My Continuing Education, Part 2

I need to get this typed quickly. I've got a deadline. Okay, so the deadline is that I'm afraid I'll forget everything I learned before I get it posted. I said you can teach an old dog new tricks but I didn't say how long she'd remember them!

I'd like to share with you some of the information that I received in the workshops I attended. I promise not to plagiarize the speakers' presentations but I feel certain that there are some things they wouldn't mind having told.

The first workshop I attended was given by Karen "Spunky Homeschool" Braun whose topic was about how to blog. If you get on over there right now you'll see that she was blogging at the convention as much as the fickle WiFi would allow. She posted notes of the seminars she attended, so I don't think hitting the highlights of her own would be a major faux pas.

Here's what I learned from Spunky yesterday: blog what you know. Hooray! I'm already doing that! I have to admit that I felt a bit weird when she asked those of us who already have blogs to give the names (as a bit of free advertising) and most of them had gloriously "homeschool" sounding names. But hey! I live on a high hill and there is a spiritual connotation to it as well. That was all lost in the verbal translation, obviously. Oh, well. We did make some connection when I stated that I blog anonymously and she answered that she does, too. Her name isn't really Spunky? I was shocked!

I was happy to hear that a blog should be whatever the writer wants it to be. I've always felt it might be nice to have a few readers along the way, too, but I suppose when I first began blogging I thought those were optional. After all, I've kept various journals through the years and I don't particularly want my children, let alone the whole general public, reading them! The kids can have fun with those after I'm dead. (Just teasing. Nothing of interest in them, kids so forget all about them. We were homeschoolers so you were with me 24/7. You already knew everything that happened when it happened.)

There were some questions asked concerning making money at blogging. Is that possible?! I've always used my blog as a means of saving money, not making it! I've got several "frugal" blogs that I frequent that have made it so I'll not to need to buy toothpaste for, oh, say, the next 2 years or so. And I consider blogging to save us tons of money in that social networking is my therapy. We would be spending a heap of money on counseling to help me keep my sanity otherwise. (Contact me via email if you need to know where to send a monetary donation.) I'm not actually interested in making money with my blog. Good thing, right?

Spunky said she started blogging when her daughter told her she "had opinions and the rest of the family were sick of hearing them." I started blogging when I realized that the comments I was leaving at others' were long enough to be posts themselves.

Since I am not particularly vocal with my political views - although I do have them, and they are strongly held - my blog obviously doesn't fit into the politic genre either. What genre exactly does mine fit under? Is there one for "the rantings of lunatics who live in parsonages on hills?" That doesn't quite fit me either. I don't live in a parsonage.

Stay tuned for more workshop notes. Don't worry. I only attended four of them so I only need to remember the other three now.