Tuesday, July 1, 2008

First time for everything

I have no business having a blog. I don't know anyone who has a blog, nor do I know what I'm doing making my blog! I don't have a clue how to load pictures, nor do I know how anyone will ever find my site. I was browsing the Monthly challenge blog and there was an invitation on some link to make a blog for myself. Great! I proceeded to give the site all the information they were asking for: name, email address - so far so good! Then it asked me to name my blog. Brain freeze. I stopped making my blog. Heck - everyone has great names for their blogs! My brain which seemed to be functioning just fine until this point decided this was too big. I'd come back to this when I came up with a clever name. I shared my dilemma with my coworker Sandy. She immediately said "Name it Night Stitcher". Apparently Sandy's brain was still functioning at 3 in the morning. Days went by. I went to many cross stitchers' sites and marveled at how clever everyone seemed to be.

Tonight I had to have a blog. It was a selfish motivation at best. I was on Snippets and Stash and Staci offered to send a cross stitch project to the first three people who responded (or she would do a drawing if more than 3 responded). It was a PIF deal. How could I pay it forward if I didn't have any contacts? (I really only wanted a piece of this woman's brilliant handiwork!) I went back to the drawing board. I proceeded with "Night stitcher" only to hit another glitch. The URL. Right. URL. Once again, I was stuck and mildly irritated with myself (and the computer). I resigned myself to the fact that I wouldn't be the lucky recipient of Staci's handiwork and would be blogless and giftless. I googled "setting up a blog" and found an amusing piece called "150 steps to setting up a blog" - it was hilarious. I knew there was a kernel of truth in the humor and sat down with a cup of tea to decide if I could ever tackle this new and confusing world.

Obviously if you are reading this, you've figured out that I did finally get this up and running. I don't know what to do with it, I only know that it holds a promise of new friends, inspiration from fellow cross stitchers and hope that I will be able to put together a snazzy site where the computer fairy will magically download my photos, upload adorable clip art and grace me with knowledge about what I'm doing here!

I hope you will visit me again and see my feeble attempts at making this site presentable. Feel free to send along any suggestions you might have for me. I am now the proud owner of my own blog. Amen.

12 comments:

Unknown said...

Welcome to the wonderful world of blogging! I saw your comment on Staci's PIF post about your setting up a blog just to join the PIF and I was intrigued and amused - as the real reason I decided to blog was because of all of the lovely exchanges, PIFs, and RRs I had seen on the blogs I had so recently discovered! I just wanted to get in on the action! And, I was really hoping someone out there would kick my a** - er... motivate me - into finishing the stocking I started for my daughter 17 years ago, which, let's face it, is probably a UFO. Since I've only put about 10 Xs into it since I started blogging, and found almost as many spots that I need to frog, it hardly would qualify as a WIP. I think all of those mistakes are probably why I put it down in the first place....

staci said...

Welcome to blogging Jean! Thank you for visiting me :) I'll be back again soon!

Jean said...

Thanks for visiting, Staci - now that the site is off "invisible" text, you can actually read my blog!

staci said...

Jean, you've made me smile...not only have you just given me the BIGGEST compliment, but that's exactly how I felt about blogging!!!

I had my blog 'sort of' set up for probably 4 months before I finally did anything with it, and when I say sort of~~it just had a name and url ;)

I am probably the most computer-challenged person in the blogosphere. I'm lucky to have a sister who is a computer whiz and helps me make my blog look so good (she does the header for me and then just emails it all to me as an attachment so that I only have to load it!) And if I can load pics, anyone can (ummm, I had the camera for almost a year before I downloaded the program on my computer!)

I've found the blogging community to be a fun, friendly, helpful, generous, and inspiring place to be~~I'm sure you will too :)

As a little aside here, I probably should have stated that you didn't have to have a blog...you just need to do it in your life (that's what I did with a couple PIF's I signed up for pre-blog.) But don't stop blogging, I can't wait to see some of your handiwork!!!

Lainey said...

Welcome to blogging Jean, I'm sure you are going to have lots of fun and make some wonderful new friends.

Hugs
Lainey

Coni said...

Hellooooooo! Welcome to Stitchy Blogville! I am a newbie too, but already feel like I have made thousands of new friends all over the world. (Well, maybe not thousands, but hundreds at least!) Just remember that there are NO RULES, NOT GUILT, and NO APOLOGIES necessary to have a ball with this! Just have fun! Kiss Kiss!

Unknown said...

welcome to our wee world if you need any help feel free to comment on my blog and i will help you as best i can :)

Daffycat said...

Welcome to blogland! I've added you to my blogroll so keep posting!

Anonymous said...

Welcome to blogland! It was overwhelming at first for me, too, but once you get the hang of things it's a lot of fun :)

imnverted said...

Welcome to the wonderful world of blogging :)

If you can find it, could you post the address of the "150 steps to setting up a blog"? Im always up for a good giggle

Jean said...

Oops - it only felt like 150 steps to starting a blog!! Here's the web page I read....http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2005/2/7/161047/1869
I could write a few additions of my own!! LOL! Thanks for visiting!

All things beautiful said...

Congratulations! My hat off to you, Jean. I can't even take credit for my blog cos it's my daughter who set it up for me :-) By the way I'm Lee Fun from Malaysia and I love to dabble with handicrafts of all kinds, especially anything to do with fabric or paper. So, it's no coincidence that I love cross-stitch, patchwork and scrapbooking. I have bookmarked you and will certainly be visiting from time to time. Cheers!