Purpose

I have a girlfriend who has a blog with a purpose. She loves to travel, and she loves to do it often. She likes to stay at nice places and do nice things. She likes to do those things and stay at those places and not always pay those prices. So she tries to do those things and stay at those places and not pay those prices and then blogs about it. She’s a good writer, and I enjoy her blog.

We were discussing blogs one night over tacos and margaritas. She asked what the purpose was of my blog. I couldn’t give her much of a straight answer. Finally I told her that it started as a way to give updates and pictures to family and friends (which I found out was not true. To quote my first blog entry, “I'm really just doing it so I can stop posting as anonymous on other people's blogs.”) about six years ago when we lived in Dallas. Then when John passed the Foreign Service Exam it also became about our adventure getting into the FS. And now it’s just about what ever I want it to be about.

I do wish that I had a fancy blog, that I updated daily, and had a big following. Things get in the way of that though…my laziness being the biggest thing. In the morning I’ll think, “maybe I’ll blog today!” Then later I’m all:

I’ve thought about carving out an hour a day to sit down and write. I did do a year of school last year, and one semester I did English. There were some good ideas in class about writing, and how to get topics to write about. Sure, they were talking about academic papers, but I don’t see why I couldn’t use those ideas to figure out what to write about. I digress.

I look at some of the fancy blogs that I know and love and wonder what it’s like to be known for your blog (quoted in the big papers, famous in the Foreign Service blogosphere, etc). I’ve always wanted to be famous, this could be a way to fame for me, right?

Well, sure! If I had a fancy blog that I updated more and some kind of niche to fill.

I got an invitation in my email this morning for Bloggy Conference this September. It would be the perfect conference to find out how to make my blog a hit blog. How to make myself famous! The tickets are only $73 for the whole conference! Alas, it’s in Sandusky, OH. Just a quick check on Expedia shows that the cheapest plane ticket right now is $1,345, raising the cost from $73 to way more than I’m willing to pay, and that isn’t including hotel and food and all the shopping that I would do if I was in the States.

So maybe I’ll start updating more often (not likely), and maybe I’ll fancy up my blog (probably not), but I’ll be happy with what I have right now. Because it’s better than nothing.

Hiatus

I'm considering a hiatus from blogging. It's a bit of a time suck, and then I feel bad when I don't blog. John said "back blogging (blogging about something that happened a long time ago (more than a week in blog time))" doesn't work.

So...I'm considering a hiatus. Life is so busy - how do you do it ladies?! With only two kids and a part time job, I have a hard time keeping this up. I've applied for the CLO job and that would add two more days a week of work for me. And then I'll have three kids instead of two! I barely even facebook anymore! Although, I do facebook more than I blog.

Lack of content is not a problem for me, I could list more than a handful of topics right now. For those who read to keep up with the kids, I'm sorry. For those who read to learn about FS life or life in Costa Rica, I'm a bit less sorry, but I'm sorry to you too. I know that reading blogs is a great way to get a peek into life of somewhere you're going to live.

This hiatus is not guaranteed, but very, very likely. If you'd like to friend me on facebook and haven't you can find me as Sara Simmons Roy current city San Jose, Costa Rica. I'm not great at putting up pictures, but I do update my status (albeit less than I used to).

50

My hubby and I used to joke that one of us had more followers than the other on our blogs. For a little while John was winning. But he doesn't blog much and so his blog doesn't draw much attention.

Today when I logged onto Blogger I noticed that I'd reached a milestone in blog followers. The big 5-0. Fun!

Right now I'm off for a facial with the ladies, but later today I plan on blogging about a ton of things. Preview: Manila, Seizures & Medicines, and D.C.

Toot My Own Horn

I'm gonna do it.

I now have 30 followers. I'm excited that, that many people want to follow our story. I know of other non-Blogger readers too (my mom and in-laws for example (my dad and sister are two of the followers)) that follow so the number is deceptively small.

So to the followers. I often think of you and feel bad if I'm not updating you on goings on within our family.

On a side note, John pointed out that today marks three months that we've been in Costa Rica. Crazy.

On Monday some guys are coming from the Embassy to hang our big pictures and a couple of other things. Then we have a few more things that we'll hang ourselves when we get the stuff from the Costa Rican Home Depot. Then we'll be all moved in. Not too bad for a normal family, but we've been here for and eighth of our stay already. WHAT?!

So Cool!

These are the countries that my blog has been read in. I am so excited about knowing this and think it's so cool! The order is by how many times my blog has been read in each country. The US has had over 800 hits since May.


United States (US)
Brazil (BR)
Mexico (MX)
Germany (DE)
Guatemala (GT)
Honduras (HN)
Canada (CA)
United Kingdom (GB)
India (IN)
Ecuador (EC)
Philippines (PH)
Australia (AU)
Spain (ES)
Belgium (BE)
Costa Rica (CR)
Italy (IT)
Kuwait (KW)
Dominican Republic (DO)
Venezuela (VE)
Czech Republic (CZ)
Sri Lanka (LK)
Thailand (TH)
Israel (IL)
Japan (JP)
Bulgaria (BG)
Austria (AT)
France (FR)
Lithuania (LT)
Korea, Republic of (KR)
Moldova, Republic of (MD)
Europe (EU)
Croatia (HR)
Oman (OM)
Malaysia (MY)
Colombia (CO)
Kenya (KE)
South Africa (ZA)
Indonesia (ID)
Barbados (BB)
Saint Kitts and Nevis (KN)
Saudi Arabia (SA)
Egypt (EG)
Bangladesh (BD)
New Zealand (NZ)
Belize (BZ)
Jordan (JO)

Updated Blog Roll

I've updated my blog roll on the side bar. There were a ton of blogs that I follow that weren't there. Most of them are Foreign Service blogs but some are family and friends.

Memorial Day

This Memorial Day has been weird for me. As far as I know I have no family that has passed serving our country, so I don't have anyone to go pay honor to today. No one invited us to a bbq, and we're not hosting one, so that's very weird.

Mickey is in town today so this morning she took care of Malachi while John and I slept an hour and a half after he got up. Thank you Mickey!! After hanging out for a while Malachi made known his desire to go play outside. Since we don't have a yard or the fun toys he was used to playing with outside and grandma and grandpa's house we decided going somewhere would be a good time. Finally the Dallas Zoo is what we ended up doing because Malachi loves the stream they have in the Children's Zoo. He must have played there for 45 minutes before we took him out.


He wanted Chick-fil-A so that's where we headed for lunch. During his nap, I finished a craft project I was working on, and John worked on his new blog, I got a memebership at Palm Beach Tan (woo hoo, I wont be white!!!), and hung out with John for a bit. Mickey slept and did her nails (which I should do soon too).

Tonight we're going to do who knows what for dinner. Tomorrow is my Esther Bible Study! Only two more before I have to quit going.