Thoughts on blogging

We’re in the middle of an ice somethingorother (I hesitate to call it a “storm” but at the same time, the freezing mist is not exactly benign, and I have had to wield an ice scraper with my van four times today – twice mid-trip) which has made me just want to curl up on the couch and let my thoughts carry me away.

Do any of you remember when this was primarily a polymer clay blog?  Some of you are still around from those days.  When I found sewing, things went a little topsy-turvy around here.  Each new thing I learned how to do excited me, and I wrote about these things constantly.  I probably lost a few die-hard clayers along the way, but still my blog audience grew.  I was making discoveries weekly, sharing the results of my experiments, and having a great time.

I think people can tell when you are doing something you love.  Your enthusiasm can be contagious, and enjoyable to read.

Then I learned to knit, and while I worried a little bit about the way my readers would take to the new barrage of posts that waxed poetically about this yarn or that stitch, I wasn’t overly concerned.  I knew that a large percentage of you who could sew and/or clay, had an interest in knitting, too.  So no big deal.

Now I’m finding myself consumed by photography.  I’m devouring books on the subject and learning a staggering amount of information about the mechanics of it, and applying what I learn.  It’s such fun for me!  And when I find that I have an hour to myself, I would rather spend it messing with an image in Paint Shop Pro (or Photoshop, before my free trial ended) than sewing, knitting, or claying.  At least for now.

My interests ebb and flow like this, and I think you know that, if you’ve been visiting here for long.  For some reason, though, I’ve felt like this photography thing would not have the same broad appeal as my other interests have had.  Maybe because it’s more “techy” in a lot of ways than it is “handcrafty.”  I don’t know, exactly, but I do know that I’ve been avoiding posting about it as often as I would really like to.  I’ve been avoiding sharing some of the post-processing tricks that I’ve learned, and doing the show-and-tell thing that I do with my other artsy projects.

How silly it is for me to censor myself this way!  So what if Polka Dot Cottage spends a few months being primarily “Lisa’s Photography Blog?”  It’s really no different than the months it has spent being “Lisa’s Knitting Blog,” “Lisa’s Sewing Blog,” and “Lisa’s Polymer Clay Blog.”  Every interest has its turn.  And then they all take turns again.  And then something new pokes its head into the mix.  And more turns are taken.  That’s the fun of it!

(I should mention here, for those that may not know, WordPress makes it possible for you to subscribe to a single blog category.  So, if you really are only here for one thing and one thing alone, you don’t have to wade through everything else to get to it.  You can find a list of categories here, and instructions for subscribing to the category feeds.)

I think I am done thinking for now.  Everyone is home from work and school early because of the ice.  I plan to curl up with my laptop for the rest of the afternoon and catch up on some business (and a little play, if we’re being honest) and enjoy the smell of the Slow-Cooker Salsa Chicken bubbling away on the counter top.  With luck, everything will be canceled tomorrow, and I won’t have to abandon my little cocoon until the sun comes out again.  Fingers crossed.  Stay safe, everyone.