Not beating myself up. Nope. Not gonna do it.

So less than three days in to my new project of blogging every day for a year, I dropped the ball. Why?
I forgot. Plain and simple.
BUT!
I did something else that was out of my comfort zone.
I went to a Tweetup.
To meet some of the very funny and interesting people I interact with on Twitter on a pretty much daily basis. Despite my brave and hopefully amusing front, I am a very shy and insecure person by nature. I'm tall, which has been kind of a social handicap (at least in my own mind) since about teenagehood. It is VERY HARD for me to meet new people, not because I don't have opportunities, but because I fret about it and build it up in my own mind, and psych myself out.
So I am very proud of myself for swallowing my fear and venturing out to Piper's Pub on the South Side. I admit I waited all day for the weather to change enough to cancel the event, letting me off the hook. But it didn't. So I didn't chicken out, and am very glad I did not.
I had already met Abby, the fabulous organizer of many Tweetups, and @shadow, a very nice and funny techie. But I was dying to meet UncleCrappy and @mrscrappy, because they're journalists like me! And also, very funny and nice.
I wish I had had more time to talk to @FunkyDung and @annthegeek, but, I at least introduced myself. Big step for Shy Me.
There were a few people I chickened out introducing myself to (still a tall, gawky teenager in my head), but I'll save 'em for the next Tweetup.
So there. I'm not going to beat myself up for forgetting to blog yesterday. I'll blog twice today as penance. In fact, I'll make that my rule. As long as on Feb. 23, 2011, I have 365 posts to show for myself, I'll consider this project a success.
Good?

The "Why" of your blog

I went to PodCamp Pittsburgh two weekends ago, and sat in on an excellent session by Michelle, the talented writer behind The BurghBaby, an excellent blog. I was excited to meet her and even more impressed after she was done speaking.

The essence of blogging, she says, is to know the "why" of your blog.

That seems so simple, but it had eluded me to that point. It's important to know why you're blogging, otherwise you'll be all over the place and unfocused and what's the point of that?

Simply put, I want to write about things that interest and/or bother me. Whether anyone wants to read that, I have no idea.

I'm hoping the list of things that bother me isn't longer than the list of things that interest me. Because bitching all the time isn't really interesting either, even if it's done in a clever way.

So I'll probably be writing a lot about being a working mother. I am one, and there is no end to the things within that spectrum that both interest me and bother me. Mommy blogging isn't for everyone, but I think that's where I'm headed anyway, so why fight it?

There. Glad I got that off my chest. And special thanks to Michelle for helping point me in the right direction.