sunken garden

Like usual. It has been ages. In a span of a year, I gained a jb and pretty much lost half my literary life. I’m slow to respond to emails. Slow to read books. Lazy to even read the newspaper. Slow to respond to letters. Late in preparing our annual family yearbook and reports. Slow in almost every aspect of my literary life.

I haven’t visited my site. I suppose, I’m lucky it’s still up! every year I make a resolution to write more but I always fall back into the lazy habit of nothingness. Too vegetative after 10 hours of day at work and 2 hours of busy home life. I’m often at lost for words and groping for eloquence. How sad is that?

Let’s turn this into a habit. Again. I try.

Earning from writing is an age-old myth.   But as I take my blogging experiments to the avenues of Google Adsense I stumbled on bloggers like johnchow who is actually making a decent earning from his website.  Now how about that for a unemployed 28-year old mom with writing time in her hands?

So regardless of the fact that since this blog started I barely got any traffic because I barely published anything, I was admittedly drawn to to the idea of monetizing from my website.   The traffic will come later.  Or so I hope.

If only I can find my way through jungle of new terms.   I’m obviously just a writer not a publisher.  As the name implies being a publisher includes a whole new spectrum of considerations like how does a website actually works.   With a barely working knowledge of html and internet capabilities limited to surfing, I am lost.

I feel like I’m venturing into a new career.  Who knows if I can actually succeed and become a prolific blog writer and maybe eventually write a novel?  Dream with your eyes wide open.  Who said that again? 

So I better hit the library and find some book to help me through this new course.

I am far from the most prolific blogger but each year my fingertips start itch for the keypad.  Of-course, I need to try to recall what my blog address was.  My once sharp memory is dulled by the constant drone of voices (aka my kids) .   I initially thought I’d go crazy if I don’t start working again but after almost 2 years I realized that I’m not really crazy just a tad unimaginative and with 20 percent of my vocabulary in limbo.  Certainly when you lack adult conversations (besides the 2 hours daily with my husband if I’m lucky) and intellectual stimulation (besides solving an “easy” crossword puzzle) then your downfall is imminent. 

So here I strike again with an itch but without words.  Well, at-least not a lot of them.   My eloquence is gone and I write like a kid stutters.    I look back with rose-tinted glasses when words flew easily and I can easily write something without goggling for samples.    I thought that reading can help me out but nothing really can compensate with writing.     With my emails dwindling to zero (as my spam mail increases) there’s barely any writing needed.   Not even the kids need me to write letters to their teachers (or maybe I should be thankful about that fact).

 With almost 2 years as part of the unemployed statistic, I am confronted with the task of rewriting my whole resume with the hope of dazzling who ever reads it.    I know I’m dramatizing things and is more likely looking for an excuse not to tackle a task that will require me to think and be creative.

Routine is the anathema to creativity.  In fact, I have grown so comfortable to the whole stay-at-home mom that I’m losing my zeal.   I burrow under the warm comforts of day-to-day household chores.   I don’t hope to mislead you into thinking that I’m particularly a super mom/wife but it’s…comfortable.

I’ve on and off been looking for work already.  I’ve received 2 job offers and both of them never materialized.  Both as a Recruiter.  The first one was half a year ago right before we moved from Redwood Shores to San Diego.  The second one was right before Christmas but silly me wrote a “counteroffer” which really only added a few statements that would cover my ass rightfully but I guess, the employer thought it was too much trouble to rewrite another offer letter.

 Oh well!  With that I say hello again to Monster, Hotjobs and maybe this time I should open my doors to more avenues of job-searching. 

I’ve never blogged consistenly and as a result, I didn’t really caught on the whole concept. So to compensate for my inexperienced, I asked my sister to walk me through. She’s a hardcore blogger (atleast, for me!) She has been blogging for over a year and writes about blog-related technology that I just can’t quite grasp. I don’t know how long it will take me to actually comprehend the whole concept. I just know the very basics but anything beyond that is beyond me (pardon my redundance).

I’ll give it…a couple more months. Usually, when my husband is away travelling I suddenly get PLENTY of time and drive to blog. Which means that in a weeks time, I will be loitering around my blog (is blog a noun or a verb? both?!?). My husband will be in Europe for ten days. That’s certainly plenty of time to get more acquainted to wordpress (and talk away on Skype with my sister!)

One sure sign that made me rethink blogging was when I found myself writing multiple emails through cut and paste. Yes, I do mean Ctrl + x and Ctrl + y!

I’ve never been able to maintain a blog. This is already my fourth attempt and hopefully, this one has a longer lifespan. It’s certainly not for lack of something to write that hinders me from blogging consistently. There’s always a restaurant or a book review that I want to write, an experience that I want to share and thoughts that I want to put into writing just for the sake of organizing them… Admittedly, one stumbling block is the unfamiliarity with the technology of blogging and like any normal human being, I treaded within my internet comfort zones. This zones is a shortlist of probably 12 websites. You see, I’ve been bitten before. One wrong website and a wrong click has flooded our computer with pop-ups. It tormented me for months that I started dreading even turning on the computer. None of the free pop-up-blockers really helped. But that’s behind me, thankfully. Or more correctly, right in front of me but permanently off. I resigned myself into using my husband’s laptop which wasn’t my comfort zone either. I had to carefully make sure that I don’t come across photos or files that I would rather not see or read. I wasn’t always successful but I’ve come to manage my way around it. How is another blog entry.

So here am I again, in another attempt in making my life and thoughts more accessible to my friends and family. Which brings about yet another stumbling block– just how much of my thoughts and opinions can I write and publish online? To those who are blogging — don’t you feel exposed and naked when you write down all your thoughts? I just do and I guess, since I’ve only recently overcame my inhibitions about walking around the house naked, it’s time to bring that in the www level. Besides, I need it too. By that, I meant writing, not walking around the house naked. I enjoy writing and since my husband and I closed the gap in our long distance relationship, nothing really compensated to the daily emails. I’m ofcourse relieved that we’re finally together and not still writing emails but on the otherhand, the habit of writing down my thoughts and feelings on a daily basis was good for me. I hope this one is too.