I was reading blogs on Google Reader and came across a blog I read all the time, Hawaii Blog.  I pulled up the entry and this is what I saw:

It’s kind of hard to see but every sentence, and the title, contains the words cheap viagra. There are no links and you can’t click anything but the works are all through out. I scrolled down to look at his other posts and they all had similar things, titles with viagra and those words sprinkled throughout the post. It was very, very strange and it did not happen on any other blog I read. WTF????

I started writing my last post with a very specific point in mind and then I got all caught up in what happened and forgot to make my point. Which was, while my blog was down I spent some time thinking about how much time and energy I wanted to put into getting it back up again. At one point it was thought I would have to download the database, uninstall WP, reinstall the new version of WP, upload the database and hope that nothing got lost in translation. Now to many, many people that may not seem like a big deal. And while I am extremely proficient with computers – I hate them!!! I hate having to learn anything new!! I hate having to take multiple steps to do one thing!! As much as I love computers, I hate them just as much. So the thought of having to figure out how to backup the database and store it on my hard drive – so it didn’t get erased by mistake – and then redo WP and then reinstall it…..Ugh!!! It would have taken me time to figure all this out and then do it and worry and pray that I was doing everything right…. I would probably be taking herbal phentermine like it was candy…. So this led to some serious thoughts about why I blog and do I want to continue…..

I started my first blog for me and for the longest time I didn’t get any comments and I was fine with that. I wasn’t sure I wanted anyone reading what I wrote anyway. Then I started reading a lot of other blogs and leaving comments on them. Then they started coming to my blog and leaving comments. Before you knew it there was this large blogging community I was a part of and it was kind of cool. We had common interests, namely running and triathlons, and it was fun to be part of such a large, extended family. Then I started this blog as place to write about things other then training and health. I also started a pet blog because the number of animals in the house quickly overtook the number of humans…if they ever ban together we are in trouble…and I became involved in different communities with each blog. It was fun and I really enjoyed it. I would read other blogs, comment, drop Entrecards, and post on my blogs. Then I started graduate school…and starting teaching high school…and adopted two rescue dogs…..and suddenly I had zero time for the computer and truly, was far too busy living my life to write about it. I have managed to strike a balance between blogging and living and it seems to be working, but when my blog went down it really got me to thinking.. do I still want to continue doing this???? I think at this point I do… very soon my life will be slowing down some – graduate school is almost done and that dreaded first year of teaching is over – and I will have some more free time again…So I’ll keep going for now and see what happens…but the thought is now planted….

I get so frustrated with comments left on my blogs. Apparently there are now companies that will actually pay low life’s to leave real comments on blogs. These people sit on their computers and type comments on blogs. Stupid, inane comments that usually don’t make sense and have nothing to do with anything. But because they are humans they can get past the captcha and word verification and all that crap. They must get paid by how many comments they leave and not how many get published. Do they really think I’m going to publish a comment from someone named hgh supplement? Do you think I don’t know that’s not a real name? It gets me so angry. Okay, enough. I’m tired, maybe I’ll head off to bed

I have Google analytics on this blog and my other ones but I rarely look at them. Every so often I will check and I like to look at the search terms people use to get here. I was looking tonight and some just made me laugh. One was “unusual places to put art” now what could they have found on my site about that??? I’m not really an art lover…. Another one was “what happens when you start thinking too much?”, now that has nothing to do with my blog because most of this stuff is thrown up without a lot of thought. There was one that said, “hair loss treatment reviews” ummmm…..not a problem I have. Anyway, these just struck me as funny.

My blogs have been suffering serious neglect lately. I just don’t have the time to do all the things that drive traffic to them. I don’t even have time to look for diretory submission services. Inclusion in a directory would help drive traffic to my blog. Oh well, I guess it all boils down to a matter of choices.

When I started my blogs I did it for me. I didn’t write for anyone else, I didn’t worry about traffic or comments or anything else. Then I started tracking visitors and comments and such. I’m going back to basics, writing for me and no one else….. I really can’t worry about what others think

That’s what’s happened here. Serious neglect. If this blog was a child it would be taken away from me. If this blog was an animal I’d be charged with abuse. It’s terrible. I have just been so busy lately that I can not seem to find time, or the energy, to write things here. So I’m making a commitment. I post on Cake almost everyday. That seems to be my main blog. The others, Teacher, Pet, Photo, and this one, I tend to let slide and that is wrong. So, starting today, I’m going to alternate the blogs I post on. I’ll probably do Cake about every day, but the other four I’ll rotate so that each one gets posted on every week. That will take the pressure off me to try to keep them up constantly but still have them posted on regularly.

I’ve also been a real slacker on Entrecard and Adgitize. I’m thinking of pulling some ads on Adgitize, a different blog every month, and working on dropping again every night. I enjoy visiting and dropping on all the other blogs and it really only takes about 30 minutes or so. I spend 30 minutes on Farmville I can certainly find 30 minutes for blogs. Plus it helps me relax and unwind. So I think I’ll get back on that wagon again.

If only life wasn’t so busy and I didn’t feel like I was riding ellipticals all the time. Seriously!! Sometimes, okay lots of times, I feel like I’m on a treadmill that’s going way too fast.  I feel like I’m barely able to hold on.  Well, I guess that’s better then being bored, right??

Okay, I’m off.  Things to do and this is not getting them done.

do you every wonder about bloggers who just suddenly stop posting?   There are a couple of blogs that I used to read that haven’t posted in months. No explanation, no indication that they were going to stop, just gone.  In fact in one case the blogger hadn’t been blogging very regularly for over a year but they posted a couple of posts and said they were back blogging regularly. That was their last post.  Gone, gone, gone.  It just makes you wonder. I know that there are times when it’s really hard to find the time or think of something to write about, I get it.  But I’m never more then a few days without a post.  So it makes me wonder if something happened to these people.  Maybe some horrific accident befell them.  Or some family tragedy has made it impossible for them to blog anymore.  Maybe they were in Samoa on vacation when the tsunami hit.  Or were in China when that earthquake hit.  Or maybe I have too wild an imagination and they have a life and are too busy to blog.

I know, I don’t blog for days and days now I can’t seem to stop. These are things I’ve actually been thinking about just haven’t had the time to sit and write about them. So here goes.

There are a couple of blogs that I visit sporadically. Not often but every once in a while when I’m cruising around I will stop by them. The one thing I notice about these particular blogs is that the people almost constantly complain. There is always something in their lives that is going wrong. They are getting taken advantage of, ripped off, treated horribly, or some other disaster. They seem to think that every time someone does something that adversely affects them that person did it on purpose. It really just amazes me. Almost everything that goes wrong in their lives is someone else’s fault and is generally done on purpose. But they write about how they understand taking responsibility for your own stuff and all that crap. It just amazes me that they don’t see themselves at all.

This is the problem I have with the portfolio I’m supposed to do for school. Anyone can write anything, it doesn’t mean squat. It’s just like these bloggers. They are writing all kinds of stuff about how people need to take responsibility for themselves, how sometimes things just happen, etc. Yet they don’t walk the talk. That’s why I take everything I read on a blog with a few grains of salt. Even myself, I will go back and read a post I wrote months ago and go what the heck??? How could I have thought that???

Anyway, just my thoughts on stuff.

That’s what’s been happening with all my blogs. I’ve been neglecting them terribly. That has got to change. I’m going to get back into the habit of posting regularly. I’m going to take the time every night to drop Entrecards and Adgitize. These blogs really are very important to me. They provide me an outlet to ruminate about things in life. Many of the topics I write about here I don’t discuss with people in my real life because I either don’t want them to know what I’m thinking or it’s the kind of stuff they aren’t interested in. But here it’s all about me. I can discuss anything at all that I want. I can talk about the state of the world. The state of my house. My weight loss efforts. The risks and benefits of taking an appetite suppressant. Anything!!! And I like that. Or, I can use them to avoid doing anything and as a reason to sit on my butt in front of the computer for a period of time. Like I’m doing now

Evolution: a process in which something passes by degrees to a different stage.

I think that’s happening to me.  When I first started blogging it was all for me.  I didn’t care if I had any readers or got any comments.  That went on for almost a year.  Then slowly I started visiting other blogs and leaving comments, people started commenting back and I became part of this huge blogging community.  Then I wanted to make money off my blog.  I joined some of the paid blogging companies, made some money, got smacked around by Google, etc. I then spent some time devoted to increasing my blogs traffic. When Entrecard started I was all for it.  It was simple, fun to do, and I found some great blogs through it.  I didn’t mind the “down” side of it, the high bounce rate, etc.  I did it because I enjoyed surfing through the blogs not because I was looking for any great amount of traffic or a huge readership or anything and it did increase my traffic for a bit.  Then I discovered Adgitize.  Another way to promote blogs and I really, really like Adgitize.  It was easier then Entrecard and I could make money at it.  Very, very cool.  For awhile I spent time working both these systems.  I would drop Entrecards and click advertisers on Adgitize.  It was fun and I really enjoyed some of the blogs I found.  Then I felt like I had to do it.  Then my real life started getting busier.  Then dropping became a pressure.  Then I stopped.

I have reached a point where I was when I started.  I’m blogging for me. I no longer care about paid blogging or traffic or anything of that other stuff.  I write about things I’m interested in, things I want to remember and I really don’t care if anyone reads it or not.  I’m thinking I might be done with Entrecard.  I’ll probably leave the widget because I do like to surf around once in a while, but it will never be like it was.  Now Entrecard is going after the bounce rate and you won’t get credit if you drop and run.  Oh please!!!  Everyone involved in the Entrecard community knows what’s going on and we’ve all been fine with it for well over a year.  Now suddenly it’s a problem.  Come on people.  Anyway I think I’m done.  I’m tired of jumping through other people’s hoops, if I can’t do something the way I want to then I just won’t do it.  Evolution – it happens.