The Next Bloggiesta is Next Weekend

I just signed up for my second Bloggiesta which starts this Friday at 8am local time and runs through Monday at 8am local time. Your local time where ever you are on the globe.

Bloggiesta is about improving your blog or your blogging by learning from those who have gone before and/or accomplishing those big or small tasks from total redesign to minor maintenance or housekeeping tasks. From promotion to backup to catch-up.

It's also a bit about socializing with other bloggers and sharing expertise in the pass-it-on tradition.

But let's not forget fun and prizes!

Learn more at Maw Books.

I'm not going to be able to give it the same dedication I did last June since the baby afghan project takes priority still but even if I can't give it the 50+ hours I did last spring I should be able to give it at least eight over the three days and cross off a few more of the items on the huge list of tasks I prepared for June's Bloggiesta.

Just off the cuff, I would prioritize:

• a wrap-up of 2010 Reading Challenges
• sign-up for several 2011 Reading Challenges
• change to 3 column template (actually almost got this done last time. Have the template selected and downloaded just need a graphic for the masthead)
• create a graphic for the masthead of the new template
• sidebar housekeeping
  
• learn new stuff--after all that is one of the biggest advantages of the Bloggiesta. To have access to the info and the experts to learn how to do the stuff you have known for awhile you should be doing and to learn what things you should be doing that you hadn't known about before

I am not sure whether participating in this will add to or lessen the burdens I feel myself under right now. But one of those burdens was the worry about my blog getting neglected as I bit by bit let slide all the writing and reading posts as my focus transferred to crochet during the holidays.

Sunday afternoon I woke from a dream in which I was climbing a very steep hill while carrying a large and very heavy shovel on a 20 foot long handle with awareness that something very very important to me was balanced on the shovel which was too far over my head to see (it could have been the baby afghan or the baby itself; a pile of books; my manuscripts; or my netbook) but just before I woke I looked over my shoulder and saw a big red bouncy ball like we had on our grade-school playgrounds forty-odd years ago bouncing down the hill and into a swimming pool or lake at the bottom. And the thought I woke with was wondering if that ball had just fallen off the shovel or was that what I was being warned would happen if I dropped what was on the shovel.

I know this dream to be a reflection of the fact that I pile expectations on myself tenfold what I could reasonably be expected to accomplish and then berate myself for not getting them done or done to my satisfaction. Like, for example, assigning myself a 36 X 30 inch baby afghan done in size 10 thread to be finished in under six weeks while not dropping any of the other balls I have in the air already.

BTW the afghan started two days before New Year's is now 36 X 15. I just reached the halfway point having added ten rows or two inches between midnight and noon today to reach the end of row 76 of an anticipated 155 rows. But that may have to count for two days work as I don't think I could duplicate that tonight if I wanted to. My right wrist and thumb are threatening a strike. See last Thursday's post for a picture of it at row 54. I'll post a new pic this Thursday.