Monday Memory

Whilst doing the whole 'Michele' thing, I wandered over to JennyPenny's blog and was intrigued by this Post.

How did you start blogging?

Well, my 'blogparent' (one who gets you into blogging) was Aginoth. Best mate, colleague, pseudo-bruv. He came into work and constantly talked about his 'blog'.
Intrigued I visited the site and discovered it was like a funky internet journal.

I was itching to comment on his remarks, so I created myself a profile. I used Craziequeen, as I have been 'Queen of the Crazies' for some years now. My original picture was a green dragon - anyone remember that?

I commented on Aginoth's blog for a while, visited some of his blogroll (mostly similar journal stuff) and after a few weeks of constant nagging from my beloved friend, I started my own blog.

It was originally called It's A Cat's Life, and I made my first post on the 28th Sept 2005. I had an ulterior motive, in that I was intending to learn to ski and had given myself a punishing training schedule - and this blog was part of my support!
I must say, my blogroll looked a lot different in those days, as did my blog before I learnt to play with HTML!

In those days some of my regulars thought I was a boy, and I can remember posting this to cyberkitten's delight.

I struggled with blogging in the beginning, thinking my life (or what I wanted to reveal of it) was too boring for everyone else, so I posted jokes, emails, pictures.

On Oct 14 2005, I rebranded! Of course, what I didn't realise is then no one's links worked! So it took a few days to find everyone and tell them the new URL. Form then on my blog became The Palace!

And it was about this time I started talking about my cats. Now, anyone who knows me knows I am barmy about my felines.......what a surprise I had in store!

And on Oct 16 2005 my dear friend Cyberkitten started his blog too - seeking answers to those eternal questions from a wider audience!

A sucker for punishment, on the 25 Oct 2005 I opened my Storystore. Somewhere to put my junky scribblings, really. In fact, I am considering closing it soon unless I get the urge to write some more. My writing muse is MOST fickle.....

And on Oct 31, I created blogs for my cats! :-) And boy, were they popular! SO many cat and dog bloggers out there! I swear they get more comments than I do! And there are more starting up every day. Having two blogs for them was too much work, so a couple months later they had one shared one..

By this time I had discovered the aforementioned Michele, and my blogroll just grew and grew. Some became distant and I took them off, some new ones arrived and I put them on.

Christmas was the month of my ambitious Blog Advent and the ambitious Christmas Memories posts - remember them? January and February were mostly skiing and the recovery from the injury [sigh] yep, I know!
And, on a more personal note, I came clean about my depression and I started blogging more personal stuff.

So here we are, April 2006 - 7 months old and my blog seems to be thriving. I have made lots of friends, I am using my blog to help with those awful struggles of conscience, I am using it as a sounding board when my depression threatens to overwhelm me (although I keep my writing in check - don't want to scare everyone off!) and I use it as a journal. Sometimes exciting, more often than not boring....but it's mine, all mine.

I leave you with an excerpt from Oct 14;

I sent my mother the first page of my blog, to illustrate my new venture into IT. She said that blogging seems essentially narcissistic.

I wonder - is it narcissistic? Or is it a reflection of the loneliness of the modern technological age? Or is it taking advantage of a wonderful opportunity to put oneself 'out there' and meet new people?

edit: Laquet has had a crack at answering my question.......have a looksee on her blog!

cq