creative.mother.thinking

Interestingly the last post about the Trojan Horse has created the most comments I ever got. Sadly, nobody knew what happened to Helena. So I’ll do you a public service: I looked it up and here it is (according to German Wikipedia):

Helena was known as the most beautiful woman of her time. She was the daughter of Leda and Zeus. Of course everybody wanted to marry her because of her beauty. She chose Menelaos, but before she actually could marry him, Aphrodite promised her to Paris. Helena went with Paris (and left Menelaos willingly). Then – the Trojan War. There are different versions of the story, but in the main one Paris gets killed and Helena goes back to Menelaos. Who seemed to be okay with this.

(And that’s a pajama, my husband is wearing.)

Technorati Tags: greek mythology, Trojan horse

I’ve had this on a post-it note on top of my desk for a couple of days. I read about it on one of the 105 blogs that I’m reading daily. ‘Though I have to admit that the question may have occurred to me without help once or twice. Yesterday I took a pen and wrote beneath it:

WHY NOT?

I am claiming my blog back.

I’ve been feeling a little down with the blog and the not-making music enough and the no-more-shrinking lately. (The reading of 105 blog feeds and the daily watching of two episodes of “Buffy, the Vampire-Slayer” may be a reason for this unproductive phase.) I felt all full of self-pity, constantly thinking, “Nobody wants to read my blogs, why am I doing this?” Each morning I open my stats before even checking my inbox and I go like, “Oh, only six hits!”. What I keep forgetting is that:

1. While it is true that I do have two blogs, they are only mirroring each other. Same content, different language. So I might feel better if I didn’t see them as separate. So it’s not six hits, but twelve.
2. Of course people won’t come to my blog daily, when I’m posting only two or three times a week.
3. What I’m blogging about is not very mainstream.
4. I’m not the world’s best writer. Especially not in English.
5. There are hundreds of fantabulous bloggers out there. If I were not me, I’d probably read them and not me too.

Well, with me there always has to be a but, so here it is: If I were not me, maybe I wouldn’t care about the writing style or anything, if there were another blogger writing about the topics that are dear to my heart. In all my struggling with being creative on the side while parenting, cleaning, exercising, teaching and what not, I’d like to see other mothers like me. I’d love to read all about it and about the, “How do you do it?”

Of course I ‘d like to have lots and lots of readers. And I’m working on bettering the blog. So I’m reading copyblogger and problogger and Liz Strauss and Creating passionate users. I even subscribed to an eCourse to better my blog. This course has left me thinking. All of these resources are geared towards professional bloggers. They help you to make money from your blog. ‘Though I’d love to be paid for all the work I’m doing here, I don’t think this will happen in the near future. (Not with six plus six readers anyway.)

This blog is not a “product”. I’m writing what I’d like to read. This is why I’ve gone back to the “essay-format” that I started in. This is why I’m not blogjolting anymore. I love the thought of a group of bloggers helping each others and recommending each others, but I won’t point people towards other blogs only because somebody told me so.

I found that I enjoy bloggers more, who maybe don’t post daily but when they so they have something to say. Like Martina Kink or Jori DesJardins. I like bloggers who write about creativity and struggles and are authentic. Like Christine Kane. Finding her blog almost stopped me writing mine. She does it so much better than me. But this is like in music. It’s not about being the best. There’s room for a lot of bloggers. Even for a lot of bloggers not on the top 100 technocrati ranks. Even for bloggers with a ranking of about 660,000. (I’m flabbergasted! I just went to technocrati to look up my ranking and instead of 660,000 something, I’m 260,062. Or “Diapers and Music” is. “Windeln und Musik” just sank down from 880,000ish to 1,000,000ish.)

This would be even worth it if I only wrote it for the three of my friends who are reading this. But I like having six plus six readers. And I’m trying to get more. But I won’t spend my time to worry about readers and about my posting schedule and then become the member of yet another blogger network just to gain readers. And I know that the German blogging scene is a little smaller than the American one. And from what I read on other people’s blogs their blog taste is quite different from mine. Short posts about three times a day. Of course there is a lot of the “And then I had coffee and then I went to the mall and then I watched TV variety of blogging. Which I enjoy only if it is written extremely well.

Technorati Tags: blogger, blogging, thinking

Things I did last week that I never had done before:

• ordered a bra online,
• after undressing I put my underwear and socks directly into the trash can (full of holes),
• ate nothing for 26 hours, though I wasn’t sick,
• had a coloscopy (and everything is fine, thank you),
• spontaneously played the intro to “Nothing Else Matters” to a student on the guitar, ‘though I don’t know how,
• had a guitar lesson myself while growing tipsier and tipsier (Well, my husband is teaching me.),
• sold the stroller and the tricycle,
• made a budget and compared it to our actual expenses (Well, I didn’t say that we actually stayed within the budget.),
• lost 4 pounds in one day (The not eating might do this to you. Don’t try this at home! (And they’re back on anyway.)),
• took my laptop with me to the big city and wrote a blog post while sitting in a café (Next time I’ll take my husband’s backpack instead of my more stylish but wrecking my shoulder laptop bag.)
• sold one of my computer games online
• signed up for a free eCourse on blogging (Thank you, Wendy Piersall.)

Well, the ones of you that are actually following this blog might have wondered, when I’d write the post on “do what you want or surrender” that I mentioned a couple of days weeks ago. So, here it is:

When I was about twelve years old I got a book that deeply impressed me: “The Neverending Story” by Michael Ende. For those of you who don’t remember, that’s a fantastic story about a boy entering a magical land of fairy. He gets a medaillon with the inscription: “Do what you want.” At first he thinks what nearly everyone would be thinking that it’s all about getting everything he fancies. But because this is a book for young readers, of course there’s a moral to it, and in the end it’s about doing what you really want. With all of the consequences.

I thought about that a lot. Since then I’ve been in the habit of asking myself several times a day, if I really want what I’m doing. And if it will lead me ultimately into the direction I want my life to be heading.

In spite of the gap that lies between my knowing and my doing this helped me for example never to start smoking: I was about 13 years old, standing in a park with a herd of teenagers, holding a cigarette in my hand, because smoking was so cool then. I stopped and thought, “Do I really want to do this?” No, I didn’t, so I extinguished the half-smoked cigarette and never did it again.

“Do what you want.” helped me not to study business studies like everybody else did. And later after university it helped me not to become a computer programmer.

So it is a very helpful thought. You stop, you think about the relationship between your deeds and your ultimate goal, and it helps feeling powerful, because you know that it was your own decision.

Only that I started thinking again. I’m going all new agey hear. Maybe it’s not all about what I want. (Something a mother can’t stop thinking.) Maybe there’s a bigger plan. Maybe God is trying to lead me and I’m constantly struffling against it? (Okay, here it is, the G-word. Sorry.)

So, while I didn’t stop asking myself, “Do I really want to do this?” (I even started changing my doing accordingly.), I’m relaxing a little. Pray for guidance and help. And, you know, my life has become just a little bit easier. I don’t have to do it all on my own.

Wow.