Saturday, December 31, 2011

Looking Back, Moving Forward

Well today is the last day of my first ever 365 challenge. While it started as an incentive to take more photographs, for me it's morphed into far more than that. It's been great to enforce regular picture taking, but it's also been a great reflective tool for me, and has allowed me to re-invgorate another love; that of writing. Through exploiting my posts via FB, I have received a lot of feedback from friends who have, for the most part, enjoyed my daily blahs. I thank everyone who has commented on my blog or FB page, for that!
So the plan was to re-model the blog for the future, but unfortunately the Blogger interface will not allow me to do as I had intended.
Firstly, when I established the blog, I expected it to be active for a year. Momentsmemoriemusings@blogspot was disallowed so I named it msf2011 - which I now regret, seeing as I wish to continue. Changing the name is not a simple as it would seem, so if I want to maintain last year's entries as part of my blog as opposed to a link, I'm stuck with it.
Secondly, I thought that by adding new pages, I could make a dated entry on a page, re the topic of that page. Wrong. They can be edited but it appears that there is only one page that can be used as a blog
I have contemplated starting over, or switching to a wiki or weebly even, but have made the decision to continue with my current blog - incorporating some of the new features I hoped to chronicle on separate pages.
The 365 photo challenge will no longer be the focus for the blog, though it may appear from time to time. Latterly I found myself taking more and more photos for this forum with my iPhone. I have since installed a 365 app and Blogger on my phone, so will be using this exclusively for the 365 - with less personal requirements than this year. The 365 2012 page has more details about what I have challenged myself to. I may instead upload to Flickr or similar - yet to decide.
Another 'challenge' I have set myself is completing or initiating many of the things on my 50 List.
Other pages I had hoped to have were a 'Dog Blog' and a page to reflect on books read and movies seen - but that will now just be part of my blog itself.

So for the last entry of the year I am going to leave you all with some highlights of the 2011 year for me.

The first highlight is a repeat of what I have written about above - establishing and maintaining this blog. 16600 hits; who would have thought? Still only 9 regular followers however; perhaps I can increase this in 2012...

Other memorable moments, in no particular order least of all chronological, include the following, which link back to the post about them...

  • Spending a great day celebrating family milestones at my parents' place
  • The All Blacks winning the Rugby World Cup - watching this with Katie and attending the parade the next day
  • Attending a RWC match, with some of the choicest people I know
  • Having Stirling come and live with me full time
  • Doing well with both Hugo and Stirling at Ribbon Parade level
  • Stirling getting his first (and second) CC - only 6 to go lol
  • Becoming brave enough to enter photos into MPS club nights, and being recognised for some of them
  • Having one of my photos be on the cover of a 'real' magazine, and the same photo being used to promote how to take pet pics on a dog blog 
  • Going to my first live gig for years and LOVING IT
  • Having my family help me to give my house and section a face-lift
  • Gaining a study award, which will see 2012 travel a completely different path than I am used to
To round off the 365 challenge, I am sad to say the shitty weather we have had lately has sucked the inspiration out of me, so I leave you with a shot taken at my home beach, Mimiha, last week. A manmade structure that rose out of the sand.






2 comments:

  1. What a beautiful shot Lynn. I love the blues. Congratulations on finishing your first 365 challenge, what an achievement! And look at all those hits! Well done you. :) Looking forward to reading everything you're up to next year even though we won't get to see you as much at work I have a sneaking suspicion a few choice social networking sites will keep us up to date with each other. Heading off to have a squiz at your 50 list now :D

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  2. Keep it going Lynn; you're an inspiration to many people & we love reading about what you think & what influences you...

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