New Vision for the Blog

While I've always thought of eclectic/eccentric as a multi-layered blog, it has primarily functioned as a book blog. Most posts were focused on reviewing books, summarizing and evaluating without spoiling plot and with the ultimate goal of encouraging people to read or not read the book. I loved this, and for over 8 years, that was the focus. I would post thoughts or family updates from time to time, participate in memes (mainly bookish ones), and participate in book tours and book blog events.

The blog changed drastically after the birth of my first child, Madison, four years ago. I went from reading 150 books a year and having quite a bit of free time to reading 50 books a year with almost no free time. The blog became more sporadic. Then, three years after Madison, came Carter, and reading took another dive. While I have read many, many posts about how reading is still possible after children - and I agree for the most part - I would have to make some pretty questionable decisions to maintain my pre-children level of reading and blogging.

Part of my loss of time has to do with other life decisions. I am a full-time college professor serving on multiple committees and presenting at various conferences. Then there's the fact that I also went back to school. In the time right before Carter, I began work towards a second Masters degree, in Literature of course. I actually finished and submitted a 22 page literary analysis while in the hospital after giving birth. Yeah, that happened.

This year I also started coursework towards earning a Master Online Teacher certificate. Taking all of these courses means that the limited reading time I have left is devoted to course readings and homework. Oh and children's books. I read at least four books a day...they're just not exactly War and Peace.  More like Hello, Bugs and more Bubble Guppies books than should rightly exist.

Fingers crossed that my hard work buying and reading children's books will pay off. So far, so good as both of my kids like playing with books. Madison likes to read before bed (well, have books read to her) and Carter will sit still for I Kissed the Baby, but that's the only book that he will listen to for some reason.

eclectic/eccentric will still have the occasional book review, but the focus will shift a bit more towards discussion and analysis than review, and I plan on incorporating a lot more posts on education and instructional technology and more on the family as well. I suppose this makes eclectic/eccentric more of a life blog; it's just that quite a bit of my life is dedicated to books.

So, for the foreseeable future, I will post about literature on Tuesdays and education/online learning on Fridays. Sundays will be for updates and family, and any book reviews will be posted randomly. I'm considering changing the blog name to be more reflective of what will be included in posts, but so for no luck on a creative title...at least not one that's already taken. :)

To those who read this blog in years past, I don't know if any of you are still around. The numerous false starts this blog has had in the last four years is ridiculous, and who knows if this is the start of a new heyday of Trisha blogging or if it is yet another failed attempt to bring blogging back into my life. I know a few of the people I considered friends here in the book blogging world are no longer book bloggers or no longer bloggers at all. Any of you who are still around, I hope to get back in touch. For new readers, welcome! I can't wait to see what's been happening in the blogosphere.

Goals: February Update

As many of you know, I set quite a handful of goals for myself this year. The full list can be seen here and in my original post.

In the past month, here's how I've fared on my goals:

Books and Blogging
1. Read 50 books: I only read one book in January, but I managed to read 5 in February.

Goals 2-4. Post at least 2x/week, Post about the family at least 2x/month, Post about teaching at least 2x/month: I didn't manage to write any teaching-related posts this month, but I did get up some info about the family.

5. Clear 300 books off the shelves: 157 books off the shelves this month! Hopefully, you have entered in the giveaways I've posted. More giveaways are coming!

6. Reorganize my bookshelves to better see the TBR piles: I'm about halfway there after the massive book elimination, but I'm still not 100% sure exactly how I want to organize. Right now my books are not separated by read/not read, and I'm not sure I separate them that way - but I do need a way to identify those books I haven't read yet....

Food and Drink
1. Cook a "real" meal at least 1x/week: Success! My favorite meal of the month was the Corn and Feta Pasta I made last week. I'll be posting the recipe sometime this month.

Goals 2-4.Freeze at least two meals a month, Cook at least two new recipes per month, Organize my recipes and cookbooks:Yet again, I've failed at these goals; although, I did add more recipes to my unorganized stack.

5. Try at least 10 new types of wine: I tried four new wines this month: a Cabernet Sauvignon from Beringer, a Moscato by Astoria, a Rioja from Rioja Vega, and a Velvet Red from Illinois Cellars. I was most definitely not a fan of the Cab until I chilled it and mixed it with a bit of Sprite - at which point I found it quite tasty; I'm sure there are those of you reading this in horror right now, so I apologize. The Moscato was excellent, and I downed the whole bottle in like three days, same with the Velvet Red. I was expecting to like the Rioja as I enjoy Merlot, but no such luck. Clearly I'm enjoying the sweet, dessert wines right now.

6. Try at least 5 new types of vegetable: No new veggies; although I've renewed my love of corn and sweet potatoes.

7. Eat fruit at least 3x/week: I would grade myself at a B+ for this one. I am eating fruit, but it's boring...apples and pineapples...and it's only 2 or 3 times per week. I need to up my game on this.

Health and Fitness
1. Lose 50 pounds (back to pre-babies weight): I still have no idea what I weigh...

Goals 2 and 4. Exercise 30 minutes/day, 3x/week (once with the kids), Stretch (separate from exercise) at least 4 days/week:I'm not making the 3 times per week goal, but I have managed to half-ass workout three times this month by running with my daughter. I can make it about 10 minutes before I have to walk...that is both depressing and motivating

3. Take a daily multivitamin: Success!

Home and Organization
1. Get picture albums up-to-date and organized: No progress since January, but it's almost done.

2. Do at least 1 load of laundry during the week instead of saving it all up for Sunday: Having a new baby makes this goal rather easy to accomplish as the random emissions of bodily fluids from said baby tend to get all over everything.

3. Maintain a more detailed, more organized schedule/planner - and check it multiple times per day: Success!

4. Reorganize the kitchen: I only managed to get one cabinet cleared out and organized....oops!

5. Make a family memory book: Nothing accomplished here

Work and Education: No progress here

Family and Fun
1. Write a letter to Madison and Carter at least 1x/month: Success!

Goals 2 through 4: Go on at least four family outings, Attend at least one adult event (concert, play, etc.), Get professional family photos (and make family memory book): No luck here; although I do wonder if my trip to the casino with the hubby can count as an adult event. :)

5. Exercise with Madison (and Carter) at least 1x/week: Running with Madison has been my only exercise, and while it's minimal, it's a start. And she loves it so very, very much. Running is her favorite thing to do - and one of the only things that makes her truly giggle.

Goals: January Update

As many of you know, I set quite a handful of goals for myself this year. In the past month, here's how I've fared:

Books and Blogging
1. Read 50 books: I only read one book this month (Smoke Gets in Your Eyes), and I haven't even written the review yet. Most of my reading this month revolved around my research paper analyzing how the narratological elements in Heart of Darkness contribute to the ambiguity of the story. Now that the class is over, I will have more time to dedicate to pleasure reading.

Goals 2-4. Post at least 2x/week, Post about the family at least 2x/month, Post about teaching at least 2x/month: Success!

Goals 5-6. Clear 300 books off the shelves, Reorganize my bookshelves to better see the TBR piles: No progress

Food and Drink
1. Cook a "real" meal at least 1x/week: The first two weeks were a success, but after having a baby in Week 3, things went downhill, and I relied on meals I had frozen ahead of time, Schwann's, and takeout to carry us through that week. Week 4 was back to me being awesome and actually making dinner...well twice, but still that covers the goal.

Goals 2-4. Freeze at least two meals a month, Cook at least two new recipes per month, Organize my recipes and cookbooks: Yeah, not so much with the whole new baby and all. I did get started on the recipe/cookbook organization, but I'm still finalizing exactly how I will be accomplishing this task.

5. Try at least 10 new types of wine: The night I got home from the hospital, I popped open a bottle of Lakeridge Southern Red. Delicious. My grandparents winter close to this vineyard and brought back wine for me. Apparently you are supposed to drink this slightly chilled, but I'm a fan of room temp for this one.

6. Try at least 5 new types of vegetable: No new veggies this month

7. Eat fruit at least 3x/week: Weeks 1 and 3 were a success, and may I just say that the pineapple I had in Week 1 was possibly the best pineapple I've ever eaten. I'm not sure what happened in Week 2...and Week 4 I just never went shopping.

Health and Fitness
1. Lose 50 pounds (back to pre-babies weight): Well the baby's out, so I am sure I lost weight. Unfortunately, my scale's juices are gone, and I haven't gone shopping to buy a new battery yet. :)

Goals 2 and 4. Exercise 30 minutes/day, 3x/week (once with the kids), Stretch (separate from exercise) at least 4 days/week: As I was pregnant, then in delivery, and then in pain, neither of these goals were accomplished this month. I have high hopes for February though.

3. Take a daily multivitamin: Kind of easy this month as I was, for most of the month, pregnant and on pre-natal vitamins. I only missed two days which, for me, is really quite impressive. I'm terrible at remembering to take pills.

Home and Organization
1. Get picture albums up-to-date and organized: I am really making headway on this. I have all the pictures in albums, and I ordered Shutterfly books for every special event through December 31, 2014. This is quite the accomplishment as I had not done so since September 2013. The next part of the project is tackling all of the loose pictures I have from decades ago. Honestly, I have no idea where they all come from, and they span over two decades. Some, I'm pretty sure, are doubles from back when you used to order doubles - you know, way back when we used film which was developed at photo shops in places like Walgreens.

2. Do at least 1 load of laundry during the week instead of saving it all up for Sunday: Weeks 1 and 4 were a success, but Weeks 2 and 3, not so much.

3. Maintain a more detailed, more organized schedule/planner - and check it multiple times per day: Totally rocking this out. I have one calendar for blogging, and one for personal, education, and work, and I'm, so far, really staying on top of listing my tasks and referring to the calendar(s) multiple times a day.

4. Reorganize the kitchen: I didn't get very far on this one this month; although I did clear out a whole shelf to dedicate to baby bottles and food.

5. Make a family memory book: No progress here

Work and Education
1. Develop a learning objectives packet for each class: I have packets completed for my Film Studies and Intro to Literature course. I need to get started on the packets for Fundamentals of Writing, English I, and English II.

2. Finalize the How to Earn an A handbook and quiz for each class: The handbook is up-to-date, but the quizzes are not complete.

3. Take at least two graduate courses in literature: I just finished my Introduction to Literary Theory course, my first grad class in a decade. May I just say that writing a 20 page research paper analyzing Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness from a narratological perspective the week after giving birth was, uh, interesting.

4. Decide on pursuing a second Masters or a Doctorate: This is a decision that's going to take some time. I've always wanted a Doctorate, but the time required to do so is rather daunting now that I have two children.

5. Develop standard rubrics for all assignments: No progress

Family and Fun
1. Write a letter to Madison and Carter at least 1x/month: No problem completing this task as babies were on my brain all month as I awaited Carter's arrival.

Goals 2-5. Go on at least four family outings (zoo, pumpkin patch, botanical gardens, aquarium, etc.), Attend at least one adult event (concert, play, etc.), Get professional family photos (and make family memory book), Exercise with Madison (and Carter) at least 1x/week: No progress

How I feel after this month:

I miss the Golden Girls.

Plans for the New Year

Many, many people make New Year's Resolutions, a handful of (typically) cliched goals that are rarely accomplished (okay that sounds really pessimistic, but..come on now, you know what I mean). Instead of doing a few resolutions, I'm making a much longer, more involved, and hopefully more specific than cliched list of goals which feels a bit more similar to a happiness project than a list of resolutions.

Life Goals, Resolutions, Happiness Project, call it what you will, but here's what I am hoping to accomplish in 2015.

Books and Blogging
1. Read 50 books
2. Post at least 2x/week
3. Post about the family at least 2x/month
4. Post about teaching at least 2x/month
5. Clear 300 books off the shelves
6. Reorganize my bookshelves to better see the TBR piles

Food and Drink
1. Cook a "real" meal at least 1x/week
2. Freeze at least two meals a month
3. Cook at least two new recipes per month
4. Organize my recipes and cookbooks
5. Try at least 10 new types of wine
6. Try at least 5 new types of vegetable
7. Eat fruit at least 3x/week

Health and Fitness
1. Lose 50 pounds (back to pre-babies weight)
2. Exercise 30 minutes/day, 3x/week (once with the kids)
3. Take a daily multivitamin
4. Stretch (separate from exercise) at least 4 days/week

Home and Organization
1. Get picture albums up-to-date and organized
2. Do at least 1 load of laundry during the week instead of saving it all up for Sunday
3. Maintain a more detailed, more organized schedule/planner - and check it multiple times per day
4. Reorganize the kitchen
5. Make a family memory book

Work and Education
1. Develop a learning objectives packet for each class
2. Finalize the How to Earn an A handbook and quiz for each class
3. Take at least two graduate courses in literature
4. Decide on pursuing a second Masters or a Doctorate
5. Develop standard rubrics for all assignments

Family and Fun
1. Write a letter to Madison and Carter at least 1x/month
2. Go on at least four family outings (zoo, pumpkin patch, botanical gardens, aquarium, etc.)
3. Attend at least one adult event (concert, play, etc.)
4. Get professional family photos (and make family memory book)
5. Exercise with Madison (and Carter) at least 1x/week

Some of these are one-and-done projects; others are life-style-changing goals. To be honest, I could include about 300 more goals, but let's be reasonable, right?

I will be putting this list up on a dedicated page on the blog, and I hope to write update posts at the beginning of every month.

2012 Blogging Goals

GOAL #1: Post Efficiently

I have never been a consistent poster, going from one or two posts a week to posting every day. While I would love to keep up the every day posting, I have to accept the fact that The Floppy Alienette is probably going to make that impossible. I don't want to go all willy nilly with my posting though, so I hope to accomplish the following sub-goals:

Sub-Goal: Schedule My Weekly Posting : Work out a set schedule of posting 4-5 times per week: include book reviews (new ones or Old Favorites), bookish images, baby day (yeah, I'm probably going to be talking about my little one around here), a post on teaching, one meme per week, Sunday Salons about reading issues/theories, etc. I am not assigning a day to each because I am just not that organized, but I do want to at least try.

Sub-Goal: Schedule my Monthly Posting : At the end of each month put up a blogger recommendation wish list listing all those books I've found on other blogs. I started this last year, but the baby stress pushed it to the back burner. To help with Goal #2, I also want to have a day set aside for a monthly mini-review posting for those books which may not warrant an entire review post.

Sub-Goal: Schedule a Quarterly Report : I would really like to post a reading and blogging goal update four times throughout the year. I want to set these up in advance so I can just pop in the numbers and add a few easy comments at the appropriate time.

Sub-Goal: Create My Posts in Advance : Excluding book reviews and memes, I would like to schedule my posting roughly two weeks in advance. Obviously, this will shift as I am a bit more spontaneous than I would like to be.

GOAL #2: Switch Up My Book Postings

The posts I write may not necessarily constitute reviews in the super-formal sense of the word, but they do follow a basic review pattern of summary and evaluation. This year, I would like to write more book discussion posts in addition to the "reviews", meaning I will write multiple posts per book, at least one discussion type post and a final review post.  I also want to remember that I do not have to review every book I read (last year really helped with this as I read a ton of un-blogged-about books). To help assuage the guilt of this, I hope to write a Mini-Review post every month.

GOAL #3: Manage my Google Reader

The GR is a never-ending problem, but I am hoping to one day figure out a way to organize my GR so that those blogs which I love + those blogs which interact with mine are clearly listed in a Must Read folder, and the others are separated out by some other classification.

Sub-Goal: 20 Must Read Blogs : I would like to get the Must Read folder down to 20. Right now, I have 45 blogs in the Must Read folder, and I absolutely cannot keep up with them.

Sub-Goal : 120 Total Blogs to Read : I subscribe to a total of 199 blogs. Just not possible for me. At least not if I want to keep reading, blogging, working, eating, sleeping, spending time with the family, etc. My eventual goal is to pare down my GR to only 120 blogs total.

Sub-Goal : Increase My Commenting : Comment on the 20 blogs I put in the Must Read folder at least every other day, and comment on the other 100 blogs at least twice a week.