Kenton also has a goodly number of boring stores. This is the Milgard Window and Door store, which is right next to the equally exciting rolling shades store. However, behind the window of the Milgard store is a fun surprise.
So downtown Kenton, home of the empty or derelict shops, has been getting a bit fancier over the past few years. There’s the Library, which is fabulous and there are also several restaurants as well as an alternative health clinic/flower shop, a scrapbooking store, a home brew shop and a children’s clothing resale shop. I’ve heard that in the past few decades, a lot of landlords just used their shop buildings as storage space or let the spaces sit empty. With so many good things happening., it was only a matter of time before someone turned on the old way. The following sign in the store next door to the library caught my eye.
A little slow at the end, but mostly fun. It might even be more fun to compare and contrast Seattle then and Seattle now for people who know the city. I didn’t know that Beau Bridges was such a good actor!
I’ve received the following email from one of my regular readers:
Dear Patricia You’ve now caught up your blogs. Well done! I’ve enjoyed reading all the interesting observations you have about the world but I’m curious, how will you keep your blog caught up? Won’t you just fall back into your slatternly habits? Do shed some insight into your plan.
Sincerely,
A faithful reader*
Dear faithful reader,
I’m glad you asked, as I’ve been planning a blog post about this since before I finished catching up the blog. Your timely email has propelled me forward to actually write it.
Here’s the plan:
First off: I have a specific time (and a back up time) planned weekly to do basic set up for the blog. The official time is Saturday morning post-run/pre-8:00 gym class. That block of time usually gives me 45 minutes to an hour to do the Blog Blessing Hour. More on that below. The backup time is Sunday from when I haul myself out of bed to before I go to church. Having a scheduled time each week to get things in order helps tremendously.
The Blog Blessing Hour. This is an adaptation of the FlyLady’s Weekly Home Blessing Hour in which you spend an hour once per week and get your house in reasonable shape. My Blog Blessing Hour (written down and posted next to my computer) is as follows:
It looks like a lot of work, but each step takes a few minutes. Except for the renaming of photos. That can be rather lengthy if an event has happened during the week. Before I was caught up and had this handy list, I would delay doing all of these steps for months. Trying to catch up the reading posts and cross reference it with the Goodreads stuff alone drove me crazy. Plus, I was often afraid to post things because I wasn’t sure if all the movie posts were in their right place and I like to publish in order.
Yes indeed, those of you who think my anal-retentive nature might be hindering my ability to get anything published and contributing to the huge backup are correct. It totally did. But now that I have a weekly list of tasks, I know finish the weekly Blog Blessing Hour with a list of posts IN ORDER to write and publish. All the pictures are in a named post with the right date, all the movies are caught up and in their place and the book post doesn’t get totally out of control. During the week I can spend fifteen minutes here or there writing the posts and then editing and publishing them.
Combined with the above I have two hard and fast rules:
1) Do the Blog Blessing Hour every week or, at the very least–and rarely–every two weeks.
2) If a post is in draft form and is over one month old you have not made this post a priority and I MUST DELETE IT.
Because I don’t ever want to not post a post I had intended to post, hopefully the draconian rule number two will keep me on the up and up.
And that, dear reader, is the plan. Keep reading and see if it works.
*The above letter was entirely made up by Patricia. It was manufactured so she could write a blog post about how she intends to keep her blog caught up. She never has anyone email her with questions about her blog, though she would be happy to answer them if she did.
