Hi you.. yes, you

September 19, 2014September 19, 2014 ~ Laurie ~ 3 Comments

I read the Blogging 101 assignment for the 4th day and thought… oh, that’s a tough one “Write a post to your dream reader”. Eeks.. What if I don’t know who my dream reader is? I’ve struggled with this as I really haven’t thought about who I’d want to reach. But I decided to choose someone.. and go for it.

Can you imagine? It’s been over three years. Yes, three full years. Ups, downs, happy conversations, emotional conversations, no conversations. Not knowing what is going on to hearing how much you care. Worrying about your well-being to hearing from family that you are still out there. Three years. A long time. But the last year has been the most difficult. From conversing remotely every day, to every few days, to every few weeks, to …well… not at all. Just nothing… empty space; no response. The heart doesn’t always understand what the mind can imagine. The mind doesn’t always reconcile successfully with the heart. Do you still care? Are you still there? Poof… yes, there you are.. you arrive on my birthday, you say hi; you say you just don’t know what to say; you say you still care and know that I probably feel abandoned. Yes, that’s a good word…abandoned. You ask me to forgive you and you ask just to “be” there, together. Then as quickly as you arrived, you leave..and then nothingness. Again, I fall into wondering, into worry, into guessing…although only a few weeks have gone by, it feels like so long… I was so hopeful, so happy to know you were still out there, that you still cared, that you possibly still love. And now, I sit in a hole, my heart torn again.. but yet, I would forgive you in a moment; I’d listen to all that has happened; I’d want to know… to get to know you.. the you that you are today. I want to know you. I want to understand. I just want you in my life, no matter the capacity… no matter the intent. It was always… you…from nearly the moment I met you and yes, it still is.

The Title and the Tagline

September 16, 2014 ~ Laurie ~ Leave a comment

So today’s assignment from Blogging 101 was to change or update our blog title and tagline. First, aren’t you impressed, I actually am posting the assignment BEFORE the next one comes out. Granted, with only 30 minutes to spare, but it is BEFORE the new assignment!

Let’s look at the title of my blog – Eclectic Elucidation. Yeah, that one took me some time and effort to come up with so I am not going to change it – yet. I won’t say never, because you just never know, do you? Where did my title come from? As I mentioned in my last post, I didn’t want to focus on one subject or even realm, which led me to the word “eclectic”. As in, and yes, I have an eclectic taste in music and design. If you stick around, you might be subjected to some of that. For me, I never even thought of having one URL and a different title, so I put my brain into action to think about the remainder of the title. It was a struggle to find a word that wasn’t already part of a WordPress blog url. As I was sitting here poking around in my brain for options, I thought… hmm… what am I trying to do here? I wanted to share, communicate, offer commentary… So I started putting words together “Eclectic Communications”; “Sharing of Eclecticisms”; “Commentary of the Eclectic Sort” ?!? Good grief! (well secretly that last one kinda was cool) Anyway, I delved into the thesaurus for help and came out with elucidation… ELUCIDATION… Oh that will work – Eclectic Elucidation! \o/ I plugged that in to the WordPress field and by golly, it was available! Whew… that was hard work and I hadn’t even written a post yet! I like it, I’m sticking with it.

But the tagline is a different story. I had forgotten all about the “tagline”. And this was even more difficult for me. I sat here all day and kept trying to discover a witty, silly, light, fun, descriptive, ‘insert any adjective here’ tagline, and was struggling. I went through tons of words and silliness. What to say, how to describe, but be catchy and brief? So I just finally came up with what might be referred to as my temporary tagline – open to comments and criticisms. The tagline of the day is …wait for it…

“sharing dilettantish delights and other such frivolity”

Not sure how long it will last, but it’s there for now. Let’s see if it grows on me.

The “Who I Am & Why I Am Going to Do This” Post

September 16, 2014September 16, 2014 ~ Laurie ~ 3 Comments

A new blog… just what the world needs is another blog to read, right? I know, I know… it’s just words on the monitor and possibly not of any interest to anyone other than me, but that’s just it… it is a way to express myself. I wanted to start a personal blog and found the “Blogging 101” class offering by WordPress.com. I took a minute and thought… hmm… well that could help me get started. So here I am!

Today’s (well really it was yesterday’s, I’m already behind) assignment is to share a bit about who I am and why I am doing this .. and there were some questions , so here goes!

So… who am I?

My name is Laurie, and I currently reside in the Mid-Atlantic region of the US. By day, I am a senior strategic project manager within a banking operation. By night, I am a …hmm… what am I? I play virtual games, go to online university, and generally just live quietly. I travel, I visit family, I read, and I do my best to smile every day!

So let’s look at a few of the suggested questions:

Why are you blogging publicly, rather than keeping a personal journal?

Well, that’s a good question…! I decided that I’d try this because I enjoy writing and why not share my thoughts, views, interests, words, etc with others? It isn’t like I’m FORCING anyone to read… just putting it out there in case someone finds these things interesting!

What topics do you think you’ll write about?

I think I will write about anything that might come to mind. The name of my blog is “Eclectic Elucidation”. This means that I didn’t want to ‘pigeon hole’ myself in one specific subject or genre. Well that’s what the “Eclectic” part means anyway… You might find digital imagery, prose, quotes, poems, etc… not always original, but always credited.

Who would you love to connect with via your blog?

Anyone (and everyone, but that’s a lofty goal) that might find something that I share funny, heartwarming, interesting, educational (highly unlikely), etc. I just hope to reach people through words, thoughts, images and plans.

So… that’s where we are… my first post on “Electic Elucidation”.

Won’t you walk through the gate with me?