Tuesday, August 03, 2010

Expanding

When I first started to get involved in the blog world in 2005 I stayed in a pretty tight blogger circle. I met most of my blog community at the same "hang outs". The circle consisted of Kristine, Sue and Charlotte, Susie, Circus Kelli, Lois Lane, Cat, Kelli, Eclectic, Nilbo, Bucky, Mainline , Sharkey , and RZDreams and Mrtl and Greeney and Ern and Von Kranki.

Now if you go and click on those links you will see for the most part (except Kristine and Mainline) that all of those people have stopped blogging. I still keep in touch with my original blogging circle through Facebook and Twitter but I do miss their stories. It feels like we all went to the same nursery school. We learned the ropes of blogging together, but when it came to going to elementary school we were put in different districts. Some preferred the Twitter district some preferred the Facebook district, me I kind of stayed in the Blogging district.

Sometime during the blogger explosion of 2006 I "met" some other people and I started to follow them. Pioneer Woman, Bogart, Fadkog, April, Oh The Joys, Rude Cactus, GreebleMonkey, Sarah Sci Fi Dad and there are others. Keeping with the school analogy, these are my elementary school friends. We are still friends. we hang out, they don't really know my nursery school friends, different circles and all of that, but we all kind of know each other. This school is where we started to define who we are and what we do. Most of us ended up in the Parent Blogger category, except for Bogart he is just the cool kid I want to hang out with.


It feels like my blogging world is moving in a different direction again. I am looking to expand my circle. I want to check out different "Middle Schools", if you will, to see if they can offer me the same types of friendships and community I now have with my various circles. Can anyone suggest some other blogs to check out?


This week is the BlogHer conference in NY. Although I am not going to the actual conference there is a pretty good chance I am going to the Voices of the Year Gala and Art Auction on Friday evening. One of my posts was chosen as one of 90 finalists in the BlogHer Voices of the Year, which is cool.

If anyone else is going to the Gala and Art Auction please shoot me an email so I can look for you. at the event.


BlogHer Voice of the Year Gala

21 comments:

James (SeattleDad) said...

That is too cool. Good luck with the awards.

But then again....wait for it....you are already a winner.

Susie said...

My first thought is, even though you're on to bigger and better, I hope we never lose touch. I won't get mushier than that, but you mean a lot to me.
My second thought is, OMG, which post? And CONGRATULATIONS! I know you are going big, big places with your writing.

Charity Donovan said...

Congratulations! That's huge! You really deserve it! Most of my blog reading has gone towards food blogs so I won't bore you with most of those. This one is pretty funny...great stories with all the recipes. Ck it out:

http://confessionsofacookbookqueen.blogspot.com/

Anonymous said...

Congrats, Bill! Have a good time at the event! I'm glad you ar4e continuing your education!

eclectic said...

Dude, are you sure about this? Middle school can be so ugly. ;)

CONGRATS! If there are to be voices in my head, I'm glad you are one of them.

Katie said...

Two of my new favorites are: http://jugglinglife.typepad.com/juggling_life/ and http://womenscolony.squarespace.com/

Don't be discouraged by the name womanscolony! There are male readers and she is a great writer. She has a home schooling page too, that I have found helpful. She used to blog at a different site, so there are only two posts on the homeschool page, and they are both about boys.

I miss Nilbo, too - I loved his writing!

Otter Thomas said...

Blogging circles change fast. I always enjoyed reading your blog, but somehow lost you in the shuffle. I will try to be back here more often. My blogging cirlce is collapsing on me because of my lack of effort. Have a good time at the convention.

SciFi Dad said...

Congratulations on being a finalist, and thanks for the link.

I'll try and email you some links later this week, when I'm not so pressed for time, K?

DGB said...

Huge congrats on the honor.

I would love to expand my horizons and attend BlogHer, but for now that's just not in the cards.

Have fun and report back.

Sharkey said...

Congrats on being a finalist!

They don't give out awards at Facebook Elementary, so it's a good thing you stayed at Blogger.

MrsDoF said...

My first read every morning because of her gorgeous photographs is Chookooloonks http://www.chookooloonks.com/blog/
whom I found way back on Dooce comments, which is where I found you and Susie and Nilbo and Kristine, but I haven't been to read Dooce all summer.
Perhaps I also have moved away from elementary school chums.

Anonymous said...

I know funny. Your kindergarden photo was funny.

Papa K said...

Hmmmmm.... let's see there's this awesome blog (mine) at http://handstowar.wordpress.com/. My post recent post is about leashes on kids... I'd love your opinion!

You also could look at these (if you don't already):

http://www.blokthoughtsnmore.blogspot.com/


http://wipehiswhat.blogspot.com/

http://www.mamastillwearsgucci.com/

http://realworldvenusmars.blogspot.com/

http://onething.beautifulheritage.com/

and... my personal favorite:

http://kimkardashian.celebuzz.com/videos/

Papa K said...

Oh yeah... and congrats on the nomination too...

Bogart said...

I want to go to HS with you...we can be friends, just not at school. We will hang out and stuff, but it will be Saturdays when there are not other things going on.

But I do actually like hanging with you...it is just hard to admit that a guy named Poop is my friend.

for a different kind of girl said...

How wonderful that one of your posts made you a finalist! That's fantastic and fun, and I hope you have a great time at Friday's event.

I also want to say thank you for the link. I feel a little like I've been sitting in the principal's office for a few weeks here at the elementary school because my posting has been so very sporadic of late. Sometimes it feels like we've been doing this a long time, and I need to figure out where I'm going next. I keep in touch with some of the people who, to use a phrase that makes me crazy, began this journey with me, but there are a handful that simply dropped away from blogging/Internet life completely, and I do miss knowing what's going on in their world. Maybe I'll hold out hope that they've just been doing a foreign exchange program somewhere exotic and we'll meet up again when we reach high school!

rzdrms said...

whoa! i got a shout-out! gosh, remember back when we used to all throw up on each other in nursery school, poke each other in the eyes, and give each other diaper wedgies?! ::sigh:: those were the days. i do "know" rudecactus and his wife, though, so i feel like i'm up on some of your elementary school pals. and congrats!!! :)

Effie said...

hey, what am I? Chopped liver? I know my blog died but still...

blogs to follow/check out: fluidpudding dot com
fussy dot org

Anyways--congrats!

The Absence of Alternatives said...

Congratulations! I read the post "Turn On". Very nicely done!

Sarah, Goon Squad Sarah said...

No way!

See what happens when I get months behind on my reader? Crap.

Kristine said...

LOL! I love you! You're so freaking adorable!

I can't believe I am STILL blogging after all these years. It's cheaper than therapy!