Procrastinatory Paring and Sharing

So, today, in my usual procrastinatory (is that even a word) I decided to go through each of  the links on my blog roll in an attempt to clarify two things.  First, I wanted to see if the bloggers were even still active.  I mean, no good sending you to someone really cool who hasn’t written anything really cool since last year…or the year before.  I hate that when that happens!  I find a blogger I love reading then realize I’m reading something that happened years ago and this person, for all digital intents and purposes, no longer exists. I usually figure this out after I’ve posted a comment only to realize that the last person that commented commented over a year earlier.  Yeah, doltish, really.  I’d like to spare the handful of readers who do troll silently through my musings here the angst of that experience. 

The other thing I’m trying to do is pare down the blog roll.  When I first started this blog (has it been a year and a half already?), I put people on that were interesting to me then.  I had goals, kinda sorta, in mind for what I wanted this place to be and those people made my blogroll because they seemed to fit the criteria for the kind of resource I wanted to provide my readers.  Yeah, well…things change over time.  Bloggers change, their blogs change, goals change, life changes, we change and I have definitely changed over the last year and a half…I think. Yeah, I have.  I’m still sorting a lot of stuff out and trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up and where I want to be doing it, with whom I want to be doing it, why I want to be doing it are still all up for grabs (well, mostly) but some things have been sorted.  The upshot of the sorting is that I’ve decided that I only want certain folks on my blog roll.  I have reasons for this.

No! No!  It isn’t because I have these elitest, exclusivist or exclusionary tendencies (like some of those really big name blog-for-a-living types that I’m really jealous of because I haven’t made their blogroll yet let alone produced a blog like theirs, but okay!).  It is because I think  it simply reveals WAY TOO MUCH of my ADD tendencies when I have stuff from all over the universe listed that has nothing to do with anything I’m doing here.  Not that I’m doing anything here that is even remotely relevant to the real meaning of life, but it’s sorta fun for me…most of the time.   Even so, I think it is time for this little bloggy to grow up a bit and look a little more…um….what’s the word I’m looking for…respectable?  Ordered?  Thought out?  Put together?  I don’t know…something like that. 

I have a really easy way of determining if I want someone to stay on my blog roll.  If I know them in real life and they are a family member or close friend, they’re automatically in.  Well, unless they request not to be.  That’d tell me something now wouldn’t it?  If  they are just someone out there in the blogosphere then they have to meet two criteria:

• they have to be posting regularly and recently.
• I have to get the “I want to be like that when I grow up!” reaction when I read them.

Oh, wait, there’s a third…

• they have to be on a topic that I perceive my readers (whoever they are because they don’t often identify themselves but I know they are there because my stats say so unless the stats lie!)  would be interested in.  I’m still trying to sort all that out.

Anyway, there you have it.  The reason why some of you might find your names missing on the blog roll and why others will find they’ve been added.  Mostly those who have been deleted so far are folks who aren’t writing anyway and probably don’t care.  If I deleted you and you do care, post a comment.  Everything’s fixable, well, mostly everything.  If you wander in and like what you read, let me know.  If you have a blog and you’d like to be added let me know that too.  I’d be glad to visit your place and take a look around.

Off I go to peruse postings and look at links while avoiding adult responsibilities like laundry, dishes and dealing with other diverse forms of dirt.  I’ve come across a few great bloggers who still rate and need a shout out.  Well, they don’t need it, they are mostly doing fine without my recognition.  I need it, because what they said, how they said it, what they experienced, resonated with me in a way that I feel is worth voicing.  Look for me to share these folks with you in the days to come.  I hope you’ll visit them and find them interesting too!

God and Goddess (small “g”)

I love it when I come across bloggers who really entertain me with their ramblings.  It is like picking up the very best off the New York Times bestseller book rack at the local Barnes & Noble only way cheaper and far more convenient.  Plus, after I get done reading them, I don’t have some trashy paperback that I have to stuff in the box for the monthly run to the local Book Exchange.  It’s just too much fun! 

So, here are two I’m adding to my blogroll today.  I think I’ve fallen in love with both of them.  Well, hell, I don’t even know these people but I love what they write and how they interpret the world.  I tend to lean too much toward the introspective and contemplative, boring, pondering side of life so these people pretty much help me pull my head out.  And…well…they make me laugh.  When so much of my world is filled with bad Knock Knock jokes, tattling,  stuff written at a 5th grade reading level (which I really enjoy by the way), and Jolly Ranchers (which I don’t enjoy so much since I feel like I’m cheating on the Three Musketeers every time I try one), it is good to come home to these adult humor types.  Plus, they refer to the world of corporate America which I left moons ago to pursue the idealistic dream that I could make a difference in the world while playing dodgeball on Fridays, teaching analytic writing traits, math problem solving and making band-aids readily available for every little thing all the while attempting to call it “instruction”.  Yeah right.

Anyway, my two new best blogger friends…a god and goddess of Blogdom in their own rights can be found at:

On Becoming A Universal and Narcissistic God

and

Bridget Jones Has Nothing On Me  

See!   Even the titles of their blogs are entertaining!  Anyway, I know they’re fun when my kids come in from the other side of the house to ask me why I’m laughing so hard. 

They’re definitely two more for the blogroll!  Well, after I get back from the Taxi Mom Shuttle trip I have to make.

Adding Another New Year’s Resolution: More Meandering Through Cyberspace

Not really more “meandering”.  I barely have time to do the things I want to do online or in life, let alone to  spend more time just cruising through Cyperspace without some very specific motive in mind.  In spite of my time crunch, I’ve decided to burden myself with yet another New Year’s Resolution:  I need to become more technologically savvy.

Now, to some who know me, that statement will elicit raucous laughter and a major rolling of the eyes.  Those would be the people who see me as already technologically literate.  They are the ones who say, “Hell, if she can’t figure it out, I’m not even going to try!”  They are also the ones who don’t know how to accept an appointment request in Outlook either…and email is a challenging thing to them.  Mention the word chat, and these people think you mean an oral discussion over coffee at Starbuck’s.  Text messaging is ridiculously slow and of no value to them and Twitter is something birds do in the spring.

Little does this group know how very little I really know.  I only know a little more than they do.  The difference is, I’ve spent a lot of time becoming really good at what aspects of technology I do know.  I also make the same mistakes often enough that when my techie illiterate friends ask for help I can bail them out.  (So, don’t tell them my secret, okay, because it kinda feels good to be considered a little knowledgeable about some things on occasion.)

I don’t know how some people do it.  They seem to have a lot of time to explore stuff out there in Cyberspace.  I spend a fair amount of time online, but like the person who favors the same route to and from work every day, I tend to visit the same places again and again.  I’m not much of an adventurer that way.  Plus, my computer is sooooooo old that surfing the net requires that I wait several minutes after every mouse click for a page to load.  I’m exhausted before I begin.

Today, a real gem of a blogger was Meandering Through Cyberspace and stopped in at my other blog, Welcome To CABsPlace!  Fortunately for me, said blogger left a comment and I followed her home.  I think following her blog will help me accomplish my newest New Year’s Resolution.  Since she meanders through cyberspace and reports on it, I might be able to save some time and get some perspective from those who spend more time out there than I am able to.  Her post today highlighted the differences between Facebook and Twitter and she links to other sites and resources throughout her posts which make it very helpful for people like me with almost no time in a day to surf.  Check out Meandering Through Cyberspace.  It’s another one for the blogroll if you ask me!