Monday, September 22, 2008

Control is an illusion

Ok, so if you've scrolled down the page or visited over the weekend you've seen my "little project." For some reason, unknown even to me, I decided I need to organize my archives by subgenre in addition to the alpha by last name I've always had. No, I don't know what possessed me and now that I've begun I can't stop.

Yesterday afternoon one of the kids asked me, "Are you sure you double checked all of your first year? You might have missed some." At first I was just going to give them a pat, "Of course I double checked my archives. I'm your mother, I'm thorough!" But of course, that's not true. I hadn't checked the archives of my first year. When I began my blog I just nattered on about whatever came into my head. I didn't have a specific format or subject in mind- until my second year. So if I felt like reviewing a book I finished, I did. If I didn't feel like reviewing I merely mentioned the title and the author so that I'd be able to check back later and count them all up or prevent myself from buying multiple copies or whatever.

Fast forward to yesterday. I'd organized and reorganized my lists (which grew and grew like bunnies in the spring). After I'd posted the romance lists and added the links to my sidebar I went through my first year archives. Now, you know I missed plenty. I'm only human after all. Any guesses? One or two or three or five? Ok, I could handle it, but 21?! I nearly fell off my chair laughing at myself. Then I wanted to cry in frustration. By then it was quite late and I was tired, so I took myself off to bed. This morning I went back through the archives again and made lists and notes and all so that tomorrow I can add them to the archives.

When I copied and pasted all of the archives into MS Word, it was 28 pages! And that was before I found the ones I missed. I was surprised and a little intimidated, but I figured it'll make things user friendly. I hope. I still have to create all of the non romance archive lists, fewer titles in total but more lists. It may take the rest of the week before I'm done as I have other things to do during the day. Honest, I don't surf all day. Of course, whatever I want to do has to wait during prime homework time, so that might delay things too. We'll see.

The family has asked me all kinds of other questions, like how many pages in total have you read since you started the blog? How many books in all? I'm not proficient in Excel, like Rosario, so I don't keep those kinds of stats. Maybe I should though. I'm hopeful that once I'm done it'll be easy to keep up with. We shall see.

Meantime I received a packet of books in the mail, so I have those to look forward too as well. The life of a book blogger is never dull.

No comments: