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First flowers of spring

First flowers of spring

Wildflowers appeared in March here in South Texas. We will enjoy their brilliant colors until the sun leeches the chlorophyll from their stems and we once again swing from tree ropes and plop into anemic rivers in an attempt to stay cool.

Although March blistered by with the half-life of a Texas bluebonnet, blogging this month went better than February. In February, it felt like the blog honeymoon was over, and the initial heady rush of excitement when someone “liked,” or “followed,” me gave way to a dose of discouragement and lack of focus.  You know, when the honeymoon is over it’s time to pony up and decide whether to jump in with both feet or quit and move on to some other diversion. I decided to do the former, and it has paid off with slow, but steady growth over the month of March, and a growing perspective about what folks want to read.

I think one of the things I’ve found most helpful is writing the pauseRReport.  As with any other task, purposeful reflection can often lead to positive changes.  I did a couple of things differently this month.

  • I listened to my own advice and planned ahead for writing two blogs a week. It took me about 30 minutes to think about what sort of posts I could put up, and I followed through with this plan.  That felt good.
  • I learned to schedule my blogs in anticipation of our German vacation. While I was huffing my way up the steep incline to Neuschwanstein Castle, my Saturday Walk post went up.  The Daily Discomfort appeared on Wednesday like it usually does as well, even though I was wandering through a bunch of medieval churches on the other side of the world.  That also felt good.
  • I started posting pictures of our Saturday walks, which I plan to continue. Not only is it fun to take pictures of the places we go on our travels near and far, the posts have been pretty popular.  Also, they don’t take very long to produce.  Time has been an issue in the last couple of months because it’s that time of the school year- testing- and my schools have asked for extra help.  Since I learned months ago that it’s pretty important to post regularly, this is a good way to make sure I’m keeping the blog content fresh.  It also helps me improve my novice level photography skills.

Here are some of the posts and blogsites I loved this month:

Wednesday Woodworking, I’m still Cutting: Andrew’s View of the Week

A Message for All of Humanity: butchcountry67

The Lies We Tell, Carter Library (I love her blog. Love it.)

Nutella or Montague: What’s in a Name: IdiotPrufs

On the Road with Animal Couriers– Any blog they write is going to make your day a little brighter.

I read a couple of great books this month, too:

Wool by Hugh Howey.  This book blew me away.  I read so much that I’m not too blow awayable, but this was a fun read.

The Last Kingdom by Bernard Cornwell. This is the first book in his Saxon tales series.  I’ve had to exercise self-control not to download all of them on my Nook.  Really accessible historical fiction.

In April…

I am going to write about our trip to Germany for the month of April. It will be a heck of a chore  to keep my blogs post reader short, because it was a singular experience.

My goal for April is to do some mind mapping before I start the writing about our travels to see if that assists me in any way, and whether mind mapping could have any applications to the work I do in classrooms for the San Antonio Writing project.

If I had a second goal, (I swore off of second goals, but…) it would be to write a couple of posts for the paus(ed) label.  Students have been doing some awesome writing within the activities their teachers and I share with them, and I’m anxious to share my observations about these wonderful young adults.  But I’m not setting a second goal.

When did you experience the end of your blog honeymoon?  What did you do to regain your footing?