Monthly Archives: July 2008

Blog Value: You are NOT Your Google Rank


For those who have paid attention there is a button for Fuel My Blog on the main page of this blog. It’s a community I joined but admit I haven’t participated in as much as I could – mainly because I am always so pressed for hours in a day which is hardly an original excuse. Lately, the community page has been publishing pieces by bloggers on what makes a successful blogger and blog. Today I read an interesting post about what defines an established blog/blogger and what it takes to be successful.

Unsurprisingly one’s Google Rank or Technorati rating is not what really counts, although those of us in competition for advertisers and writing gigs could make valid points that beg to differ.

Value is not intrinsic in what amounts to a blog’s ability to generate traffic and revenue for the commercial end of life. Value is what a blog/blogger means to the people who read and relate and find meaning from one’s content. Read Full Article

Feeding My Soul is the Hump Day Hmmm


Julie asked, What feeds your soul. What do you do to renew yourself? And how does this fit within the cultural boundaries that fence you? Big questions that grew out of a friend’s need to cook for others as she looked for footing and more level ground following the death of her father.

My reply is – I don’t know.

I am not sure that what we refer to as the “soul” is renewable as much as it is elastic. For most of us it can stretch and snap back, holding up to a remarkable amount of challenge and even abuse.

Deliberate recharging of the energy source that makes this possible is something I haven’t spent much time considering. I know that many of us take holidays, but I find getting away to be merely doing what I do normally, more of less, in a new locale. There is little about it that is relaxing or recuperative in a me time sort of way.

Is soul food Me Time? Alicia wrote about naming that time we dedicate to ourselves. Defining it.

Does the soul need daily intake, or is it a feast or famine thing? Or perhaps it is like the Energizer rechargable batteries that my husband uses in the digital camera – an every so often.

I used to run daily and would get quite cranky when anything prevented me from getting my miles. Music and mileage were musts.

I used to read books a week but wandering the Barnes and Noble last evening I wondered if I would ever need to read again the way I need to write.

Is writing a soul feasting? Not unless breathing is as well.

I thirst for time with my husband. For time on my own. Occasionally I need to interact in person with the wider world.

More to ponder than to state as absolute where my soul is concerned, I think.

But what about you gentle reader? Comments? Linkbacks?

Revisiting the Past


Back in Des Moines and haunting myself in an Ebeneezer Scrooge kind of way has brought me round to a not so profound conclusion – moving on and away from the past is better than constantly, or even just occasionally, ruminating on the fairness or unfairness of the cards we are dealt.

What I hope I do more often than not is remember what I have learned from my not so long ago – good times and bad – put it into practice and remember that I am a very fortunate person all things considered.

All along I have told Rob that I wasn’t looking forward to coming back to Des Moines and seeing all the old sites and visiting Will’s grave. To me it seemed like a pointless scab-picking of my soul. I am not someone who buys into the notion that tragedy and grief should be ruminated about and given in to simply because it happens to be there and handy. But my daughter had need of seeing the headstone, visiting the old places and seeing people, and so I have sucked it up and picked a bit around the edges but not enough to draw blood. There really is no need for that.

Today we wandered the mall and did things that were familiar to BabyDaughter from the life she and I lived during the years her father was dying and mostly living apart from us. I think she was very surprised by the fact that things have changed and life here has clearly gone on without us.

Tears have been shed by all of us at different points in the last three days but not many and not hysterically and not without a realization that to be happy now – then had to happen and be survived, which for me is not as hard to reconcile as one might think or expect.

Life goes on. Mostly because it has to. The whole thing was designed this way and not by accident.

Rob asked me if I miss living here and the answer is no and yes.

I consider home to be where Rob is because people embody the idea most that people speak of when they talk about “being at home” or “going home”, but life in the U.S. is corruptively convenient and this makes it easier than living where we do in Canada. Things are abundant, relatively inexpensive and readily available. This does not make here home to me though. It just makes it easy and thoughtless.

I still feel a bit alien here even though I probably stick out more where we live in Alberta. Being back reminds me of how different I am and how much I have changed – hopefully grown – over the past year. It reminds me too of how far in the past the past really is and how quickly time moves forward when you allow yourself to live.