Sunday July 12, 2009

I have been a “blogger” for more than three years and used to be fairly prolific. From blogging about gastric bypass surgery, to griping about life to trying to provide encouraging nuggets of wisdom, I’ve put a lot of words out there on the Internet.

Not so much lately. When I wrote my Independence Day blog (two days late), I noticed that it had been a full month since my last entry. I used to write a blog entry several times a week so this is a noticeable decline. So what have I been doing?

Well, obviously I got married and it seems to be fitting that I would rather spend time with my husband and our two kitties instead of in front of the computer all the time. That said, with our varied schedules I still get some online time when he’s not here (and often when he is!). Just in case you forgot what everyone looks like, here’s our two kitties (Colby is the orange one, Missy is the tuxedo)

Here’s John and me on our trip to Louisiana in March. I haven’t liked any of the photos of us together taken since then, HA!

I’ve also kept busy with freelance projects, but not as much as I would like. In recent months I’ve written for two national magazines and am looking for more freelance writing projects. I wrote a series of articles for my alumni magazine at John Brown University, “Brown Bulletin.” I also made another contribution to the Spina Bifida Association’s “Insights” but that publication is being delayed for a few months so it can be turned into a feature article instead of just a smaller piece.

Creating my own Web site has also kept me busy, but I’m at somewhat of a standstill with it. There’s several more pages that I want to add, but they are pretty personal. It’s information that I want to share, I am just waiting for the right time and appropriate words to complete those pages. To clarify, I did have a Web site before, but it had been two years since it was updated and it was off the Yahoo server. This Web site has it’s own URL (Web address): Jamie’s Notebook.

John and I have also maintained our first garden this year, which I blogged about a few months ago. It’s in full bloom now and while it’s not a lot of produce, we are getting actual food from it! The flowers are also gorgeous. Here’s a few updated shots:

Another project I decided to take on is going to take a very long time, but I think I’ll enjoy it. I have ideas for two different books and I’ve started one of them. There is no deadline for these books and I’m not going to worry about getting them done in a certain time frame. So if you ask me about them, don’t be surprised if not much has been done on them!

The first book is a collection of essays that are based on blogs I’ve written either on MySpace or Xanga. Lately most of my blogs at those two locations have mirrored each other, but they used to have completely different purposes and content. I’m reworking, rewriting and combining some of the blogs to make them more complete, etc. I also have a list of essays that I want to include, but have not decided if I will write them as blogs then expand them into essays later. I think with some that will be a good idea because they are touchy subjects and by posting them as a blog entry first, I can gauge if I’m expressing myself in a manner that I’m attempting.

The second book is drastically different and although I’ve had the idea for longer, I am holding off on writing it. I want to write a children’s illustrated book about my imaginary cat, Skinny, that I had as a child. I don’t really know how to write for children, or how to write to accompany illustrations. So I’m making my first endeavor into the publishing world a project that I feel more qualified to do (the essay book) then I’ll work on the children’s book.

So as you can see, just because I’ve not been writing about it, doesn’t mean I haven’t had a lot going on!

P.S. In case you didn’t notice, I completely changed up the look of this blog!

Added note: I also joined Twitter. You can follow me at @ImGingerSmith