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GETTING IN THE GROOVE
I started this blog on August 2000.
Since we just passed the nine year mark, I've decided to try some new things for the blog. Mostly to keep myself regular and posting everyday and also a chance to try out some things I've wanted to for a while. So I made a little schedule for myself and as a reminder to myself I am going to post it here and do my best to keep to it. photos I will still keep posting daily photos. I want to take more "non family" photos so I will attempt to do more of that. I will still have daily Nathaniel since we're still in his first year and I promised I will take photos every day in his first year. I will make sure to have at least one photo of David every week. One photo of myself every week. And monthly (ideally more frequently) photos of me and the kids and Jake and the kids and all four of us. Let's see how this goes. Here's a schedule for non-photo posts I want to make daily: Mondays: I will post a video of something. Either a photoshop/digital tip or a non-digital technique etc. Tuesdays: A new layout/mixed media art, etc. Wednesdays: A digital download package. It will have anywhere from 7 to more digital elements in it. Thursdays: My weekly tag. Fridays: Books. I am starting to read more and will challenge myself to read a book a week (more coming on this) and on Fridays I will write about the book I read that week. Saturdays: A photo tip. This will be a tip on photography. Technicals, how to improve, how to use your camera, etc. Just my compilation of this information. Sundays: A new creative therapy catalyst. My plan is to also post at least 3 longer journaling-type entries a week. When I look back upon my years of posting here, besides the photos, those are my favorite posts. Here's to hoping I can make that happen. IF YOU'RE OUT THERE
Please take the time to say hi today. Tell me that you were here. Just this one time.NEW CHANGES ABOUND
So a while ago, I created this sub-site for my scrapbooking fun. At the
time, I thought the regular readers I had might not be interested in my
scrapping stuff and my scrapbooking readers might not be interested in
all the writing I do. But today, I decided that's over. Scrapping,
painting, art are now a part of who I am. Just like everything else. So
it's all one page now. If you don't like it, you can always just read by
category. Those are still around.
Hope this is not a big deal. But this site has grown and changed with me for nine years now so here's another one. HOUSECLEANING
I just posted around twenty layouts that mean that the site is now
caught up to all my recent scrapbooking. I also separated the two sites
for those of you who don't care for scrapbooking and those of you who
don't care about my non-scrap related thoughts. The scrapping has its
own site and the link is permanently on the top right.
I also separated the rss feeds. If you want the main site, here's the feed for all but scrapbooking. If you want the scrapbooking one, here is the scrapbooking one. If you want both in one rss, here is both. At some point, I might join all back, but for November, this is how things will be. NEW ADDITION
It's been a while since I've added a new section to the site but I've
finally managed to put together a new section which is mostly about my
relatively new hobby which has recently become mostly a favorite
pasttime (along with books of course.)
In honor of scrapbooking, which brings together my love of photography, writing, and art, I created a new "create" section: find it here. I have a lot of posts sitting in queue waiting to get posted. Expect some blog diarrhea soon. TWEAKING
I forgot how much time it takes to tweak this site. I've spent the
better part of a Sunday updating my scripts and that's no fun.
BACK TO ORIGINAL
So I am trying to find a way to allow me to post more frequently and
I have decided to go back to the very original weblog look which
means everything gets dumped to the main page regardless of its
category. No special section for photos or david. If you don't like
the topic of a post, feel free to skip it.
FRUSTRATED AND TIRED
I am in a constant state of flux on what to do about this site. This May, I will have been writing on and off for six years. For the first three or four years, I did write consistently and I looked forward to coming home and writing down my thoughts and feelings. Some days it was an effort but most days it really wasn't. I still regularly go back to those posts and reread them so I am really glad they're there. Not to mention all the photos I've accumulated over the years. They are all fantastic records of those years. Since I stopped working at the investment bank, it seems I haven't really written consistently. I had a bout of consistent photo posting but even that came to an end with David's birth.
The times when I've taken an "official" break, I've felt like a weight has been lifted off of me. At least once a day, I think of the site and how I should be updating and writing more. I think of taking photos and get depressed at the state of my life. But then when the time comes to write, I look at my to-do list and look at the things I have to give up. I have a full-time job and a part-time job. I have a little boy who's getting more demanding each day. I take photos of him every day and post them weekly for my family to see. I am making a scrapbook for his first year which does seem to take countless hours of my crazy time. I still try to read a book a week (or two weeks) since it's one of the few things that makes me feel peaceful and sane. I get around 50 emails a day that I have to respond to which are besides the over 100 I get for work. Not to mention the daily things like preparing 3 meals a day for the little boy and feeding them to him. We go to music class once a week, two different mom's groups once a week each, a baby book club once every two weeks, and a ton of random crap that just comes up. The only peaceful and uninterrupted times I have in the day are from 6:30pm to bedtime. Lately, thanks to my sinuses, I have been going to bed as early as 8pm which means I have 1.5 hours to eat dinner, catch up with my husband and go through my entire to-do list. So, I've been feeling slightly overwhelmed lately and giving this site (which hasn't been updated with any regularity for months now) seems so enticing. But then I can't get myself to do it. This feels like a part of me. Something I poured so much of myself into. Something I can't seem to let go. So I sit here, frustrated and unsure and tired of going back an forth. I most likely will make yet another set of changes to see if I can make it more enticing, easier for me to update more regularly. And if that doesn't work either, well we'll get there when we get there I guess. Apologies for all the whining, it's been a weird few weeks. MINI UPDATE
I know it's been ages. I've been trying to find ways to make it easier for me to update the site without it beomcing an ordeal that I simply put off. I honestly seem to be running short of time more often than not and I still want to be able to update and keep track of my life because I like having this record. So I am going to try a few different models in the next few weeks and we'll see if any of them stick. Last two months have been a blur to me. November was family month with my parents here for three weeks and Jake's parents here for Thanksgiving. David spent most of the month not sleeping through the night. And then he started sleeping for 12 hours and then he got sick and the teeth came out and we're back to square three. Thanks to the holiday season end of November and first three weeks of December were a photography craziness here. I am happy I started this business and I guess I wasn't mentally prepared for its taking off so quickly so all the work wore me down. I can't really complain though since it also meant I got to buy a new camera and a nice flash. An unexpected side benefit. I was telling Jake the other day that I never imagined myself as a business-owner. I always thought I'd work for someone else sotake contracts. I never imagined that within weeks, I'd create and run my own little thing and actually turn a profit. Life's been good to me. Hectic but good. LIFE
I know it's lame to stop writing a few days after "I'm back" from a break. But it seems things conspired to get in the way. First, my in-laws came to visit for the first time in seven months. This meant we were out all day and not on the computer when we were home. It also meant that Jake and I went on our first dates since David was born. It was weird being out alone. It felt like we were sneaking. I did miss David a lot even though we were only gone for about 2 hours and it was while David was sleeping. I just kept thinking of him and his smile and his breathing.
The night after my in-laws left, David began his weird waking-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night thing which is still going on. But just to add more fun to the adventure, I threw out my back for the first time since we came to San Diego. The whole time I was pregnant, I was worried about my back suddenly starting to hurt again. I was worried I wouldn't be able to hold David as a baby and burp him. I was worried I'd be stuck in bed while everyone else held him and hugged him. Well none of that happened. I was perfectly, completely, totally fine. No real back-ache to speak of. A week ago, something felt funny as I bent down and since then I haven't been able to stand up without excruciating pain. Last time this happened, I was on Vioxx for almost two years and I did a lot of physical therapy and acupuncture for it to get better. Well, now Vioxx is off the market, I am nursing and I can't take any medication. Except for Tylanol which I only let myself take twice a day since I don't want to medicate David. Without the medicine to take off the edge of the pain, life's been a ton of fun. Hence sitting at the computer hasn't been one of my favorite activities lately. Hence the no updates. Forgive me yet? I am hoping that my stupid back will miraculously heal itself since I am determined not to take any pills and have a long long way to go before I am ready to stop nursing (think months in teens not in single digits) so cross your fingers for me and hope that the pain goes away as mysteriously and quickly as it came. The good side of the pain has been that I've been in bed more and thus reading more. And my mother in law bought me six new books for my past birthday. I just finished _Running with Scissors_ which, while nothing compared to _A Million Little Pieces_, was still a very engrossing read. I am now reading the new Paolo Coelho book. He's always an interesting and worthwhile read for me. As always, open for any and all recommendations. WHAT I MISSED THE MOST
It's been almost two months since my last entry. I've had this site on and off for five years. I wasn't sure if I was going to miss writing this time. There are times when writing here is fun and times when it feels more like a chore. In the months preceding the closing, it had become more like the latter. Each night that I went to bed without updating, I'd feel like I let someone down. Fact is, I have few readers, but I still felt like shit. Which is why I stopped. I wasn't sure if I was going to miss any of it. I haven't been taking photos (except of David) and I have just begun sleeping again and my days are filled with David, work, a new small business, reading, and, of course, Jake. I figured my life was full enough. But I did miss it. From the day I turned ten to Freshman year in college, I kept a diary every single night. Many people asked me how I found something to write each night. I just did. I liked writing every day. It was my thing. That's sort of how I feel about this place. I want to make sure it never goes away. Since college, I've attempted to keep diaries many times and it just never worked. When David was born, I promised myself (as I did when I found out I was pregnant) that I would keep a written record. I have managed to take photos every day he's been alive (except day three) but I have three failed attempts at writing. Whatever little I've written here is the most I've written anywhere. So I am going to keep writing. I can't promise it will be consistently, but I am going to try hard. I won't post photos when I don't have them but I also won't let that stop me from posting. I will try to write a tidbit about David each day, more for me than you, I'm putting it in a different section so if you don't want to read it, feel free to skip it. Sometimes the David section might be longer than the main section, but not usually. Once I start taking regular photos again, I will post those too. At least that's the plan. And we know what happens to best laid plans. So there we are. This is the closest thing I got to my childhood diaries. And I miss writing down my ideas. I miss talking about my random thoughts. I miss sharing my emotions. I miss recording my life. The everydayness of my life. But, mostly, I missed the bitching. So expect some whiny posts coming soon. Thank you for sticking around. FALLING BEHIND
I spend a certain amount of energy every day thinking about what I'm going to write here. I formulate the idea in my mind and then think of how I will put it all down. It doesn't all come together until I sit down to type it all up. The last few days have been even more hectic than usual. I have started Childbirth Preperation classes and I have CPR and Breastfeeding coming up, too. I now have to go to the doctor once every two weeks and not monthly since I am much closer to delivery. I'm having an even harder time sleeping since my belly is heavy enough to strain my back muscles and give me random cramps. I pee even more than before, if that's possible to imagine. So I am so tired that I do the typical bored student thing at my desk: my head falls over as my eyes close and I jerk myself back up. My company will be closing for the holidays in ten days and by the time they come back I will be 36 weeks or so and possibly too tired, too big and too stupid to function. Thus, I am trying to squish in all the big projects I've been meaning to do. This makes my days full of frenzy and I don't have enough personal time to get my own projects done. Thus the website suffers. I am sure stuff won't get easier when the baby comes but I am hoping I will eventually learn to organize everything back to some sort of schedule. Cross fingers. All this is to thank you for visiting even when I don't update regularly and to let you know that I am going to do my best to update regularly. SPREADING OUT
I've now been writing this site for the better part of four years. I registered the domain in March of 2000 and wrote for two months until I moved over to Blogger and then wouldn't stop writing. I remember the initial days of looking through other people's blogs and their links. It took only a few days to notice that everyone linked to the same people and, four years later, it's no different. Some of the sites have disappeared and there are new popular ones. All in all, we have a list of twenty that's linked by a majority of the people I visit. I used to think that was a blogger problem. That everyone linked to the same people, etc. Two days ago, I decided that it was really my fault. There are millions of bloggers out there and many of them have never even heard of the list of twenty and do not link to any of the sites. The links they have are also interesting and refreshing new voices that I am delighted to read. Another major change in the last four years has been in "topical" blogging. There are many blogs out there that are centered around a certain interest, philosophy, or area of expertise. These are fantastically interesting to me. Someone's already doing all the research and showing me the latest and most interesting information on a subject matter. For some reason, I never went out there to look for these sites before but I must say that I absolutely love them. So I've spent the last few days looking all over the net and trying to find new sites. I am interested in new voices, thought-provoking entries. I have a varied set of interests: anywhere from art to linguistics to physics to just about anything you can imagine. And of course books and photography. I've updated my other places page to include a lot more places. Some of which I've read consistently, some of which are brand new to me and might or might not stay on the page. I am actively soliciting other sites. Is there a place you visit that you like? Is there a site you think I might like? If so, please add a comment below and I promise I will give each site a chance. Pretty please? EXPOSING MORE
I've spent the last few weeks thinking about photography and wondering whether I should post bigger pictures on the main page. I wanted to push myself to take more pictures and to get more feedback on them so I can learn to be a better photographer. I also wanted to update my site even on days when I don't have much to say or I am too busy to post a long entry. So I've decided to make the pictures bigger and to post the "story" of the picture, if and when there is one as a comment next to the picture. This way regular visitors can see something new almost daily, and read something new as often as I have something interesting to say. And also, pictures get their own comments so we can differentiate between them and the thoughts. As always feel free to let me know what you think. MAJOR CONSTRUCTION COMPLETED
I have finally managed to convert everything on my site to the new look and feel. Every entry has its own individual page. I also have monthly pages for all posts within a month and category pages for all posts in a category. The category files tend to be quite long, but they're there. The only section that hasn't been updated is the pages I had when I was planning my wedding. I will eventually post those, too, but I imagine you can live without them easily. I've converted all the pictures and added a huge collection including: random mix i, torrey pines - part ii, la jolla, muir woods national monument, san francisco - twin peaks, pacific coast highway - big sur, pacific coast highway - ragged point, pacific coast highway - pismo beach, pacific coast highway - on the road, new year's eve 2003 - hotel del, new year's eve 2003 - torrey pines, new year's eve 2003 - pacific beach, sea world, julian cemetery, san diego wild animal park, torrey pines - part i, anze borrego desert, san diego zoo, joshua tree national park, hillside, turkey with my family, and mosques in istanbul. Those should entertain you at least for a while. I've also added a feature where the main page in the photograph set shows you thumbnails and then you can click on anything you like. You might or might not be shocked to find out that there are over 5000 photographs posted in the photograps section of this site. I was certainly quite surprised. I wonder if that means I can justify buying a fancy camera, now. The books section is updated as well and the book names are now alphabetical so you can easily find one you're searching for in the really long list. There are many book excerpts to be posted in the coming weeks but I need a bit of downtime so I will be taking that first. In the process of converting this site, I wrote over 40 php scripts so now I am quite familiar with the language and am enjoying having a chunk of my work automated. However, for those parts which weren't, I have accidentally deleted and recreated many html files in the last two weeks so if you see a mistake, please feel free to point it out. That's it for today. Pithy thoughts coming tomorrow. MORE CHANGES
With the help of mysql and php, I have managed to regenrate all the book excerpts. One of the downsides to having a site that's almost four years old is that there is a lot of updating to be done when you make a design change. Oh, I also created a page to store links to all my pictures and updated other places, about and quotes. I haven't fixed or updated the content yet but I will get to it. FACE LIFT
I've had the orange look since December 2001. There were many things I liked about it. I liked the uplifting orange. I liked the flexibility of the three-column design. I liked the fact that I got to see my nephews every time I visited my web page. I liked that I was able to display a lot of information on the same page and still feel like it wasn't overly cluttered. Unlike my previous design, I didn't get tired of it instantly. But it's been over two years. Much has changed in my life since the orange design came about. I found myself thinking more and more about a design change in the last few months. I wanted to be able to put up pictures of beautiful California and the different states we visited this summer. I wanted to encourage myself to take more pictures. I wanted the design to be simpler. I wanted to remove the thousand links I had somehow accumulated on the left column. The down side of this design means you may have to click through two pages to get to some of the content but I think that's worth the simplicity. All the other pages are still in the old design and will be updated little by little in the coming month. Let me know what you think of the new look. TIME OUT
I kept journals since the age of ten. I used to write every single day. Ask any friend who's known me from those days and she'll tell you that I never traveled anywhere without an oversized diary. I've been teased endlessly by friends who claimed they'd read it the minute I walked out the door. Since I was extremelyprivate in those days, many friends got upset at me for choosing my notebooks over them. LIVING
It's like this. 121,110
I registered the domain karenika.com on June 5, 2000. REFLECTION
I've now been writing this log for over eight months. To many, that's not a really long time and to some it's awfully long. Personally, I'm quite amazed that I've been writing consistently for that long. Amazing that I can find something to write about every single day. Maybe that can account for the entries you've read that seem to lack in substance. (I'm not going to do my usual self-deprication act here, since I assume you wouldn't be coming here unless you enjoyed my writings on some level and if you're a first time reader, well tough crap if you don't like what you see.) I've also often thought about why I write. I went through many phases and mood changes, especially in the beginning. I started with blogger, so I anxiously awaited for my page to show up in their directory and then I kept checking my hits everyday. I asked my friend Adam, who's hosting my site, to setup my referrer logs so I could check who was coming from where. I discovered weblog rings and joined a few so I could get more hits. I needed the hits! And then a while passed and I started reading more and more people's pages and seeing what they did and tried to figure out what appealed to me most so I could shape my own site. I redesigned a few times, but I am no designer and I realized that most concepts I had in my head weren't really feasible in my ability range. And then I went through the self-denial phase where I was like, 'who cares if anyone reads my page, it's for me anyhow.' Which I totally believe to be an untruth. If you want to write and don't care for others to read, it makes no sense to make a web page for your writing. Barnes and Noble and other establishments would be happy to sell you diaries that require no HTML skills. For days I pondered why I felt the need to have a site and to write, especially since no one read it anyhow. And, of course, that wasn't the truth. While I might be far from the most popular sites, I had a few consistent readers. Some people even liked to me from their sites. And then a few people started emailing me their thoughts related to some of the posts I made and we started conversing, initially about those issues and then in general. That's when it hit me. I've always written diaries, so the question of why I wrote wasn't interesting. The reason I like writing on the web, however, is because it's like having a multi-way conversation. Not only do I get to put my thoughts out there, but people write back to me and challenge my thoughts and stretch my mind, or they agree with me and make me feel less alone. Both of which I find extremely rewarding. I don't really like reading logs that point to many news items. News items are interesting and good information but between the newspapers, metafilter, slashdot and a few similar sites, I can get all the news and links I need and then some. I like the personal side of the pages. I like to see how people think, what kind of lives others have, what struggles they go through. When something great happens to the owner of a page I read regularly, I feel just as happy as if it had happened to someone I know in real life. And when something bad happens, I tend to react just as strongly. I don't exactly know who reads my log anymore, and I've sort of let go of my obsession with it. Of course I like that people read it and I hope more and more people do, but if they don't, well it's really hard to obsess over something I can't control. I've also learned that not every page appeals to everyone. Some of the pages others love, don't give me the satisfaction that I get from my favorites. And thankfully, we all have the freedom do surf wherever we want. What I do still wish for, however, is for my readers to make contact. I feel like my thoughts are a good start for me, but when someone else tells me his or her side, it makes me think harder and if there were three of us, the conversation would get even more interesting, and so on. So since I don't really link to much of anything, except in my tidbits, I wonder why people don't tell me what they think more regularly. Oh, well. This is just to give you my thoughts on logging for this long and also to tell you that if you have something to say and even if you don't, please say it. If you don't like to say it publicly here, you can always email me. And if you don't? Well that's okay, too, I still hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoy writing it. Ps: Yes, I know eight months is an odd time to be writing a reflective entry, but I felt like it and who says I have to wait anyhow? Previously? Evil!. ON VACATION
Karenika is on a much-needed vacation. I wish you the best of everything on this holiday season. May all your dreams and wishes come true. Happy Holidays and a Very Happy New Year.FIXED
Bye Bye More Than Words. Since no one seemed interested in the lyrics and neither was I, I decided to stop doing them. Lemme know if you think otherwise.Thoughts On the way home last night, what I'd done wrong with my bio page hit me and I fixed it. It loads much quicker now. Apologies for being so stupid before. BIO
So I finally finished my bio page redesign. My apologies to those of you with modem connections. It's my first real effort on design and all feedback is welcome and much appreciated. Seriously.I'm gonna go out and salvage the rest of my weekend, now. LINKS
I've changed my page so that the links don't open up new pages. If you want the link to be in a new page, right-click and choose "Open in New Window". Thank You.Looks like last night's reading was tons of fun. Even more reason to be bummed. Oh well. I meant to tell you that as Jake and I went home, the guy sitting next to us in the subway was reading Neal's book and had the latest issue of McSweeney's on his lap. Obviously, he hadn't been able to get in either. Brooklyn being Dave's current hometown, we shouldn’t have been surprised that the event was so packed. I guess it's good for them. Next time we'll have to remember to get there early. Oh well. POLL ANYONE?
Come on, go take my poll. Thank You. :)Today, I go back to the New York Society for the Deaf. Check back later for more details. POLL?
So I decided I wanted to try a poll. Go ahead, tell me what you think, you know you want to.BLOGGER I just started using blogger. I'm still not sure how well they work, but so many people are using it that I think it's worth a shot. We'll see.... |
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