As the title suggests I am making some changes to the way I deal with blogs I enjoy, comments, and email. I have always signed on, quickly looked at the bell notifications, then got enough read / answered that if more poured in I wouldn’t miss too much. Then I would do other things like email. Often during this time or if I was not well I lost everything in the bell notification as it only allowed so many. I was constantly missing comments, which in truth is more important to me than other things online. Not sure why it has taken me to come to this change, except that if I am comfortable with something, I am the perfect frog in the pot of the hot water. Now the water is hot enough I am forced to jump out of it.
I love the blogs I follow, and I hate being rushed in reading them. But comments on my blog have to come first. I love them, I adore them, I am willing to put in the extra effort for them. I do not want to miss any more of them. So here is the change.
What I did this afternoon works for me. I had to do some other things and when I signed back on I was pissed that all my caught up stuff was no longer caught up, and I lost stuff. What did I lose? I don’t know, that is what bothers me. So I went to the top of the bell and worked down finding every comment and replying. Then when I got all them answered I went back to the top of the bell and got the new comments.
Going forward when I get up and sign on, start all my systems, I will start at the bottom of the bell notifications looking for comments. I will move up the list replying to comments. Then I will check my email and answer that, something I have not really done since … well at least a decade ago. Then I will go back to the bell notification and start reading all the grand blogs from the people I enjoy hearing their thoughts and leaving my own on. During this I will go back to the top to check for comments. If during this your blog drops off the bell notification list I am really sorry, I do love reading your blogs, but the list has gotten too long, my health is not well, and I just get too upset not keeping up. To the point I keep hundreds of open tabs, I think the count right now I keep open is near 500. I doubt I will ever get to them, answer them, or post them … some are news articles I wanted to post, but I save them with a hope. I will be going through them catching the comment left two or three months ago, then delete the windows. I just looked I am keeping tabs of blogs or comments from 3 months ago hoping to somehow get to them. It is past time to stop pushing and punishing myself. Ron is at his wits end on this. I set my alarm and got up at 3 am to start today. Yes I have to take breaks, and go lay down, I can only sit for five or ten minutes at a time, so I am up and down and laying down up at the desk, standing walking, sitting, going back to bed … I am exhausted and my health is failing, and Ron says one of the reasons is I feel driven by the stuff online. I just am recovering from a stomach virus causing me to vomit all day yet when I could sit I was at the computer. When my body drives me to bed I do it from my phone and tablet. I read news and post it. I put a keyboard on my old tablet to answer comments from there. It is not the best but it works.
So I am sorry if I miss your blogs. I am sorry if you post something really grand I think needs to be shared. I have to back off. I have to set priorities. I have gotten myself into a rut, pushing far past what my medications can hold until I am in tears trying to deal with stuff. I fall asleep at my desk after telling Ron I am going to bed. Then we argue about it.
Anyway everyone gets the point, I am just flogging the dead horse and making my self out to be a martyr at this point. That is not the case. Sorry if I give that impression, but reading over this I feel I have. None of what I do is anyone else’s fault. I do it because I enjoy it and love it. These computers are my ability to move outside the walls of my home, to connect with a larger world. I am addicted to it. But like any addiction it is hurting me, so I need to curb it. For example right now I just got up and walked around the kitchen because my right hip, the first hip I had replaced back in 2004 is burning, hurting, killing me so badly I am having to finish this sitting sideways. What people don’t know is that how I do a lot of my online posts and comments. I do a few minutes, get up and move, do more, go lay down, take more medications, get back to the computer. Ron says my exercise regiment is how much I have to keep moving to help the pain in my hips and back.
So let us all hope this gives me the chance to answer any comments without missing them. Please keep them coming, I love hearing other peoples thoughts and ideas. Plus as Ron says there is a bit of argumentive streak in me from the time I spent soaked in the bile and vitreol of the adotptive family. Hugs. Loves to all. Best wishes to those who understandably don’t want to be hugged I was there once myself. Scottie