We're Moving!

Well, the blog's moving, I mean. Sort of. I've decided to retire Daydream Believer permanently (although I'll leave it standing for archival reasons). Meanwhile, I've started a new blog, A Sensible Wife, that will cover a lot of the same ground, albeit in less of a Dear Diary kind of way and more of a "Hey readers, here's some cool stuff you should see!" kind of way.

I'm not sure yet how much I'll touch on fertility health at the new place -- I'm sure it will come up at some point, but right now I'm kind of in a place where I don't really want to put too much of myself out there in that regard. So I'll have to play that by ear as those issues come to the fore. What the new blog will cover, in addition to natural and holistic health and wellness, is mainly sustainability, preparedness and frugal living. This post will give you more detail and let you know whether A Sensible Wife is your cup of tea. But I think it's going to be a lot more fun and informative, and a lot less whiny and morose. That's my intent, anyway.

Hope to see you there!

New Look, Great Mood, SO LONG SUMMER!

In honor of the unofficial end of summer, I decided to change my blog's outfit for the new season. Lately I've been in love with the combination of teal/turquoise and bright orange/red, and orange is a good fall color. It's also a cheerful color, which will hopefully reflect the more hopeful tone I hope to set around here.

I also added a bit of scripture to the top of the blog. If you're reading this via RSS and can't be bothered to click on over for a peek, it's Psalm 113:9 (NIV): "He settles the childless woman in her home as a happy mother of children." This verse is my new mantra, a promise that I'm standing on in my prayers both for myself and other IFers in my blogosphere.

In other news, I'm in a fantastic mood today. I'm not sure why. Maybe it's because I feel rested for the first time this week. Or maybe it's that I just realized this morning that it's a 3-day weekend. It could also be because today is the last 100+ degree day in the forecast, and next week the highs will be in the 80s all week long. I think my awesome mood is mostly due to the fact that, for all intents and purposes, today is the last day of summer. I mean, let's face it: this has been a pretty cruddy summer, what with gallstones and intense heat and drought and no opportunity for any kind of vacation, not to mention the economy taking yet another nosedive and very nearly killing off my business. Nosir, I am most definitely NOT sad to see summer's backside. Hopefully it will get a good, long rest and not be quite so cranky and mean when it comes back next year.

My plans for the last ridiculously hot day of summer? Stay inside and chill. I'm going to tweak the new layout a bit more, play around with Photoshop, finish reading A Feast for Crows so I can FINALLY start in on A Dance With Dragons, watch Doctor Who and work on my impending grandniece's blanket. Then I plan to spend the rest of the weekend doing yard work and housework, because I always like to put the "labor" in Labor Day.

Oh, and if my Photoshoppery goes as hoped, then I just might have some freebies to kick off the week.

What are your plans for the weekend?

I've made up my mind.

Finally. After a lot of waffling about whether to keep the writing and publishing stuff here or move it elsewhere, I revived my Livejournal to serve as my writing and publishing blog.

I was leaning toward keeping it here. I've already got two business blogs (although I think I'm about to kill one of them) and various affiliate blogs that I don't even tell people about, and I'm already feeling spread a little thin. But a commenter pointed out that I should think about how comfortable I am with people coming here for writing & publishing discussion knowing so much about my personal life. That actually didn't occur to me; I tend to lack filters sometimes and I can be the queen of TMI (I know Matt often wishes I would be less open about my personal life on the Internet). But since I've thought about it, I realize that I would probably feel a little self-conscious and start censoring myself if, shall we say, less than understanding people came here to read about writing and got an eyeful of RPL/IF wailing and moaning. And I need my safe place to wail and moan about this stuff. So ultimately I think it's for the best if I keep the writing and self-promotion separate.

So if you're interested in following along as I journey into the world of self-publishing and blog about the process, mosey on over to jmbauhaus.livejournal.com.

Wait, what?

I just realized that I never updated my Feedburner settings with the new (old) URL,so I went to do that, which is probably the first time I've looked at it since I sat it up. Holy crap, you guys! I had no idea I had that many subscribers! I thought I was just talking to the 11 people over there in my Google Follow list and the occasional friend or family member who wanders in from Facebook (I get too worn out having to keep up with the stats on my pro blogs to bother with the stats on this one). So, hi! I'm glad to know you're with me. I guess I should pay more attention to these things and not be so oblivious in the future.

Of course, if y'all moseyed over here to drop a comment once in a while, I might be more aware that you existed. Just sayin'.

Keeping The Faith When Everything Sucks.

This is my new tag line for this blog, and it's also my new focus for it. Just so you know.

I feel like I need to start blogging from the heart about... well, everything. It might seem like I've been doing that, but I haven't. I hold back, I censor myself, I worry about who I'll offend, I worry about causing drama, I worry about being liked.

But for now I need to be a little selfish. I need to worry about me. I need to share the things I'm dealing with, and my fears and insights and the lessons I take away from them. I need to know I'm not alone, and I need to tell others dealing with similar stuff that they're not alone, either.

I debated whether to start a new blog for this stuff. I thought a clean slate might be good to start with, free of any preconceived expectations from myself or anybody else. But I've been in this spot for a few years now, and I'm comfortable here, and the people who care already know where to find me.

So consider this fair warning: if honesty offends you, if frank talk about things like faith in God and Jesus and the Bible offends you, if frank talk about struggling with that faith offends you, if talk about miscarriage and trying to get pregnant and the female reproductive system offends you, if you're offended by me discussing issues with my own brain and behavior and what it all might mean, if you're offended or angered by depression, or ADD, or fatness, or freelancing, or people who struggle to find their way off the beaten path... it's probably best for us both if you just unfollow and stop reading.

For everybody else, I hope this blog becomes as much a source of ministry and comfort for you as it hopefully will for me.

Well, I Screwed Up

For several days now, I haven't been able to update my blog. Even worse, my last few posts disappeared, and my blogroll didn't appear to be updating with new links, either. I left messages on the Blogger help forums, and messaged @Blogger on Twitter, and nobody was helping me. I was good and mad, and ready to throw up my hands and move everything to Wordpress on my Task Wrangler host.

The first step was to redirect my domain, since that usually takes a day or so to update on my host. I went to update the nameservers... and promptly felt like an idiot. It turns out that my domain, sleepyjean.net, expired back in November. When Google Apps tried to auto-renew it, my credit card on file was expired. And they sent multiple notices to my jeanjeanie Gmail account, which I almost never check anymore because it's become a spam graveyard. And so I missed the deadline, and now that domain is lost, probably permanently if I don't beat domain squatters to registering it once it's released back onto the market.

Anyway, I updated my publish settings to jeanjeanie.blogspot.com, and now everything works fine again. If you've got me bookmarked or in your Blogger blogroll then you might need to update to the new (old) Blogspot URL, too.

Don't you just hate it when you just know you're the victim of crappy customer service and you're all ready to flounce off in a righteously indignant huff only to find out that the problem is that you screwed something up?

Yeah, I hate that, too.

Switching to Disqus for Comments

In my never-ending quest to keep up with the cool kids, I switched the commenting system here at Daydream Believer from Blogger's native comments to Disqus. What this means for you, dear reader, is that you have more log-in options, making it even easier to sign in if you don't have a Blogger account. It also allows for threaded discussion, and it's now a lot easier to integrate your comments with Twitter and Facebook, if you so choose. All in all, it should make for a smoother commenting experience.

I dithered a little between this and Disqus's main competitor, Intense Debate, which also offers a pretty great comment platform. In the end it was Disqus's greater popularity that pushed me in their favor--not because that makes it "cooler," but because there's a greater chance that my readers already have a Disqus account and are already familiar with all the things they can do with it.

And if you don't have a Disqus account, that's fine--you can also log in under Twitter, Facebook or Open ID, among other options. Or you can post as a guest without logging in at all. My hope is that this will do more to inspire discussion among readers instead of just hit-and-run comments directed solely at me; but if it doesn't, that's fine. I enjoy the hit-and-runs, too.

A New (Old) Template and Other Changes

You know the old saying about the cobbler's children having no shoes. Well, in the case of this baby, it gets to wear hand-me-downs. I wanted a new blog theme to show off my design skills, but I'm way too busy currently to whip one up for this blog. Since JMBauhaus.com is on permanent hiatus (and I plan to redirect the domain here once Dotster stops holding it hostage) and I'm still too fond of that template to retire it just yet, I made some alterations to make it fit here for the time being.

Other than that, I've been busy tweaking and optimizing and generally prepping this space for the growth that I'm trying to make happen. Still to come are an About page and other static pages that will take this space from simple blog to full-fledged web site. The impetus behind all this scary change is two-fold. First, wouldn't it be awesome if I could make a living --or at least a significant portion of my living -- from blogging? Trust me, it would be awesome. Consider this a jumping off point toward making that fantasy come true.

Second, I'm intrigued by Blogger's recent addition of static pages, and I'm eager to experiment with Blogger as a simple content management system. If it works out, this could be a package I'll be offering someday soon over at The Task Wrangler.

So over the coming weeks and months, expect to see some tweaking and fine-tuning as I work to make SleepyJean.net a fun and cozy hang-out for both myself and my followers.

Pitch In An Elevator

I have, finally, begun ProBlogger's "31 Days to Build a Better Blog" challenge. The first assignment for this challenge is to craft an elevator pitch to help identify precisely what, exactly, this blog is about.

This is a tough assignment, because this here blog has suffered something of an identity crisis in recent years. You'd think that after a decade of blogging (my tenth blog-iversary came and went without any fanfare back in January) I'd have it nailed down, but my poor blog is as ADD as I am. As such, I still can't bring myself to confine this space to a single niche topic. It's my safe haven, my creative space, my place to vent my spleen about the stuff I have to deal with, as a writer, as a freelancer, as a wife, as a 37 year old woman who wants a baby and apparently can't have one (at least, not yet), as an ADD sufferer, as a fangirl, et cetera ad infinitum. It's a blog salad, really.

So that's what I'm going with, at least to start. Maybe as I go through the course this will become more refined, but for now, my main goal is to carve out a niche for other late bloomers who, like me, are still struggling to figure out what it means to be a grown-up and all that that entails. So without further ado, here's my elevator pitch:

Daydream Believer is the blog salad of Jean Marie Bauhaus, an aspiring writer, freelancer, wife and would-be mom who struggles with ADD, fertility issues, body image, gradually pushing 40 and still figuring out how this whole "Adulthood" thing is supposed to work. She covers all of these topics and more (hence, "blog salad") with honesty and (sometimes sad attempts at) humor.

Yeah... I'm not sure that's a pitch that would sell ad space. Like I said, it needs to be refined. You can help with that by giving me feedback. Not just on the pitch, but on the blog in general: what would you like to see more of? What sort of topics would make you want to comment and engage in discussion? What topics do you find helpful, even if just in that you can relate and feel better that you're not the only one feeling that way? What blogging tics do I have that irritate you or tempt you to stop reading? Don't be shy -- share with me in the comments.

Bully Bait: An Explanation

I've been wanting to write here about my childhood. I had a rough time of it growing up. Not as rough as some, but definitely rougher than a lot of people I know. My home life was dysfunctional, I was picked on relentlessly at school, and I had undiagnosed, barely even heard of at the time, learning and social adjustment disorders that guaranteed I would fit in wherever I went about as well as a tattoo and piercing enthusiast at a Church Ladies' Sunday Social. So yeah, I have some pent up sob stories.

The thing is, I don't want to tell sob stories. I want to be frank and honest, in a "names changed to protect the hopefully grown-up enough by now to know better" kind of way, but I want to approach it all with a sense of humor. Because I do have a sense of humor about the whole thing, most of the time. Some of it was too horrible to laugh at, but those parts are probably too private to share here anyway. But most of it, I can joke about. I've put off writing about it because I'm not sure how to joke about it in writing without turning it into one big joke, and I don't want to do that. I'm also wondering how much embellishment for humor's sake I'm willing to do. I want to do it in an entertaining way that's funny and relatable and also real.

I've also put it off because I've been examining why I want to write about it. I'm not interested in getting back at anybody, hence the plan to change names and certain details. Part of it is therapy. I've made some pretty great strides in being able to forgive a lot of people, but I'm having trouble with the forgetting part, and on certain days, when I'm in a certain mood, I have a tendency to brood on this stuff, and it can get me really down. I think--hope--that maybe putting it all out here will help me let it go and stop thinking about it.

Another reason--a big reason--is that I want these essays to say, "Hey, look! I'm okay! I lived through some awful stuff, but it's okay, and I'm relatively happy, and if you've gone through it, or you're going through it, you can be okay, too. If your kids are going through this stuff, they can be okay, too." I want parents of disordered kids to know that those kids can go through life without being drugged into conformity and those kids can still grow up to be healthy, productive adults. I want parents of kids with Autism Spectrum Disorders to know that their kids can eventually learn to do a passable-enough impression of normal to get by in the workplace and even get them invited to parties and out on dates. I want any teens or tweens reading this to know that not only is there life beyond high school, but that, for the most part, it gets so much better. I want twenty-somethings struggling to keep up with their peers to know that it's okay to cut themselves some slack and stop trying to plan their lives according to other peoples' schedules.

I want to give all of these people a big hug. Barring that, I want to be able to share a laugh with them, and help them learn to laugh at themselves.

Also, I just really want to practice memoir and comedic writing.

So that's going to be an occasional column here, starting this week (schedule permitting). I had kicked around the idea of doing a separate, anonymous blog on the topic, but seeing as how maintaining one blog with any regularity is proving a major challenge right now, that didn't seem like one of my brighter ideas. Plus, for me, the anonymity felt like a cop-out, and I wondered if anybody would believe I wasn't making it all up. An occasional column here seemed like a good compromise. So for now, that's the plan.

A New Background, A New Beginning

Okay, I'm probably overreaching with the "New Beginning" part, being more ambitious and optimistic than history has given me any cause to be. But at least I finally got around to replacing the broken template. I really wanted to design one for myself, but until I find time for that, this one will do. I tweaked it a little, so at least it's somewhat unique to this blog. The original came from BTemplates, and they had so many gorgeous templates that fit right in line with the "Daydreamer" theme I've got going that it was really hard to pick one. I think I'm glad I settled on this one, though. We'll see if I still love it a week from now [/ADD].

Hopefully, this is the start of a new beginning. I have so many things I want to write about, but they require a thoughtfulness that I haven't had the simultaneous time and energy to give. I guess I should start putting my blog on my daily schedule so it doesn't keep getting neglected. I also see a few minor problems with this template that need fixing (like the way the weekday names are getting cut in half and other issues with alignment).

Now is not the time, though, because I've already spent all afternoon on this, and I'm starving, and Husband is itching to start the MST3K that I still have to go get from the mail box (I saw the mail lady stuff the tell-tale red envelope in there a couple of hours ago).

I hope y'all are enjoying your Saturday as much as I'm enjoying mine. Whatcha up to?

In a busy tizzy, makin' me dizzy

I'm in head-down mode this week, wrapping up a huge document production project for my day job that has to go out to the client by the end of the week, blah blah boring shop talk blah. In short, I'm running (sometimes literally) my butt off all day at work, and I'm too exhausted to do anything that doesn't involve lying around and being pampered when I get home. And this is why I'm not blogging. Thankfully, I should only have a couple more days of this, then I can start paying attention to other things again, like YOU, dear reader. I hope all is well with you. I miss you. But I have to get back to work now.

Insanity

I know, I know. I just declared an end to a hiatus and a start to a brand new blogging attitude, and a mere week later here I am about to declare a hiatus again. But this is just a small hiatus. Mini, really. Just for this week, because my job just handed me an insane amount of work to do in a conversely yet equally insane amount of time, before I start my vacation and escape from all of this insanity. And my "free" time is still devoted to an insane amount of knitting that must be done, insanely, by Christmas. And so my oh-so-painfully slim allotments of blog time this week will be spent having another go at that whole moving to a new URL thing that was such a failure last week. If the blog disappears off the face of the internet again, that will be why.

I will be back and blogging when all of this insanity ends, or when my vacation begins, whichever happens first. If it makes you feel better, you can count down the days with this. Or, y'know, count down to Christmas, which is what it's really for. Or just stop and marvel at the awesome beauty of the universe. Whatever floats your boat.

I know why those people in that sleigh are laughing all the way. It's because trying to get everything done on time during the Christmas season drove them completely bonkers.

Bet you thought I was going to say "insane."

Meta: Transition Fail

I'm trying to transition my domain to sleepyjean.net. I did everything I was supposed to on my end--namely, I bought the domain through Blogger/Google Apps and let them handle the transition--but all that resulted in was the disappearance of this blog and a big ol' 404 error whenever anybody, myself included, tried to access it. So it looks like I'll stay parked right here until I figure out what the heck went wrong. If you notice any more technical difficulties over the next few days, then you'll know I'm giving it another try. Thanks for your patience.

If this is meta, I guess it doesn't count.

Greetings, Bloggylvania! I'm back. For really reals this time. So what have I been up to since August (I know I've posted since then, but they were all meta and/or fluff posts and don't count)? Not much, besides buying a house, moving, getting a puppy, and finishing a novel. Wow, it sounds really exciting when it's all lumped together like that, doesn't it? No wonder I felt so burned out.

But now I'm settled, and things have slowed to a reasonable pace, and I'm back in a place where I can think coherently enough about things to write about them. I also have direction for this here bloggy dealy, which shall soon and thenceforth be known as "Daydream Believer" and will be found newly parked at http://www.sleepyjean.net (don't worry--any old urls you've got bookmarked should still work just fine. But maybe go ahead and bookmark that new one just in case, Garnigal. ;)

Reboot

Helloooo ('lo 'lo 'lo 'lo)!

Is anybody still here ('ere 'ere 'ere 'ere)?

Wow. What an echo. And are those crickets chirping?

If there's anyone around who still cares, then you will be pleased to know that my creative energy is on the rise. It's more of a slow, hydraulic-powered rise than a steel-cabled-and-pulley-powered one (HA! Elevator humor), but it's on its way up.

And it's risen enough that I finally know what I want to do with this blog, and the direction I want to take it in. Three guesses what that is, but if you look at the new sub-heading, you'll really only need one. I considered starting from scratch with a new blog, a totally clean blogging slate; but I'm still rather attached to this one, and the domain is paid up for six more months and it's already all prettified, so I've decided to stay put.

Things will still be quiet for another month or so, since I'll be embroiled in NaNoWriMo. After that, though, unless I'm so burned out on writing by December that I can't even stand to blog, you should start seeing regular updates around here again. I'm looking forward to it. I like to think there is some lone soul out there reading this who is looking forward to it, too.

Blahgging

That is how the entire idea of blogging currently feels to me. I'm starting to suspect that this here blog has run its course. It might be time to retire it and move on to something else. Or it might simply be time to find new direction for this one. Either way, I'm declaring an official hiatus while I focus my energy on other things, like packing and moving and settling into my new house (OMG!) and finishing my novel.

Of course, the blogging addiction runs deep, so I'm sure I won't be able to stay away for too terribly long. Of course again, a declaration that I'm taking a break is usually just the thing to get my blogging juices flowing again. So I just might be full of shite with this post.

But I don't think so. I think I really do need a break. A long one. And possibly, eventually, to start afresh with a different blog.

Meanwhile, I'll still be updating occasionally at Jeanie Writes Genre, and microblogging over in the sidebar via Twitter and del.icio.us, and posting the occasional nifty link on my Facebook and Myspace pages, links to all of which can be found at JMBauhaus.com. I'm also trying to get The Hero Factor ready for posting and plan to launch it within the next month.

Thanks for hanging out with me here for the last few years. I hope you'll come along to wherever I go next--even if that just ends up being right back here.

Ta-daaa!

It took me almost an entire week, but I made this template all by myself, and I am exceedingly proud of myself. It even looks as it should in IE (the newest version, at any rate), which is shocking to me.

I'm currently obsessed with this color scheme, and even knitted myself a purse in these colors, so of course I love it. And it's sparkly and girly and pretty much everything this blog stands for, which is shallow frivolity and playfulness. Most of the time.

And now that this is done (barring a couple of minor but complicated tweaks that I might attempt in the future, if I feel up to it), I can get back to, y'know, writing actual content. Although, still working on the novel, so the blogging proper still won't be as frequent.

Redecorating

I'm installing a new template and fiddling with the layout. Wonkiness may ensue.

Updateyness

I got busy last Friday and forgot to blog my new homepage at JMBauhaus.com. Content hasn't changed--it's still just a portal to my schizoid online personalities--but it's got a new design that I made all by myself, from scratch! It took forever to remember how to do some of this stuff, and I had to cheat and peek at other web sites' source code to see how some things were done. Oh, and I didn't design the background image myself; that came from a free blog banners site. So I guess I did have some help. Still, I'm mighty proud of how it turned out. In Firefox, at least. In IE, not so much, but even so: pretty!

My next project: this here blog. I bet you can't wait.

Also, I created a home for The Hero Factor on Livejournal, where I've decided to go ahead and post it in installments as I do the next draft (I still have to finish the first draft, though, so it'll be a little while yet). It'll be subscribers only, so if you don't have a Livejournal account or an Open ID, or don't want to get one, or do and just don't want to "friend" my novel, then you'll just have to wait for the eventual podcast version. I'm sure you're seething with bitter disappointment.

UPDATE: Sometimes it's a good idea to look back at what you posted last week before writing a new post. /UPDATE

Two sentences in this post are sarcasm. Can you guess which two?

In creative news that had absolutely nothing to do with me, my nephew and his wife's latest collaboration arrived safely into the world early this past Saturday morning, and she is a work of beauty. And adorableness.

Oh, and by the by, my little sister has a blog. Go say hi!