blogging – Retirementally Challenged

Taking a Few Leaps

Meeting someone new often takes a leap of faith; Will they like me? Will I like them? Will we find enough in common, so there aren’t long stretches of uncomfortable silence? Because I am a bit of an introvert, small talk doesn’t come easy to me. I’m much better one-on-one than I am in large groups, but one-on-one means that I have to carry an equal load of the conversation.

Over the six plus years that I’ve been blogging, I have met eight fellow bloggers in real life. Prior to each initial get together, I wondered how the meeting would go. Every time, I took the leap of faith, and I have been please that I did. What I’ve learned about meeting each of these bloggers is that it feels more like catching up with an old friend than meeting someone new.

When I learned that Tracey Stubbs, whose blog, Artistic Pension, I follow, was going to be visiting my city, I leaped at the chance to get together. After some schedule coordination, we managed to arrange a coffee date earlier this afternoon. Just like my other blogger meet-ups, the conversation was comfortable and easy. She is just as nice in person as she is on her blog.

Photo taken by Tracey’s new husband, Mark.

Tracey and I both have been a bit off our blogs lately. Travel, Tracey’s new marriage and a possible relocation, an illness (mine: bad cold, nothing serious), and life in general has taken precedence. We agreed that our blogs are important to us and we missed posting. Yes, we enjoy writing and sharing our stories but, most of all, we love how our blogs link us with others. Writing makes us happy; the connections bring us joy.

Today, Leap Day, seems like the perfect opportunity for me to jump into writing again. Time to finish the posts that are half-completed and come up with new ideas for others. It’s time to leap back in.

GratiTuesday Guest Post: Bloggers Who Inspire

Guest post by Marty, Snakes in the Grass

Many thanks to Janis for inviting me to guest blog on her GratiTuesday series. To my regular readers who’ve followed me over here today, I do recommend that you check out her blog on a regular basis. Janis took the retirement plunge around the same time as me. Her posts are all about making that transition in as graceful and enjoyable way as possible.

In trying to figure out how I could submit something meaningful here, I have to admit that I was momentarily bereft of ideas. In fact, my first thought after agreeing to participate was to immediately think about my own struggles when writing about gratitude.

Each year during the week of Thanksgiving, I write a post on my blog where I give a listing from A-Z of all the things in my life that make me feel grateful. It’s an arduous undertaking because not only have I put myself into a position of having to come up with 26 items, but I also need to be watchful to not repeat too much of what I used previously. For instance, I seem to regularly blank out with the letter Q. Realizing that I can’t list the Who album “Quadrophenia” each time, last year I simply left it blank and pleaded with my readers to offer up their own suggestions. The lesson here is the same one I learned in 30+ years of government service: if you can’t do it yourself, contract out the work!

Some of us, though, just have a way of a better way of expressing themselves. Take Janis, for instance. Back on the April 17^th tax day, she wrote a great post which singles out the virtues of how her tax money is spent. My first reaction after reading it was unmitigated jealousy because I hadn’t thought of writing it first. But my second reaction was admiration and even… <wait for it>… gratitude that in this era of antigovernment, anti-progressive fervor, she had the tenacity to say what so many of us are thinking.

[Unsolicited advice to prospective guest-bloggers: always suck up to the host blogger. It ensures you’ll be asked back in the future.]

Which at last brings me to my point: other than finally having the time to read big, huge books I mostly avoided during my working years, I really had no retirement “bucket list.” The one desire I did have, however, was to write whatever entered my head and post it to a blog I could call my own. After doing just that, I came into regular contact with other bloggers whom I now choose to believe are my new colleagues — except we don’t get on each other’s nerves, and to my knowledge none of us ever forgets to wipe down the microwave after using it.

The bloggers I follow here on WordPress bring me unique perspectives, plus glimpses into their struggles and life experiences. They are at times utterly hilarious when sharing the foibles and calamities we all occasionally face; fascinating with recollections of earlier years; heartbreaking when providing us a front row seat into the challenges they face; and admirable because of just how gifted and talented some people are as writers. Please click on each of these links to see what I’m talking about.

So, here’s to all you bloggers who inspire me regularly. I am very grateful.

From Janis:

Thank you, Marty, for sharing your GratiTuesday guest post with us! I, too, am grateful for all the fabulous bloggers whose posts I read on a regular basis, including yours. And, yes, you are invited back as a guest writer anytime 😉 !

For those of you who haven’t yet discovered Marty’s blog, I encourage you to check it out. Although some serious content appears every now-and-then, his great sense of humor always shines through.

Please stop by next Tuesday when Christie from So What? Now What? shares her gratitude.

Desert Meet-Up

Sometimes the universe lines everything up just right. Calendars coincide, schedules align, and the weather gods exhale balmy temperatures and paint picture-perfect skies. That’s what happened last week when four bloggers got together in Palm Desert, California to enjoy each other’s company, break bread, and talk about blogging.

Donna (Retirement Reflections) and her husband were in Palm Desert for a month-long home exchange. Kathy (SMART Living 365) didn’t have to drive too far as she lives in a community just a few miles away. Terri (Second Wind Leisure) had traveled from Sacramento to San Diego to visit friends and family over the long Veterans Day weekend. I live in San Diego and, along with Terri, was more than happy to make the 2 1/2 hour trip to the desert to participate in a meet-up with blogger friends.

When the idea for the meet-up started to form several months ago, I was enthusiastically all-in. I have had the pleasure of meeting all three women individually over the last several years so having the opportunity to interact with them at the same time was something I couldn’t pass up. I was confident that our gathering would be full of stimulating conversation, a rich source of insightful information… and a whole lot of fun.

With Donna acting as the host, we came together to learn from each other and share our love of blogging. From each of our unique experiences, opinions, concerns, and outlooks, we shared openly and honestly about a wide range of blogging-related topics, such as:

How do we attract active followers and encourage more comments?
The role social media does – or doesn’t – play in the promotion of our blogs.
How do we stay motivated and find new and interesting topics to write about?
What are our individual niches, and is it important to always stay within them?
How do we manage our schedules – are we spending too much screen time?

Our time together was uplifting, encouraging, inspiring… and it ended too soon. Before we parted ways, we talked about arranging a similar meet-up next year when Donna and her husband return for another home exchange. We also discussed the possibility of opening it up to other interested bloggers.

All four of us have published posts today about the meet-up from our unique perspectives. I encourage you to check each of them out and leave a comment (we all agreed that the interaction with our readers was one of the best parts of blogging).

Retirement Reflections

SMART Living 365

Second Wind Leisure

A fifth blog, Roaming About, is worth checking out too. Although Liesbet couldn’t join this gathering, she had the opportunity to meet with Donna and Kathy a few weeks prior and she has written about her experience. (Lucky for me, Liesbet is currently house and pet sitting in San Diego, so I will get to have multiple meet-ups with her over the next few months.)

Look for more posts about the ideas and inspirations that came out of the meet-up. It was truly a special experience and one that I hope we can repeat – and build on – into the future.

New Year, New Look

Well, I’ve done it… I hope. After four years of blogging (I published my first post on September 5, 2013) and hundreds of posts, I’ve finally changed the look and feel of my blog… somewhat. I was pretty happy with the simplicity of my old theme so I wasn’t interested in making any radical changes, but I wanted to make a few updates and add a feature or two. If you are reading this, I guess that means the transition worked. Yay!

I read somewhere that most blogs last an average of 18 months before withering on the vine. Maintaining a blog is harder and more time-consuming than most people realize. A few of my favorite bloggers have taken a “break” never to return, and I can’t say that I blame them. That I have been at this – albeit with varying intensity – long enough to celebrate my four-year blogoversary is amazing to me.

What keeps me motivated, besides that I enjoy writing and sharing stories and photographs, is the blogging community. Like most bloggers, I like the “Likes,” but I love the comments. The fun begins when a dialog is started, especially when conversing with a group as generous, smart, and supportive as you all are.

And, speaking of being “generous, smart, and supportive,” if you see anything wonky with my new blog design, please let me know. I’m sure it will be a work in progress for a while.

GratiTuesday: Another blogger meet-up

As I wrote about in an earlier post, I have had the special privilege of meeting several of my favorite bloggers face-to-face. Virtual friendships can form in the blogging community as we get to know each other by reading the bits and pieces we share over time. When the opportunity presents itself to actually meet, it is a real treat.

From the moment I “met” Donna via her blog, Retirement Reflections, I knew I liked her. In addition to having several things in common (we are about the same age, retired a few years ago, are active and enjoy traveling, and tend to view life through an optimistic lens), our differences were also interesting to me. For instance, she’s Canadian, a grandmother, and has lived overseas (I’m not, not, and haven’t).

When I learned that Donna, her husband, and dog, Cody would be staying for a month in a desert community not too far from where I live, I jumped at the chance to arrange a meet-up. Fortunately for me she was also interested and, after some back and forth picking a date, we finally managed to meet yesterday for a nice, long lunch.

So, what did we talk about? Blogging, of course!

We both agreed how nice it was to be able to talk about all the ins and outs and ups and downs of blogging with someone who was actually interested. We shared ideas, tips, frustrations, suggestions, and stories. We talked about the many bloggers we follow (were your ears burning yesterday?) and how much we appreciated everyone’s varied focus and writing styles.

We also gave each other encouragement. When I mentioned that I hadn’t been posting as often lately, Donna said that she had noticed and had been missing me (wow!). She is newer to the blogosphere than I am and is still brimming over with ideas. I, on the other hand, sometimes feel that my writing well can get a little dry. Donna helped me realize that I may have a few more things to say before Retirementally Challenged is tossed on the ever-expanding ash heap of long-forgotten blogs.

donna

If you don’t already follow Donna’s blog, I hope you will check it out… and follow… and comment (we both agreed that we love comments and interacting with our readers). It’s well-written, openhearted, and always interesting. After meeting her, I can say that her blog reflects her personality perfectly.

I am so grateful that I, once again, had the opportunity to meet a fellow blogger face-to-face. It is so gratifying to be able to transform a two-dimensional writer of a blog I follow into a three-dimensional friend.