continues to amaze and confound me on a daily basis.)
If I'm honest, last week's unfortunate encounter with the seedy world of plagiarism and automated article spinning left me feeling a bit, well, gross. It was hardly the crime of the century, but I went into the weekend faced with the uncomfortable realisation that the fluffy, cuddly internet I knew and loved had suddenly rolled over to reveal a nasty, flea-ridden underbelly. I wasn't angry; I was disappointed. Which, as every errant schoolchild knows, is much, much worse.
But then, out of the blue, I received not one but two amazing emails from total strangers that had me gently cuffing the internet's ear and agreeing to say no more about it.
Back when I was wedding planning for myself (as opposed to playing out elaborate wedding fantasies for someone else), there were a couple of things that I simply couldn't bring myself to pay inflated wedding rates for. £300 for a five-minute car journey was one. £150 for a bit of net stuck on a plastic comb was another. So I rode to the church in the back of a friend's wonderfully cranky old motor and made my own veil thanks to a DIY veil tutorial from Rebecca Norris, formerly of Rock My Wedding and currently of the always enjoyable Florence Finds. The veil was just grand and the tutorial invaluable, so when my wedding was (finally, blissfully) over I decided to appease the wedding gods by sharing my own DIY hair flower tutorial with the fresh crop of bridelets. Off my post went into the ether, and with my debt duly paid I promptly forgot all about it.
Until, that is, an email popped up in my inbox on Friday from the gorgeous Steff, who only went and made herself a wedding hair flower using my tutorial! Behold the amazingness:
Doesn't she look beautiful? (And is it just me or is she a dead ringer for Florence Welch?)
Not only did she adorn her own head with my creative legacy, Florence Steff took it a step further and made hair flowers for her ENTIRE BRIDAL PARTY:
I am one proud mama right now. To think that something I cobbled together in my living room ended up being part of someone else's *actual wedding* is just the best feeling ever. I can even begin to understand why all those DIY bloggers devote so much attention to dip-dying and neon-spray-painting everything that moves. Thanks so much for getting in touch, Steff. You made my day.
Oh, and the other email I mentioned? Well, I can't actually reveal too much right now, but let's just say it has something to do with my planned blog makeover and made me squeal at my desk. Watch this space...
(YESSS! I've always wanted to end a post on one of those vague-dangling-teasers-that-hint-at-exciting-things-to-come-when-really-everyone-knows-it's-probably-something-really-boring type endings. What a week! First content-poaching, now teaser-dangling - I'm telling you, this blog is GOING PLACES. Maybe. Or, erm, not.)
Images: 1. Rodarte for Opening Ceremony Fall 2011 lookbook via Fashion Gone Rogue 2. Lillian and Leonard 3&4. Steph's own
Currently getting me excited:
1. Going wedding dress shopping with Blonde Bridesmaid tomorrow. At last! My insane pinning spree will finally be replaced by three-dimensional objects!
2. Giving this old blog a facelift someday soon. The excessively literal header photo is starting to get a little tired (boats mooring, safely? Puh-leaze). A fancy makeover is not on the cards, so it'll be a DIY job, but I'm having fun looking for ideas. I even bought a book. Check me out. (By the way, has anyone got any strong feelings on moving to Wordpress versus staying on Blogger? Will I regret asking this?)
3. A not-so-secret project that I'm cooking up with Lauren McGlynn. It was meant to distract me from my insane pinning spree (see 1 above) but instead it's just sent me down a whole new rabbit hole. Oh well.
4. Spring. (If only it would HURRY UP.)
That's right folks, it's never-ending excitement over here. I'd like to see you try and beat that exciting lineup! If you think your weekend plans are more exciting, well I don't want to hear about them!
Just kidding, I totally do. Whatcha doin?
{Sasha Pivovarova shot by Serge Leblog for Club Monaco.}
If you close your eyes and squint a little, don't you think this post bears an eery resemblance to this one?
Of course, it's hardly plagiarism on the scale of the controversy currently doing the rounds over in the slightly sinister domain of the mommybloggers. To be honest I'm more concerned that I found the post through a google search for "a safe mooring" (Don't look at me like that. You're telling me you've never googled your own blog?) and now I'm worried people might think I was personally responsible for this crime against the English language. For example, "I really, Present reckon that Oahu is the believed that number Points wedding presents." Um, what? That isn't even a sentence. Nor is "And thus Reasonable goal the kind of person who is going to breezily Expect Kansas city lasik surgery invoice". I mean... I just.. what are they on about?
In fairness, "Obtain drunken Experience Equipped with Mate Yvonne" does sound like something I'd say. And "minimising potential risk of a seventeen-toaster calamity" actually is something I said. (Seriously, of all the insane Frankensentences you put in that post, you had to get that one word-for-word?)
Hilarious as it is, I should probably get them to take it down. It's not really fair for some random scraper site to be profiting from my own ill-judged babbling. Fin's comment on the whole debâcle was, as ever, incisive:
"How come they can make money from it when you don't make any?"
GOOD POINT, FIN. Anybody want to offer me some money for some sentences that may or may not involve toasters and/or make sense? Anybody...?
{Image: Albumen print by Stephen Berkman (New York: Bliss, Zohar Studios, n.d.) From the collection of Ricky Jay.}
Most bloggers will tell you that comments matter. And if they don't, they're probably lying. In fact, I would go so far as to say they matter more than anything; more than visitor numbers, or pageviews, or sponsorship deals (a girl can dream) or any other arbitrary measure you might apply to a blog's so-called success. I love getting comments so much that I even put a comments goal on my life list, and when I hit that target I wrote a whole gleeful post about it.
Different blogs attract different types of comments, of course. There are the long, rambling discussion threads you find on sites like A Practical Wedding, where comments on individual posts regularly run into three figures as smart, feisty women share experiences and generally put the world to rights.
Then there are those hey-everybody-look-at-my-outfit blogs, which seem to elicit nothing but sycophantic "Love your look!" comments from a gaggle of blog-clones. This is only half the story, though, or so I've heard; there are also the comments you don't see, the snarky, rude or downright abusive ones that those bloggers, quite reasonably, send straight to the bin.
Certainly, getting no comments at all is better than getting ten mean ones. But if nobody comments, blogging stops being a conversation and becomes a sad, one-sided monologue. Or worse, a rant. Lord knows I like a rant now and then, but it's much more satisfying when you know people are listening. Instead of feeling like a crazy person standing on a street corner, yelling at strangers as they try to pretend you don't exist, you feel as though there's a supportive crowd nodding along with you, saying, "Mmmhmmm," and occasionally shouting, "Preach it, sister!". (I imagine. I don't actually know anyone who would say that in real life. But in theory.)
The trouble with commenting, though, is that it's annoying. It requires action. It also requires you to have something to say. And sometimes, there really is nothing to say. Sometimes I read a post that is absolutely excellent in every respect, and all I can think of to say is, "Great post." But I worry that will make me come across like some weirdo spammer who hasn't even bothered to read what they've written and is just trying to funnel traffic back to my own blog, so instead I say nothing.
Or I might have plenty to say, but lack the time or - more likely - the inclination. Since I read blogs via my Google Reader, commenting requires all the effort of actually clicking on the post, and then you have to type in your name and your email and oh God is that word verification and ugh that isn't even a word and then your comment disappears and you have to type it again and oh just forget it, I didn't really have anything that important to say anyway.
Commenting takes effort, and lately I've been lazy. I've consumed every word and given scant few in return, and that, my friends, needs to change. In the last couple of days I've been trying to up my comment game (did anyone notice?) and I'm enjoying the transformation from passive observer to active participator. I've said it before and I'll say it again: blogging is a conversation. And if you're not in it, then you're kind of like one of those creepy lurkers who hovers around the edge of a group at a party, laughs too loudly at all the jokes then skulks quietly away. And nobody wants to be that person.
I'm assuming I'm not alone in my commenting lethargy (because HELLOOOO blurkers - I know there are way more people who read this blog than comment on it) so here, exclusively for you, are my top tips for making commenting a little bit more appealing. You're welcome.
1. Be accessible! If you have your own blog, for the love of all that is beautiful, please DITCH THE WORD VERIFICATION. Seriously. It's an extremely irritating solution to what, for most of us, is a very minor problem. In my experience, Blogger correctly screens out spam comments 99% of the time (they're not exactly hard to spot). In contrast, word verification makes commenting frustrating and unduly time-consuming 1,426,793% of the time. Please do not question my maths.
2. Get chatty! Blogger has finally caught up with Wordpress and introduced threaded comments, meaning it's possible to reply to individual comments for the first time. As a blogger, this means I can respond to questions and engage with commenters in a much more direct way, and as a reader it encourages me to read through all the previous comments and jump into a conversation. Or tell them exactly why they're wrong and I am right. Ahem.
3. Click through! My number one barrier to commenting has always been the fact that I read all my blogs on Google Reader, which doesn't exactly entice you to click through to the post and leave a comment. Far easier to scroll down to the next post, and the next, and the next... There are all sorts of ways to get around this, but the one that I've been using in the last few days is the Next button. If you use Google Reader, go to Reader Settings and choose the Goodies tab. There you'll find a little bookmarklet - a sort of wee button that says "Next" - that you just drag and drop to your bookmarks bar. Lo and behold, when you click it, it takes you directly to the next unread blog post in your subscription list. Genius! You can even have different buttons for different categories if you're feeling fancy. I love it because you're taken to the actual blog itself, so as well as making commenting easier - the comment form is right there in your face at the end of the post - it also lets you enjoy some super stylish blog design instead of the dull list format of Google Reader. Bonus!
So there you have it. Sorry blurkers, no more excuses; it's time to step out of the shadows, grab yourself a drink, and join the conversation.
Images: Dakota & Elle Fanning by Mario Sorrenti for W Magazine via Fashion Gone Rogue
It comes on like an itch. A niggling voice whispering in my ear, "You could do that".
Shyly, almost furtively, I set up an account. Tentatively play around with names, a header. Decide both are shit, close the browser, write it off. No, I can't do it. I can't.
The voice persists. You can.
I fixate on the name. A blog needs a name. I scribble lists in bed. Score them out on the bus, bludgeoning every tiny, blossoming idea with the blunt force of my insecurities. Stupid. Lame. Been done.
If I can't think of a name, then I won't have to write anything, and then there is no possibility of it being rubbish.
Of course, a name comes upon me suddenly, uninvited. Sneaks in before I can crush it, and takes root. Now there is nothing left but me and an empty screen. Damn it.
Guess I'd better write something.
Hitting post for the first time is agony. The second, the third, only slightly less so. I spend so much time carefully crafting these missives to the world but apparently the world isn't interested. The disappointment is immense. I was right. I can't do it. Nobody is reading.
Until one day, miraculously, somebody is. Soon there are comments, and tweets, and sweet sweet emails, and hey, would you look at that: I'm a blogger.
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| 199 posts, and counting... |
I know the whole world isn't reading (although it's surely only a matter of time?), but YOU are. And to you, you who left me that amazing comment, you who bought me that drink that time, you there on the hunt for fake ponytails - especially you - I would like to say thank you. Thank you for this year. It's been kind of a big deal for me.
And thanks, too, to that whispering voice. Turns out I *can* do it. Maybe I ought to listen to you more often.
Print by Parada Creations
Hmm, how to explain the Nosy Bitches? The easiest way to describe them would be a random group of women who chat on twitter, but that would make it sound tragic, so let's call it a network of smart, interesting, funny ladies who originally found each other through the A Practical Wedding community (which is, by the way, scientifically proven to be awesome) and who continue to offer each other support, advice, hilarity and cake through the medium of social networking. Does that sound any better? Probably not. Let's move swiftly on.
So the super-stylish Ms Bunny organised the first ever Nosy Bitches Non-Denominational Gift Giver. This is essentially a Secret Santa, but shhh, don't tell them I said that. Inevitably, being the Joiner that I am (hello, In Her Own Words and APW Book Club and Any Other Party and Blook Club and and and...), I signed up. Because who doesn't need an extra gift to buy/make and send internationally in the middle of December? Not this girl!
Well, people, let me tell you. The Nosy Bitches are called that for a reason. They know things. Over the last few days, my twitter feed has been packed with incredulous tweets as, one by one, the recipients received thoughtful, meaningful, utterly perfect gifts and asked, without irony and without exception, HOW DID YOU KNOW??
The answer, of course, is BECAUSE YOU PUT YOUR WHOLE LIFE ON THE INTERNET FOR EVERYONE TO SEE. Which might be slightly worrying, if it weren't for the fact that there are presents. Presents make up for a lot. And the present my Nosy Bitch sent to me is no exception.
Before I tell you what it was, let's examine the evidence.
EXHIBIT A: LIKES GREYHOUNDS.
You might not be aware of this, but I recently got a dog. I may have mentioned it once or twice. I'm not sure.
EXHIBIT B: LIKES VINTAGE STYLE
Much as the word "vintage" makes me squirm, I am on record as having a bit of a thing for classic silhouettes and period style. If you were to take a peek at my pins, the sharp-eyed might notice I have a bit of a thing for fashion illustration, like this beautiful watercolour, and if you're a serious, hardcore stalker, you might have clocked the reproduction vintage poster in the background of that picture of Smidgen up there. You might also be sitting outside my house right now. But let's hope not.
EXHIBIT C: LIKES PEOPLE POSING WITH DOGS
So, let's recap. Likes greyhounds. Likes vintage style and fashion illustration. Likes people posing with dogs. Hmm, if only there was some sort of vintage-style fashion illustration of a person posing with a greyhound sitting under my Christmas tree...
Can you actually believe it? It's so perfect, it's almost creepy. I love it. Thank you so much, Ariel. I am honestly, truly touched that you thought of me and what I might like, and didn't just shove some hole-y knitting and some chocolate in an envelope like I did (I'll tell you what I made for my Nosy Bitch when I know she's received it I've recovered from the shame of my crappy knitting).
I've written before about internet relationships crossing over into our real, everyday lives. Having this package appear and sit underneath my Christmas tree for a few days, until I finally caved and opened it last night (what? It's meant to be non-denominational, okay?), felt very real to me. It was a tangible, visible reminder of how far I've come in the last 11 months of blogging and how many kind and generous people I've met, whether in person or otherwise.
I hope to be back with another post some time before Christmas but, until then, I hope the next few days are as calm, peaceful and filled with joy as they possibly can be.
{Images: 1. Typewriter by What Kristen Saw taken at the Lovely Pigeon Christmas Event 2. First posted here 3. Gemma Milly, first posted here 4. Me and Smidgen by Lauren McGlynn 5. By me, clearly.}
