Last night I watch the Oscars with some of my friends. I have watched the Oscars almost every year with my mom and step dad, and since moving to Boston I have continued to watch them mostly by myself so it was fun watching them in a group.
We watched the red carpet and I made my friends laugh at how excited I got to see Colin Firth. Sadly they had not seen Pride and Prejudice so they could not understand my love of the best Mr. Darcy.
Through out the night we voted for who we thought was going to win and keep a tally of it. Out of the 5 of us watching only 2 of cared by the end what the score was. It added a little competition to the night. Considering I had only seen "The Help" and "The Artist" of the big nominated films, I really didn't think I was going to do so well in the "competition." My friend was giving me "evil" looks the better I was doing, I couldn't help be happy for every right guess. Over all I thought Billy Crystal did a fine job, brought back years of memories when he hosted them when I was a child. The Metro, a free newspaper in Boston, did not like Billy Crystal "opened with familiar formula bu it felt more tired than true...he barely strayed from tradition with a tone deaf sing-along parody of the nine nominate films -- a gag he and others host have done year after year."-Heidi Patalano. I personally want to see Neil Patrick Harris host the Oscars. After watching him host the Emmy's I think he would do a good job.
The opening of the Emmy's
I am glad that the Academy made fun of its self with having an appearance by Justin Beiber in order to get the 18 to 24 demographic. Billy Crystal joked how good it was to watch millionaires give each other golden statues. Billy Crystal made other jokes, I thought he could get away with. But I thought the bit between Gwyneth Paltrow and Robert Downey Jr. in presenting best documentary lasted too long. And I thought the Cirque du soleil performance was the best the best part of the Oscars and like nothing I had seen at the Oscars before. Probably my favourite part of the night besides laughing a lot with my friends at little moments.
In August I started really getting into this blog. And I wrote a post about how I had become a blogger. I wrote to my favorite blogger Sarah at Desirous of Everything about asking for advice on how to be a better blogger. And she gave me some advice, some I followed right away others has taken me some time.
1. Blog Design.- I immediately put my blog under construction and started re-vamping it but I have continuously changed it over time. Sarah actually recommended paying money to get a blog designer. I didn't thin that was necessary then but now I am working with Annie from Wattlebird who does blog design for a range of prices. We are working through a few drafts but I can't wait till my new blog design is live.
2. Try to post every day or more- I wrote furiously in August. But I wasn't always happy with my blogging. And I wrestle with quantity over quality. While I can see posting a lot good, unfortunately I don't think I have that interesting life to post something everyday. Also in my Blogging Ponderment, post I wrote about how posting so much made me feel very self adsorbed. So I am not following that advice to a T but I am trying to get better at my post.
3. Follow other blogs. Before Valentines day I joined a comment love challenge sponsored by Desirous of Everything. I did not do as many comments as I would have liked but I did discover some great blogs and I think I made some blogger friends. That feels nice. Now I need to get more serious about making thoughtful comments.
4. Blog about whatever you want- Oh I do. I blog about movies, books, TV shows, my friends, my obsessions and most importantly my faith. While I might lose some readers when I talk about my faith, I am okay with that because my faith is the most important thing in my life and if I don't write about it then I wouldn't be true to myself. This is my journey and it is full of random stuff.
This is my computer background and a good representation of my life.
5. Sponsor blogs you like- I need to do this. I am not sure how to make buttons for my blogs? If any one has suggestions for a non computer person to make buttons please let me know.
5a. Collaborate and guest post with others. In my Blogging Ponderment post I wrote how I was seeking guest bloggers. Well I still am... I am not sure the best way to spread the word.
6. Start a Facebook page- done. You can find me at Delightful Scribbles it is more than just my blog it is articles I find interesting and pictures. I guess I had kind of magically hope that when I created that page it would take off but it has been a slow process and I have sometimes thought about getting rid of it. But as soon as I think about getting rid of it a friend join it and it makes me so happy that people are looking at it. I have also started a twitter account, I am still trying to understand, all this social media.
7. Sending emails- I have not done this actively. Because I don't want to bug people too much. Though when I wrote my Christmas letter, blog post I did email it to my family and that was the largest number of reads for one post. So maybe I should do that again. Sorry friends and family you might get annoyed at all my blog post emails.
8. In her P.S. Sarah wrote suggested that instead of being at blogspot.com I buy my URL. It is is only $10 dollars a year. I finally did that at the beginning of this month. So now instead of being blaire-awannabewriter.blogspot.com I am http://www.journeythroughwriting.com/.
There are more bloggers out there with ideas on how to grow your blogger. Sometimes I think about being a bigger blogger but I as much fun as that would be I like my little blog. My new blogging friend Laura at Girl Plus Everything Else wrote to me once and said "I don't know if blogs like ours will ever have the huge numbers that fashion blogs do but I have decided that that's ok. I think that by sharing a part of yourself, you can inspire people." And that is the most important thing I want to do. I want to inspire people, rather it be a small group of people or a large group.
After I emailed Sarah she wrote a blog post about it, here is the link...
Back in August I wrote about how I am blogger and I am happy to say I am still in love with this blog and sharing my hopes, struggles, and my laughs along the way. I am still on the journey of figuring it all out. So thank you loyal readers for staying with me on this journey.
Since this has been a rather long post, I thought I would treat you to a song... "Walking the Dog" by Fun.
.png)
