Someone's Blogging Lord, Kumbaya

Just a few of the ways my life has changed since I started blogging…

Bye Bye Bathroom Scales. Hello Statcounter. No longer concerned with pounds, now it’s all about unique visitors and subscribers. These are the numbers that determine my mood for the day.

A new career with the United Nations. My first international blog visitor was someone in Canada. Little Chick and I were over the moon. It was so exotic and exciting! I still love to see the maple leaf pop up, but now I can spot flags from Malaysia, South Africa, New Zealand and the Philippines, such a thriller to have visitors from Manila. I’m having a ball seeing flags from around the world and I think Latvia is my favorite. I also love learning the names of US cities and towns I’ve never heard of like Deer, Arkansas.

Self Help is a daily ritual. The good news about blogging is that for the most part, the tools are either free or terribly affordable. The flipside? There is rarely an 800 number with a 24-hour help desk waiting to walk me through my latest blogging glitch. You simply have to help yourself. I scour help forums and search grassroots blogs that have sprung up to help bloggers with similar frustrations. Imagine my shock the first time I realized they expected me to jimmy with the html code myself. Somehow I’ve figured out each technical challenge, one by one. But I must give credit to my blogging buddy Peter Chen who’s had an answer for everything I’ve thrown at him so far.

Accidental Spammer. I took a little stumble when I first signed up with Stumble. When searching for contacts Stumble sent an email to every address in my Yahoo contact folder asking them to sign up and visit my profile. I was mortified to realize the rector of my new church was going to see the only two websites I had as ‘favorites’ were a diagram of Dante’s Inferno and a website about serial killers. (This second one was an accident I swear.) So I madly started giving the ‘thumbs-up’ to some lighter sites about cooking and chocolate. I turned to my pals at BlogCatalog for a laugh and moral support. Turns out Teeg who lovingly talked me off the ledge, is a Stumble expert. If Teeg says Stumble is a powerful tool for bloggers then I believe it.

More friends in the sandbox. It’s been so fun to connect with old friends in new ways. Kelly from MidlifeGals and I have started blogging lunches where we drink wine and share blogging tips. And I love chatting with friends and family all over the country. Your comments let me know someone is paying attention and urge me to keep it going.

Plus I have wonderful new friends in the blogosphere itself. TCWriter from Trout Underground has been incredibly supportive and has taken to chiding me like a brother about how I need to bail on Blogger and switch to Wordpress when I launch my next blog. I love it. And it turns out WokeupToday and I are kindred spirits when it comes to dive burger joints and honkytonk bars. PlainJaneMom was among the very first to link to CFT, and her viewers leave such thoughtful comments.

I truly enjoy this new community and think we need a Blogger Kumbaya widget. Translated Kumbaya means “Come By Here,” so it’s the perfect mantra. We all love visitors and we all love subscribers. I’m terribly grateful for each of you so from the bottom of my heart, thank you for visiting CFT. Feel free to browse, comment, subscribe. And don’t forget to Kumbaya often.