Oh Well

Last week I posted about limiting my blogging and my following and my reading ... 

Here is how I did this week

I am now following MORE blogs

I am still limiting my time on blogs and reading them via the reader which makes it easier for me

I am using photbucket to upload pictures and it makes posting quicker 

I am choosing topics I want to write about and I am saving them and then adding to them as the week progresses

I am scheduling my blog posts

I am linking up and participating in parties

 

(pickle jar turned into an etched candy jar)

I love blogging and reading and meeting... 

and for now I am going to do what I want when I want... afterall that is what makes me happiest!

 Reminds me of one of my favorite songs 

REAL LIVE WOMAN... Trisha Yearwood!

You can click above to go to the video

I inspired someone...

I cannot even believe that I inspired someone... and her name is Melanie

Go check her out!

HERE

I am thrilled ~ this made my week!!!

Blog Schedule ~ Update!

 I spent some of the weekend reflecting on my blog and the amount of time I spend on it. 

Actually I spent time this weekend doing a lot of reflecting on a lot of things!

But back to the blog... for now!

I have been spending a lot of time with reading and creating blogs. 

I love to read. I love to make things.  I love to journal  ~ but the time all of this has been taking from my life is ... taking its toll!

I began to feel overwhelmed lately 

and 

I needed to get back to the reason I began to blog  ~ to journal our adoption journey. 

Our adoption journey is at a standstill right now so there is not much to tell 

(still moving up the list though)

I love to craft too and friends and family always wanted to see what we were up to so that is why I began to add other things and then eventually combined my adoption blog with my crafting blog and so began 

In My Free Time

I then began getting hooked on a lot blogs thinking that if I was not up to date with what was going all the time with them I was missing out and not part of "the crowd" 

Dear me... this is becoming high school for me again!

Right now I follow... 435  blogs!!

Now that is way too much!

I realize this!

I am actually ashamed of this to be honest!

I am reading more about strangers than I am about my friends and family

After reading all of the wonderful responses from you all I decided to take some of the advice and make some changes to my schedule

1. I am going to cut down my reading schedule to the top 200 blogs I thoroughly enjoy ( this will eventually be paired down to 100). I will do this by taking into account this week the blogs that I REALLY enjoy.  This is going to be hard because I enjoy a variety of blogs crafting and cooking and adoption and relationships and inspirational
2. I am NOT going to join a blog... just to win a prize. 
3. I am going to ONLY blog when I actually want to blog and not when I feel obligated to be part of a blog party
4. I am only going to join parties that I can FULLY participate in ... link up to and visit at least half of the participants
5. I am limiting my blog reading to 30 minutes in the AM and 30 min in the PM per day with an actual timer! (this is going to be so hard too)

I want to thank everyone for responding

I am not looking for blogging to be a job ~ I have one of those

I am not looking to become popular

I am looking to read what I enjoy 

To share when I have something to say

To have fellowship with those I choose

Thank you all again for your help... I will be back again with an update soon!
Patricia

Blog Schedule

I took some time this week to re~evaluate my computer time and blogging habit

I am finding I am spending way too much time writing and (especially) reading blogs and not enough time doing the important stuff like...living in the now

My blog is called ... "my free time"...  well the pace I have been keeping lately leaves me ..."no free time"

 

Before the spring gets here I decided I need to create a schedule for blogging and all computer time  (facebook too)

I thoroughly enjoy blogging and sharing and meeting... I just need to do it less often. 

Do any of you feel the need to cut back and if so how do you do it?

EDITED: thank you all for your honest comments so far... i am looking forward to more of them
i am going to mull all this over this weekend and i will be back with a decision and some commentary
xo

Inspiration

I am constantly inspired from reading blogs and searching the internet

Here is what I have been doing to save all of this precious information

A while back I created another blog where I include links to projects so that if I ever get to complete the idea I can link back to my inspiration when I show my version!

I have everything tagged so that things are easy to find

If I find a recipe I would like to try, I save it in this blog and then just look under the tag and there it is

I also keep poems and sayings on this blog as well as pictures too!

This helps save me from having everything saved on or computer and I never have to search like a mad woman... it is all right there when I needed!

What do you do with the inspiration you come across?

Brenda at Cozy Little House... (awesome blog~ btw) has a link on her blog today for STOP WATCH where you enter your URL and it will tell you how long it takes visitors to open your blog... 1.42 for me... how about you???