BLOG MOVED !!!

Dear Friend

If you arrive here, and it looks I have not been home for a while… it is because I have moved HOUSE !!!!

No, not me – I am still in my old spot at my desk blogging away…

but my blog found a new place….. AND a new name !!!!

Yes – a long story…. I will write about it on my NEW blog

Please go look for it !!!!

www.auburnblue.com

I would LOVE for you to come visit me there…

as I won’t be back here anytime soon !!

Don’t worry – I took EVERYTHING with me ,

so if you would like to read or comment on a post ..

You will find it on the new blog – I took it with me !!!

Meet you there.

Ilze

Women’s Day

Happy Women’s day to all of you out there celebrating this day !!!

So many great things out there that woman are achieving today !

Another reason to celebrate this day….

Today my blog has hit the 4 000 visitors’ mark on the statistics’ counter. So happy with the way this is going…

Can’t wait to share my new blog with you. And to start marketing it, since I have not done  any marketing with this blog !!

It is still a work-in-progress since I have not had time to work on the technical stuff as much as I would have liked to.

But, I will keep you posted as soon as we are ready to move !! Just keep coming ! And thanks for visiting my blog.

Have a great day !

Ilze

Take the plunge

I have wanted to change my blog from wordpress.com to wordpress.org for months now.

That way I will have a lot more freedom and control over my blog. That’s my kind of thing – freedom and control. There are many other reasons.

It’s a long story. I won’t bore you.

But it involves a few steps…a few things I need to do and know…that I don’t know.

And another thing you might not know about me, is that I don’t really want to do something unless I know what I DON’T know…and right now there are a number of things I DON’T know….but I will only know once I have moved the blog….yes, it’s complicated.

So, earlier tonight I saw this picture of my daughter diving into the pool at the Swim Challenge.

I have not seen it before but I love it.

My husband took it while I was out of the country and life got hectic so I never had the time to go through these.

Okay – so how does this relate.

Simply this.  It reminded me that I need to take the plunge…just dive into the deep end and start swimming.

I need to get in the water and take on the challenge.

I don’t know how it all will work out….but if you keep on living with so many “what IF’s”..you get stuck on the IF in the middle of L(IF)E for too long and loose valuable time.

That is where I am right now…stuck and not moving forward or backwards on this issue.

I am not quite ready to do this…but the sooner the better.

I will keep you posted. I will need you in this process to follow me when I leave this spot. The statistics on readers of my blog have become very rewarding and I don’t want to loose that link moving to a new place…but here I go with the long story…boring you…. I will stop.

Just keep coming back. I will keep you posted. I will need you to … Okay, I will stop. I just need to do it first, right!

I need to take that plunge !

Choosing a gift

Back to the business of blogging….I have so many things on my mind!

I am unpacking …and amongst the things I have brought back with me is the chocolates I got for Christmas from my niece. Unbelievable that I did not eat them straight away..but the last time I intended to eat them, I took a photo instead and left them untouched again.

A chocolate for Christmas can be a very ordinary gift…or it could be like these…too damn cute to eat !!

Yes, she is just 1 year old, so I know her mom picked it out..but it brings me back to the issue of attention to detail when you pick a gift.

Just looking at this – you know that the decision was to buy a chocolate..but then it could not just be any chocolate..it had to be special, it had to stand out, it had to be something I would remember when I next Christmas try to think what I got from everyone and it had to create special emotion when seeing it, opening it….

And it did all of the above. Mission complete. These chocolates were cute, special, memorable…and I don’t even know what they taste like… but who cares.

My son says that I can’t eat them now, because then I will have to tweet about it…

Let me just correct that. I have not stopped eating. I still intend enjoying all good things in life. It is the overeating that will send me tweeting !!

Just wanted to share the cute-ness and impression of a gift that was carefully selected. Paying attention to detail pays great dividends in the heart and mind of the receiver of such gift !!

Blog not happening

My computer crashed…yes, that sucks

My camera is missing – must be in the house…?!

My other camera appears to be defective…..

So…. I am having a few blogging roadblocks.

Can’t just sit here and pretend all is well, so I have a few things to do and a few things to find….

I hope this will all be sorted by this afternoon.

Wish me luck as I go sort out those little glitches….. !

Back soon

Ilze

Why do we blog?

I listened to a podcast today about CONTENT and CREATIVITY on blogs.

And it led to the reasons why we blog.

There are grand ideas and big aspirations every blogger has…but that often leads to disappointment when you don’t go from zero to hero overnight.

Big revenue is not my goal since I am not even with a blog-host where I am allowed to earn income from it right now.

So, I am just writing from the heart as a creative outlet for myself.

I love sharing while I am doing things and therefore my content is my passion.

I hope that my blog will evolve organically and make connections with people out there who has the same interests as me or who simply enjoys hearing from me. The challenge right now is to get the blog out there to those people who would enjoy it …as it is difficult to get the word out to those who might find meaning in it when the search engines don’t pick up your blog yet. It is just living out there somewhere in the blogosphere. And I hope the word spreads via my readers.

Not everybody will like everything. But hopefully it will give a few people out there the opportunity to connect with me and stay in touch with me and my soul and that is what makes blogging an attractive option for me right now.

Thank you to all of you dear readers who have already come back to stay updated. It truly inspires me to hear from you and even if there is in the end just 10 people in this world that gets some meaning from it then it still matters to me and those 10 people.

In the first year of blogging everybody tries to find their voice and hopefully it will get all the more interesting as I find my own voice and I figure out how to do more things technically speaking !

My big dream would be to get to a place where I can have the web-design that depicts me more specifically.  And to post regularly  and keep them short and sweet so you can really keep up with it.But those are things I am working on……

For now I am just happy to go wherever the blog and my readers lead me!

Thanks everyone who is reading my blog!

I’m in the MOOD

One of the fun things we had to do was to create a moodboard during our e-course.  You have to look for things that you love and put them together in a display so others could see what you are all about. (Or that is at least what I think I was suppose to do?!). Most importantly though is to get in touch with yourself in this process.

It got me a little worried as I have recently changed 3 rooms in my house to BLACK?! Would that mean I am in a little bit of a dark mood at the moment?

It had to be nothing electronic – real life things, magazine clippings or different items that inspire you. Thank goodness I picked up a copy of the September 2010  issue of  HOUSE BEAUTIFUL magazine on a recent trip to Hawaii. It was perfect as I found my exact matches for my mood and colour scheme all in one magazine. They have beautiful things and I encourage you to pick up a copy anytime you need a fix on your decor hunger !

You are actually suppose to do it in a folder to which you can refer back later…but I decided to just walk around my house and see what it is that I have recently purchased that I loved ! Obviously that would reflect my mood over the last couple of months, right?

I had so much fun doing this! I realized the value in the exercise in that

1) I don’t really have to worry about that dark side of mine…(as my items turn out to be a little more colourful than just black !….phew ?! and

2) It reminded me why I bought all these things (yes – the colours lifted my spirit and still does) and it gave me a clear picture of what has been catching my eye over the most recent period

3) I loved doing it so much that I decided to use some of the items as inspiration for the start-up header for my blog. It will be a nice reminder of what mood I was in when I started this new blog.

Thanks Holly for making me do this ! It was also all-inspiring to see what others in the class came up with.

I learnt a lot about myself in this process.

Sometimes we need a little push….or is it a BIG one?!

I am a late entry to the world of blogging. Wayyyyyy behind the rest of the world?? …….I know.

Anyway – better late than never.

It is a perfect medium to share with the world out there.

Inviting others to share your inner space of thinking is a cool way for inspiring ideas to get around the globe.

But it is not all that easy to clearly communicate what you wish to say or portray.

I stumbled upon Holly Becker’s  blog a couple of weeks ago – yes, I can not even recall HOW that happened…but boy, am I happy I did…..!!
Besides the blog immediately catching my eye …and KEEPING it there for quite a while !!!……it also happened to be on the last day for sign-ups on an e-course for blogging. PERFECT !!

If EVER you need to do a course – pick this one: BLOGGING YOUR WAY !  It is superb!!!!

It has inspired me GREATLY so far… and ALL the credits for any good things you will find on this blog in the future to come , will have to go to these 2 wonderful girls who is making it all happen for our class over the internet. Holly from http://decor8blog.com  and Leslie from http://acreativemint.typepad.com . Their blogs are simply amazing.

I still have a LOT to figure out …(like how to get the links to their sites work perfectly and get a nice picture up for them?!) ….

For that I take full accountability and will accredit none of the mistakes I make to them..as they have only taught us wonderful, inspirational ways of creating the best blogs ever!

It is all new to me but I am exciteda about this BIG push that I got into the blogging world – I have needed that to finally get going.

A new beginning….

My new blog is up and running !  I hope to make this place a sanctuary for both me and you to come here

….to explore,

…….share a journey

…………..and express thoughts and ideas that would not come along if it is not for the inspiration from others!

People and things are what inspire me….in that order…

And I would love to share my thoughts on that with you – my reader !