Perusing my feeds today, I found the following list of 15 things to do for Readers this year. And it seems like the first do-able list of resolutions I've come across so far. With the exception of the reading a play aloud with friends, I think I may be able to get a few of these done in 2009...
Cool!
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Sunday, January 4, 2009
a little late for an 08 round up but oh well
I've never been good at New Year's resolutions. They don't stick. The only things that stick to me in January are calories. They stay close to my midsection/lower region. Haha!
But after perusing about a week's worth of people's 08 summation blogs, NY resolution blogs, etc, I've decided it's time to post something- anything on my own blog.
Here goes:
I've been spending the last few weeks literally cocooned into my couch with a winter blanket and movies. I typically don't watch a lot of movies, but for some reason, over the past few weeks I've watched so many movies I believe the number is larger than all the movies I've watched in the last two years, prior to the past three weeks. It's been a great way for me to relax, not-think, and sink into someone else's fantasy world or something. It has been the one thing that's put me at ease of late.
What I've noticed about my movie-watching? I'm as forgetful about movie titles and plots as I am about book titles and plots. I'm not going to bother posting all the ones I've seen from the comfort of my couch, but I AM going to start writing down summaries of all the books I read. So if you need a resolution, that's it I suppose. I need to remember more. So I'll be attempting to chronicle my book reading better- even if it's just a Word document on my computer at work, or my goodreads account. I just have to. Otherwise it seems really stupid to even bother reading a book. I recommend it later this way:
Patron: Can you recommend any good books?
Me: (brightening) OH YES! What do you like?
Patron: OH...(goes into different authors or genres...)
Me: (blank) Oh, well. Here's what I've read lately. (I can then point out the book and the title, but scramble to read the jacket flap or back cover to remember what I liked so much about the book)
So instead of taking some sort of herbal remedy to help with my ailing short term memory, I'm going to start writing things down. It's the only way I can remember things it seems.
I'm REALLY considering closing out my Myspace page. I am not a fan of facebook, I in fact loathe it and always have. However, everyone's migrating and checking in with two online social networks that operate in such similar ways is pointless at this point. My biggest concern is losing all of my Myspace blogs- which are much more journal-like and important to me since I've been logging my feelings there for a long long time. I've submitted a questions to "Tom" and his cronies about how to archive/save the blogs I've done of the years on Myspace and no one has answered. I think they may have the suspicion that I'm contemplating going to the dark side (facebook). So I may just have to take an afternoon and copy and paste all myspace blogs into yet another Word Document. We'll see.
For Christmas I gave my Grandpa a hard copy of my blog from my 2006 trip to England. He's always wanted to know what I did while I was there, and look at pictures, and I just always had it online and not in book form, so my 83 year old grandpa never really had the full story as other more tech-savvy members of my family did. I used a service called Blog2Print. It could be MUCH more user friendly, and it was absolutely a bear to try to edit anything through their service. But I was happy with the result for the most part. If you're going to use them, I have the following recommendations:
Make use of the Memoribilia page by adding more pictures.
Eliminate as much space as possible from your postings, as it adds to the length of the book and also the price per page.
Try as hard as you can to edit your blog in it's regular blog form before importing it into their service. I didn't, so my blog reads like a 7th grade English teacher's nightmare, typos and all.
Think about how much value long URLs have to the book form, and take them out. I have a few pages of lists of just web pages, which are convenient online, but don't make a lot of sense when paging through a book.
I got the hardcover, and was happy with the results. I can't vouch for the paperback form, but it's much cheaper to do that.
Once you publish through their site, they send you numerous valuable coupons to print out more copies of your book for much much cheaper than your original copy. But, I wasn't able to figure out how to edit the book before purchasing it again. So if you re-purchase it with a coupon, you may not be able to make any edits.
In closing 2008 was a banner year for me. So much changed and it really needed to. I have a feeling that even more is going to change in the upcoming year for me, and I'm ready for it. I need to learn to stop whining as much and roll with the punches more easily. Nothing's as important as I've made it seem in my cranky rantings online, and all it took was a little bit of hindsight and perspective to show me that.
So looking forward, I'll try to be better about posting, I'm not making any promises, but I hope everyone has a wonderful 2009 filled with health wealth (ha!) and happiness.
But after perusing about a week's worth of people's 08 summation blogs, NY resolution blogs, etc, I've decided it's time to post something- anything on my own blog.
Here goes:
I've been spending the last few weeks literally cocooned into my couch with a winter blanket and movies. I typically don't watch a lot of movies, but for some reason, over the past few weeks I've watched so many movies I believe the number is larger than all the movies I've watched in the last two years, prior to the past three weeks. It's been a great way for me to relax, not-think, and sink into someone else's fantasy world or something. It has been the one thing that's put me at ease of late.
What I've noticed about my movie-watching? I'm as forgetful about movie titles and plots as I am about book titles and plots. I'm not going to bother posting all the ones I've seen from the comfort of my couch, but I AM going to start writing down summaries of all the books I read. So if you need a resolution, that's it I suppose. I need to remember more. So I'll be attempting to chronicle my book reading better- even if it's just a Word document on my computer at work, or my goodreads account. I just have to. Otherwise it seems really stupid to even bother reading a book. I recommend it later this way:
Patron: Can you recommend any good books?
Me: (brightening) OH YES! What do you like?
Patron: OH...(goes into different authors or genres...)
Me: (blank) Oh, well. Here's what I've read lately. (I can then point out the book and the title, but scramble to read the jacket flap or back cover to remember what I liked so much about the book)
So instead of taking some sort of herbal remedy to help with my ailing short term memory, I'm going to start writing things down. It's the only way I can remember things it seems.
I'm REALLY considering closing out my Myspace page. I am not a fan of facebook, I in fact loathe it and always have. However, everyone's migrating and checking in with two online social networks that operate in such similar ways is pointless at this point. My biggest concern is losing all of my Myspace blogs- which are much more journal-like and important to me since I've been logging my feelings there for a long long time. I've submitted a questions to "Tom" and his cronies about how to archive/save the blogs I've done of the years on Myspace and no one has answered. I think they may have the suspicion that I'm contemplating going to the dark side (facebook). So I may just have to take an afternoon and copy and paste all myspace blogs into yet another Word Document. We'll see.
For Christmas I gave my Grandpa a hard copy of my blog from my 2006 trip to England. He's always wanted to know what I did while I was there, and look at pictures, and I just always had it online and not in book form, so my 83 year old grandpa never really had the full story as other more tech-savvy members of my family did. I used a service called Blog2Print. It could be MUCH more user friendly, and it was absolutely a bear to try to edit anything through their service. But I was happy with the result for the most part. If you're going to use them, I have the following recommendations:
Make use of the Memoribilia page by adding more pictures.
Eliminate as much space as possible from your postings, as it adds to the length of the book and also the price per page.
Try as hard as you can to edit your blog in it's regular blog form before importing it into their service. I didn't, so my blog reads like a 7th grade English teacher's nightmare, typos and all.
Think about how much value long URLs have to the book form, and take them out. I have a few pages of lists of just web pages, which are convenient online, but don't make a lot of sense when paging through a book.
I got the hardcover, and was happy with the results. I can't vouch for the paperback form, but it's much cheaper to do that.
Once you publish through their site, they send you numerous valuable coupons to print out more copies of your book for much much cheaper than your original copy. But, I wasn't able to figure out how to edit the book before purchasing it again. So if you re-purchase it with a coupon, you may not be able to make any edits.
In closing 2008 was a banner year for me. So much changed and it really needed to. I have a feeling that even more is going to change in the upcoming year for me, and I'm ready for it. I need to learn to stop whining as much and roll with the punches more easily. Nothing's as important as I've made it seem in my cranky rantings online, and all it took was a little bit of hindsight and perspective to show me that.
So looking forward, I'll try to be better about posting, I'm not making any promises, but I hope everyone has a wonderful 2009 filled with health wealth (ha!) and happiness.
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