Tag: blogging

Categories
BlahBlahBabble

Making Plans to Reboot My Blog

Here I go again. This feels both familiar and strange, all at once.

A little bit of backstory to start. In November 2022, my Facebook account was hacked. I know exactly when it began, as I had a strange “you must change your password” message. My Facebook account and my Instagram account were linked together, and whatever they did once they got inside was so bad, Meta would not give me my account back. At all. I tried everything short of working with a lawyer on it.

What a nightmare. My Facebook account was 16 years old at that point. My Instagram account was 12 years old. If you look at my decline in posting on this blog, it aligns with those time periods.

I have found the silver lining in it all, as it has been nice to have a fresh start. It is like moving houses, you don’t notice what all you have until you have to pack it up and find a place for it in your new home.

The only part that still bothers me is all the content that I gave Meta that is now just … GONE. From articles or quotes I found interesting to entire lengthy posts that really belonged on a blog. Photos from Instagram. Comments from friends. Gone.

The irony of all of this is that when I published my book in 2015, I talked about building on the land that you own – but I was not doing that myself.

Lesson learned.

My purpose here now is mostly selfish. Much like in the original days of blogging, actually. I want to write about what I think about, in a space where I know it will be here later. Probably. (Note to self: another post needs to be written about how none of us really own anything we put online, but not yet. No need to scare people completely.)

I want to use it like a Commonplace book, where I can reference and find things as I need them.

It will also function as a journal, a diary, a photo album. A place to put a good quote. A place to just keep my thoughts.

Here is my to do list as I get this site ready – in the form of links to articles and videos.

Commonplace Books, PARA Method, and a Second Brain

Productivity

WordPress Design Updates

This site is using a Block Editor theme at this point, but now there are Patterns. I need to figure out what they are and what to do with them.

Close the Backdoor in my WordPress blog

Categories
BlahBlahBabble

Happy 20 Year Blogiversary!

Christine Tremoulet seated at a table with her laptop computer

Twenty years ago today, I started this blog.

Originally known as BlahBlahBlog, and later renamed BigPinkCookie, my first blog post was possibly my most groundbreaking:

These blogs seem to be all the rage, and hopefully it will be easier then editing the old fashioned way… we’ll see how it works out! =)

A thought for today:
“What we need in the world is manners…. I think that if, instead of preaching brotherly love, we preached good manners, we might get a little further. It sounds less righteous and more practical.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

This was actually my second attempt at blogging, after I was inspired initially by the Digital Divas to blog by hand coding an HTML page and replacing it each time I added to it.

Thankfully Blogger came along, and then Greymatter, and MovableType, and eventually WordPress.

As I woke up this morning, I started to think of all of the things that blogging has impacted in my life.

Without blogging, I never would have met a community of friends, many of which I’m still connected with today.

I never would have met my husband, Mike. Thank you Ann for that connection.

I never would have met Matt Mullenweg and named WordPress. (Hey, Matt? Remember when I thought you were crazy because you said it would change the world? Yeah. You were right and I was wrong. 30% of the Internet and still growing.)

Without it, I wouldn’t have started sharing my photography & had the courage to start a business – where I’ve since photographed hundreds of weddings and thousands of portraits – touching so many other lives – and my blog helped me connect with those people.

The lessons I’ve learned from blogging + social media + business are things that I’ve tested over and over again with others, and formed the foundation of my coaching business.

Without blogging, I wouldn’t have had 20 years of adventures. I wouldn’t be ME.

I dreamed back in high school of being a photographer, a teacher, and working with computers. Back then, you couldn’t have all of that. I never could have imagined the future I’d have, where I have been able to blend all three of those in to a perfect medley of my business.

Twenty years. I can’t believe it has been twenty years.

Thank you to all of you reading this now, who have read so many other things I’ve written over the years. None of this would be possible without YOU.

    People I’ve visited, shared a meal with, spent a trip with. I’ve watched their families grow and change. We’ve supported one another in times of joy, and times of sorrow.

    A community – completely unlike one we could have ever imagined 20 years ago.

    Blogging made me believe that I could do anything.

    My first photography clients, and my biggest fans, came from my blogging circle. I’ve traveled to England, Bermuda, and around the USA to photograph people that first came in to my life through blogging.

    Social media came along; Twitter, then Facebook, and Instagram, and it all changed how we blogged. The posts became faster, the reactions and interactions more spontaneous, and blogging for many has evolved or faded away.

    Blogs have evolved, which isn’t surprising for a medium that didn’t even exist 20 years ago.

    Blogging is what made my life as I know it possible.

    Categories
    BlahBlahBabble

    I Watched the Internet Grow Up…

    Kristine with a K in Portland

    Kristine with a K in Portland

    I forget sometimes how I have watched the Internet grow up live, first hand. Right in front of me. Blogging since 2000 — well, my first dip in the blogging pool was actually after watching Faith and other designers create things similar to blogs in 1999, but I really got going with blogging in 2000 — means I have seen a lot. I forget that sometimes.

    Then I’m at my friend Stephanie’s house and I pick up the First 20 Years issue of Wired Magazine.

    Looking at the list of the influencers, the things, the events, the websites … I realize that there are people I’ve met among that list. People that if you asked me, I’d even dare to call friends.

    It is strangely fascinating to me. There are people on the list that I wouldn’t have included. People that I feel have dramatically changed the way the world interacts with the internet (Matt of WordPress for example) that are not included on the list.

    As I logged in to my blog to write this post, I saw that I had traffic today from this post that Matt wrote back in 2004. He came *to my house* to do my MovableType to WordPress migration, personally. I asked him a few years ago about why, and he said it was the largest blog to migrate that he was aware of at that point in time.

    It is just fascinating to think of it all. Back in 1987 as I started college, my mom asked me why I didn’t consider majoring in Computer Science because I seemed to like it so much in high school. I laughed, and asked what I do with THAT???

    I’d say the joke was on me, but in reality I still ended up where I belonged. Thanks to a law firm where I worked in IT needing to get online, I had early access to the internet. I hand-coded the HTML after teaching myself how and built my first GeoCities site. I was given stock in GeoCities, and later sold it to fund the down payment on a car. I eventually found the Digital Divas (I think that is what they were called?) and started to blog. I went to South by Southwest Interactive in 2002, back when it was so small that the whole thing maybe took up 10 rooms in the convention center, there were no big corporations at the trade show (Microsoft, etc), and the after-party was at Bruce Sterling’s house — and there I met some of the very people on this Wired Magazine cover.

    I have always written from the heart. I have always been myself, vulnerably and authentic. I have always shared freely, both on my blogs and on forums in various places. It is incredible to look back at what that has brought me in return in my life. Not just the people on the magazine cover, but deep friendships that have been forged as well. Friends that it may have taken me years to meet up with in person (like Kristine, in the photograph above, who I was able to meet up with after 12 years in Portland this summer), but that changed my life none the less. My entire job focuses around the internet now, and while I never thought that would be a reality 15 years ago, now it feels perfectly natural to me.

    I’m so grateful for all of the friends in my life that the internet has brought me. I’ve learned over the years that there are people behind the keyboards, and most of them are pretty accessible. We are all often linked together in some way. I’m lucky that I watched the internet grow up, because it has changed my life in so many ways.

    Categories
    BlahBlahBabble Educate Me

    Must Break Through…

    Mary Allen College in Crockett Texas

    As I went to bed last night I was angry with myself. I started this site over, fresh and new, so it wouldn’t feel like and empty shell any more. A clean slate. A new start.

    Yet what I wrote yesterday didn’t feel like my voice. It didn’t feel authentically me. If you & I were talking, I wouldn’t sound like that.

    It pisses me off.

    That anger is a good thing though, because I’m going to keep it in mind as I write, or at least I’ll try. If I wouldn’t say it out loud, then I’ll think about how I would.

    I want my posts to feel like a letter. A note from me to you. A journal for myself. Personal.

    Practice, practice, practice. Now that I’m aware of it, I can deal with it.

    No more being pissed off at my writing. When it feels like crap, I just need to break through and continue.

    Photograph taken on a recent Texas road trip. The former Mary Allen College in Crockett, Texas.

    Categories
    BlahBlahBabble Creative Geek

    My Comments Just Got SOCIAL! Social Plugin for WordPress from MailChimp Review

    Review of the Social Plugin for WordPress From MailChimp

    For years, one of my biggest pet peeves was that if I wrote a post here but you commented on Facebook or Twitter about it, those comments were just … LOST. They didn’t all get archived here. It has made me CRAZY.

    Somehow, Mike did not know this. So he didn’t tell me when he discovered the Social Plugin for WordPress from MailChimp. I had to find out about it from his blog, as I was migrating the content over to Spoon & Knife, our new food blog.

    I may have screamed a lot yesterday when I discovered this plugin. It was sort of the perfect Valentine’s Day gift for me. Ohhhh, maybe that is why Mike didn’t tell me about it? He was holding out for Valentine’s Day so he wouldn’t have to buy me something bigger? I bet that is it. He is such a sweet, thoughtful guy like that! (I gave him a blog all set up at Spoon & Knife for Valentine’s Day, so it is a pretty good trade off!)

    Back to the Social Plugin for WordPress! NOW … when you write a comment on my post, you can chose to log in with WordPress, Twitter, or Facebook. If you use the Twitter or Facebook option, you can also post the comment there. Now here is the COOL PART!!! If you comment on this post when I push it to Twitter & Facebook after it is published? Those comments are pulled back in here on my blog! That is what I’ve been waiting for!

    I never wanted to use the Facebook plugin – it looks cluttered to me to have both Facebook + regular WordPress comment options on your blog. Which one do I use? You want me to write in the Facebook one (publicity for you, smart move), but what if I don’t have Facebook? Or what if you retweet my post?

    Finally, after wishing for it for 6+ years, everything is gathered in one place! I don’t know if you know how GIDDY this makes me!!! (I’m only sad it doesn’t retroactively get comments made on old posts – but we can’t have it all, right?)

    NOTE: It does take a little while for the comments on Twitter & Facebook to get scooped up and put on the blog, but they do come over. Just not immediately.

    Install the Social Plugin for WordPress from MailChimp and try it out. Write a post, “broadcast” it easily to Twitter & Facebook, and then track and archive the conversation happening about it everywhere. I am absolutely in love with it, and have it on all of my blogs now! (Thanks for the gift, Mike! It is PERFECT!)