First Post that Ain’t Broke

Filed Under blogging itself | 9 Comments

Yay - I’m successfully updated to Wordpress 2.5. Because I’d spent a lot of time seriously tweaking this wonderful pre-fab theme (Blue Zinfandel), I was terrified of doing an upgrade for fear of what might happen. I tried making a post two weeks ago and the site went all wonky. So I’ve been silent for nearly a month, not wanting to deal with it. Instead, I’ve been posting comments on other people’s blogs that have been WAY TOO LONG. I thank all of those bloggers for their tolerance of me. Well, turns out that my host (Dreamhost) has a one-click Wordpress upgrade. I clicked. It upgraded. And it all works so far - this post will be the ultimate test.

I’m not sure if my page still looks insane on Explorer. Maybe someone can let me know? We are a Mac household, so I don’t even mess with Explorer.

*confession: I hadn’t updated since Wordpress 2.0. My head hangs low in shame. That was bad, wasn’t it?

Popularity: 25% [?]

Jan

24

UU Blog Awards - Already? My Favorite 15 Posts

Filed Under blogging itself | 1 Comment

It’s come to my attention that there are only four days left for UU Blog Awards nominations. Ack! Based on the titles from the Archives (which shows all 129 posts), I’ll try to point out some of my favorite posts from the past year.

February: I reminisced about watching foreign dramas when I was single in Big World.

March: A question at the Chalice Blog prompted me to write about Nice Stereotypes.

I didn’t write anything in April or May, and then I returned with 21 posts in June, including this strangely titled piece - Ahead of the Last Thing - which described my highlights from General Assembly 2007.

July was my most prolific month - 28 posts! Maybe it was the influence of the US Social Forum, but race and bigotry were on my mind even more than usual. The Last Best Hope on Earth?, in which I processed some of Pat Robertson’s ideas and the concept of internalized white superiority, attracted the attention of a strange commenter. Then there was Why People Say Islam is Violent & Other Realizations, and My Race is (Not) Your Race - which I’m pretty sure has the most comments of any post I’ve ever written. On a completely different tip, I described A Hard Day as a person with mild depression - and feelings of joy in Thoughts on Orange Blossoms.

Apparently, the sunshine prompts me to write, because there were more upbeat posts in August, including Tag Teaming Personal Racism, about how my hubby and I responded to offensive statements a good friend made about black men; there’s continued love for poetry in Last Night in the Poetry Section and A Poetry a Day; and then a pair of posts - The Gods You Didn’t Choose and No Less Real than Myth - on why I’m reluctant to embrace the Christian heritage of Unitarian Universalism (there were some exceptional comments in response to those, by the way).

For September, I pondered child-parent interaction with Parents Just Don’t Understand.

Jump to November, and there’s a weird, emotional-but-heady post about entering the winter season and remembering who my friends are in The Better Half. Thinking About Food While Fasting was written as part of my observance of Interfaith Fast Day.

And lastly, in December, I wrote about my emerging atheism in The Distant Ring of a Shrinking Company.

Whew! As for my own personal favorite blogs (i.e. the ones I read when I only have 30 minutes to be online), my hotpants list includes Peacebang, Yet Another Unitarian Universalist, and Surviving the Workday. StW especially - I seriously comment more on that blog than I write on my own, and it’s influenced my daily thoughts and actions more than any other blog this past year. But I have other faves, too - check out the sidebar!

Popularity: 39% [?]

Nov

6

Ms. Kitty on “UU Protein”

Filed Under being creative, blogging itself, inspiration, uu culture | Leave a Comment

This latest entry by Ms. Kitty about the content of Sunday sermons at UU churches is just what I needed to read. In February I’ll be delivering a sermon at the Rainier Valley UU Congregation, and was starting to get cold feet about it. I’m preaching the Sunday following Valentine’s Day so I figured I’d do something on Love - a huge, wide open sea of possibilities.

But Ms. Kitty’s post helped; sometimes I need a smaller field of vision. Still not sure what exactly I’ll write about, but with all that’s happened recently, it won’t be long for something to materialize.

Popularity: 18% [?]

Aug

25

What Happened to that Seminary Post?

Filed Under blogging itself | 3 Comments

I could have sworn that, two days ago there was a post from someone in the UU blogosphere about a new model for ministerial training. Now I can’t find it at all. I thought I even commented on it (but maybe I just thought about commenting). Does anyone else know what I’m talking about? I can’t remember who wrote it. Boys in the Bands? Making Chutney? I think the blog background was white.

Popularity: 18% [?]

Jun

22

Blogging at the Bloggers’ Workshop

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This is pretty fun. There are a lot of people here, so the interest must be high. I suspect that in 3 to 6 months there will be a big increase in the number of blogs run by UU churches and organizations. As I said in my first day GA review, for DRUUMM it’s been a real boon. Also, I think I’m the only brown person here. The few people of color I’ve spoken to about blogging have expressed a total lack of interest because they are already swamped. But I’m not alone - you can find other blogs of by UUs of color in the sidebar of the DRUUMM.org website.

Popularity: 9% [?]