I'm back!

I was not successful with my goal to post every day in November but I did learn a lot.

1. I discovered that I have something to write about every day.

I thought that this was going to be the hardest part - finding a topic to talk about every day. But in fact, and especially with the low minimum word count, I found that I didn't get to the pre-planned topics. Instead, I wrote about what had happened during my day, things that I was thinking about, news, etc. I was surprised by the fun and discovery of my every day life and delighted that I had thoughts to share about it.

2. I realized that I really need to take more time editing before I post.

This was partly a side-effect of the low bar I set when I decided to blog every day. My minimum word count meant that as soon as I met that count, I felt finished. Even if I was in the middle of a thought or hadn't carefully explained the experience or story. When I re-read some of the posts I was disappointed in their abrupt endings, poor layout, and bad readability

3. I decided that blogging every day is unnecessary.

I'm not trying to sell something to you. In fact, the number of daily emails that I get from sellers makes me quite certain that sending content *new* *you've got to see this* *everyone on your block has one, why don't you* every single day doesn't actually work from a marketing point of view. Plus, if you're a subscriber, you don't really want to see my blog popping up in your email every day - we all have email overload. Consistency but not overkill is what I'd like to have.

4. I need to set a specific time of day to write.

Too often, I would get to the end of the day and realize that I hadn't written anything; hadn't even thought about a topic. This stressed me out at the end of the day and ultimately reduced the quality of writing too.

5. I would like to spend more time on the aesthetic of my blog.

I focused just on the content and didn't create a look for the blog. Most of the 'also read' blogs are years out of date. Just in general, I need to update what the blog looks like and links to in order to make it a happy place with fun and interesting ideas to explore.


So I've decided:

I'd like to set a new goal of updating once per week, I'm aiming for Tuesdays. I'm keeping the word minimum to 200, but with a goal of at least 500.  I don't have many subscribers just yet, but hopefully once I'm consistent, I will find like-minded people who are interested in what I'm saying.

In truth though, I think what I really want out of this blog is a record and a memory of the beauty and fascination of life and all the amazing things I get to experience.  I'd like to be able to look back and find joy in memories made clearer because I put the time into writing about them.

Listening to: Best of Star Wars playlist on Spotify
Feeling ⛸⛸⛸ - This freezing rain makes me ice skate on my back porch!

having a hard time doing once a day!

Having a hard time recently keeping up with the once a day posts that I promised. It will be a relief to go to once a week starting in December.
I'm planning to do updates on Tuesdays - fresh from the weekend, but enough time to write up on Monday and edit on Tuesday. One thing that has definitely been lacking in this once-a-day stream of consciousness writing has been any kind of editing.

I usually write it once, spellcheck it, and post it immediately.
It's quick, relatively painless, and often ends up being pointless.

I found that I stopped right at the 200 word mark and didn't finish a complete thought, didn't take the time to fully explain or explore the topic that I introduced.

Hopefully going with a weekly post at 500 word minimum will help a lot with that particular phenomenon.

One thing that was interesting and I didn't expect is just how much I have to talk about!

There's always something interesting, or at least interesting to me - it may not be my own life, but perhaps a news story or a new podcast that I've gotten into. In fact, it has sometimes been difficult to choose one thing to write about!

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving - and that's really exciting in so many ways :) gobble gobble

Writing for other purposes...

I've been working on a writing project all day today that's separate from the blog, so I'm going to go ahead and cross-post it. This is a preview of an article that I am writing for State Magazine about one of the Ambassador's Fund for Cultural Preservation grants that I managed while I was in Lebanon.

On a bright sunny day in October, I was surprised by a brisk wind as I stepped out of the car in the Jabal Moussa bioreserve. We walked along a pressed-dirt path to the start of the cultural trail and as I turned the corner, the valley opened up below me - gold dust, green leaves, white stone. It was almost dazzling under the direct sun and I had not even reached the first astonishing piece of cultural heritage along this ancient Roman Road in the middle of Lebanon, the small country located at the intersection of the Mediterranean sea routes and the Arabian Peninsula.

Jabal Moussa, roughly translated as Moses’ Mountain, and its surroundings were designated as a Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO in 2009 as part of the Man and Biosphere (MAB) program. In the Man and Biosphere program, Jabal Moussa protection combines human livelihood improvement and nature conservation by integrating natural sciences with education in social science and economics. The mountain has exceptionally rich biodiversity with at least 728 flora species, 25 mammal species, and more than 137 migratory and soaring bird species.  In 2012, the mountain was designated a Global Important Bird Area (IBA). And the valley of Nahr Ibrahim, also known as the Valley of Adonis, bordering Jabal Moussa to the North, is on the tentative list of the UNESCO World Heritage Sites. 

Jabal Moussa’s location and biodiversity meant that it was an important path and crossroads for ancient human civilizations. Jabal Moussa and the Valley of Adonis contain evidence of human history starting from the Middle Paleolithic. According to Dr. Myrna Semaan Haber, a Fulbright Scholar who studies biodiversity and conservation, “All civilization times are depicted in the valley allowing a complete sequence of human history.”  In 2015, Embassy Beirut was proud to grant funding from the Ambassador’s Fund for Cultural Preservation (AFCP) to the Association for the Protection of Jabal Moussa to preserve and protect important cultural heritage within the bioreserve. On that day in October, I toured the site to prepare for the Ambassador’s inauguration of the newly developed cultural trail as the final step in the grant.

Published story!

I was selected as a finalist in the National Geographic/Peace Corps short story contest about the food crisis.

Check out my story!