Reboot

I've been thinking a lot about blogging lately. Namely, blogging *consistently.* After starting a blog in 2004 and trying valiantly to update it on a regular basis, you'd think I would have mastered the craft by now. But no, not so much. I tend to DECIDE TO BLOG!!!! and then... I find too many things to distract me from putting my words to paper. Er, cyberspace.

Lately, though, I've felt the urge to blog. To write. To share and communicate and think and make an attempt to be funny, coherent, and thoughtful. With a little dash of charm, if I can summon it. And also, curse words.

Here's a story: almost a year ago, I decided to start a food blog. I thought that would be my creative outlet, my place for public words. And for the first few months of food-blogging, I really enjoyed it. I reveled in having an excuse to make delicious recipes and try new things. I played around with food photography and made full use of Photoshop. (Tangent -- access to Photoshop does not a good photographer make. You'll notice this if you look at some of my lackluster food photos. Some turned out really well, but a lot of them were... ehm... shitty. If only my brilliant photographer husband would have been willing to spend a little more time with me as I fussed about in the kitchen. But for some reason, he had other things to do that took precedence over tracking my every stir and slice with his camera. Hmph.)

So anyway, after a relentless, all-consuming, mad rush of Christmas-cookie-baking -- most of which I didn't even post on the blog -- I found myself a little burned out on being a "foodie." I started to bake things just so I could "put them on the blog later," which I wouldn't get around to doing. Eventually, the only evidence I really had of my foray into food blogging was a little extra padding around my ass.

My food blog is not defunct. If you'll notice, I've put a pretty little strawberried button in the sidebar to link to my online cooking diary. I still participate in Daring Bakers, and when I'm feeling extra motivated, I still get new recipes & photos posted. But it's just not my focus anymore (if it ever was).

Now I'm trying to figure out what my focus is. I feel like blogs are supposed to have a theme, and it's very difficult for me to find my own niche. This is, I think, because I tend to obsess-obsess-obsess over something for a while, then I get bored with it. My Google Reader is schizophrenic, full of a mishmash of categories that only I can decipher. I've got my food blogs, collected over the period of time where I ogled food photographs and thought about dessert nonstop; photography blogs, which are full of gorgeousness; book blogs, because I am never without books in my life; blogs written by people I know; blogs written by people I feel like I know; ridiculous, hilarious time-wasting websites; Anthropologie blogs; and Weddingbee.

Let me talk about Weddingbee for a minute. I started reading it when I was planning my wedding two years ago, and while I also subscribed to a dozen other wedding inspiration blogs, Weddingbee is the only one I still read. You get to know all these blogging brides while they're planning their weddings, and then they recap their weddings, and while they're doing that, a new generation of blogging brides starts sharing. It's a difficult site to quit, lemme tell you. And all those "bees" who were blogging when I was planning my wedding too? They're all married now, dealing with adult life and the same kind of issues I think about a lot, so now I read their personal blogs. I feel a little bit like a stalker, but I also know I'm not the only WB reader out there. So. There's a whole spiel about Weddingbee and how it feeds my Google Reader a proliferation of new blogs.

Finally I will come to my point. I'm sorry it's taken so long -- I've been brewing this blog entry for a while, so just bear with me, okay? My point is that I want to start blogging again, regularly, here on Jill in San Diego. Whether I have zero readers or 100. And I want to write about whatever the hell is on my mind, which will include but not be limited to the following: books, cookies, idiots, insecurity, contentment, joy, the ocean, the weather, Anthropologie, pets, concerts, theatre, plants, my husband (hereby called Terwilliger), homesickness, writing, yoga, jogging, and learning.

So tell me about yourself. Do you have a schizophrenic Google Reader too? Do you find it hard to focus on one theme or topic? I hope I'm not alone in this.