Category Archives: blogging

My Blogging History

blogging, community

For those few who follow this blog, you may have noticed an uptick in posts. I made a decision that I needed to either blog regularly or give it up. The algorithm heard me and presented me with Blaugust 2026, a daily blogging challenge held each August that has been around since 2014. The original mastermind, Belghast, died earlier this summer, but the community is continuing on.

Today’s prompt asked about your first blog. Hmmm…it was at least 20 years ago or more and was probably created with Blogger. I used the tool to create newsletters for several state-wide grants.

I was pleasantly surprised to find the blog for Virginia’s Community of Learning. It accompanied the larger Community of Learning, a collaboration between several education organizations started in 2000 to help teachers grapple with this new thing called the Internet.

As for personal blogging, I suspect there was an early Blogger version, but I pivoted to WordPress pretty quickly, using it as a web publishing tool under my own domain. In this inaugural post at Simply Karen from September 21, 2004, I mention two personal blogs being combined into this one blog. Hence the name: In One Place.

During graduate school, I decided I needed a stand-along blog to accompany an independent study in media and media literacy. The current blog was born in 2006.

I maintained both blogs until January 2023 when I decided I was going to use Simply Karen for daily photos. That plan did not pan out, but I did move my active blogging to In Another Place.

As with many technologies, I have been involved with blogs since they appeared. I remember that at the start, blogging was meant to be a way to connect people. Bloggers linked to other bloggers and commented on their ideas. That is part of the impetus behind Blaugust. Not just writing but connecting, a throwback to the original intent of the tool. Easy to publish writing that connected to a larger community. It seems as though connection is still a focus but in a more commercialized way, with SEO and ad revenue playing a larger role. But then, I suppose that is the story of the history of the Internet.

I would like to believe old fashioned blogging can still play a role. Welcome Blaugust 2026!

Returning to the World

blogging, poetry, technology,

I have been mostly away from the networked world since late March, visiting with family, then completely disconnecting for a few days last week at Fairy Stone State Park in Stuart, Virginia. I did not make any particular commitment to this disconnect but without having to monitor work or students, I found it came naturally when I was with my family in Pennsylvania, preferring to be with them in the moment without the distraction of social media and news feeds.

Once we got to Fairy Stone, it was nature itself that imposed the disconnect. Internet at the park was almost nonexistent: they suggested one particular spot where you might be able to get to access but I did not feel compelled to seek it out. Meanwhile, my phone just displayed SOS instead of bars. I’m not sure if that’s because I could still get emergency access or because the phone was in crisis mode without it and wanted to let me know.

My husband and I both found the quiet liberating and restful. We rocked on the porch of our log cabin, reading, chatting and meditating on the spectacular scenery. We explored the area and I will have some stories to tell about those explorations in later posts. Here are two pictures of the cabin (one of eight in the park that were built by CCC workers in the 1930s) and the view from our porch.

We returned home to lots of gardening so my technological disconnect continued until this past Monday when, after nearly three weeks, I opened the lid of my laptop and reconnected to the larger world, digging into a database project and meeting online with a colleague. My phone and iPad had been sufficient for use during the travels, mostly using them for reading and picture taking and game play. (I do like a bit of Wordle.)

I know my life is very different from that of others now that I am mostly retired and that makes disconnecting much easier. But, I can highly recommend trying find at least a little respite from the constant connectivity. It helped me focus my intentions upon my return related to how I wanted to spend my time and treasure in the next few months. I even generated a few blog post ideas.

During our explorations of Patrick County, we might have been living in a pre-Internet era: at some points, I was navigating using a paper map! (Yes, they still make them.) When I picked one up at the Brunswick County Visitor Center, it was from a feeling of nostalgia. But when I couldn’t get to Google Maps on my phone at some points, the map became a necessary part of our travel toolkit. It is now tucked in the passenger side pocket of the Kia, ready for our next escape.

One of my last blog posts before disconnecting was about World Poetry Day. We are now well into National Poetry Month and I want to go back to Wendell Berry as his poem “The Peace of Wild Things” was very much with me and, as the world seems to spin out of control more chaotically every day, the words continue to echo in my mind: “When despair for the world grows in me…I come into the peace of wild things.”

Here is Berry reading the poem:

Old Friends Are The Best

blogging, technology, thinking out loud, travel
Women in Blue Blouses by Pierre Auguste-Renoir

I am visiting one of my oldest friends for a few days. We taught high school English together in Pennsylvania nearly 40 years ago. We get together a couple times a year and have kept in touch over the years via the prevailing communications methods, starting with handwritten letters then moving on to email and text messaging. Now, we connect every day playing Words with Friends.

When we do get together in the same place, we pick up right where we left off: lingering over breakfast, meeting other friends for lunch, shopping at our favorite stores, watching old and new movies, chatting about our families, talking about our current reads and sometimes just sitting in silence, each with a book in our hands. It’s nice to have one person in my life who knows all about me and loves me anyway. Comfortable and comforting.

This is my first post-retirement trip, and I wanted to see if I could travel without a laptop without losing my writing momentum. I am typing this blog post on my iPad with an external keyboard. It is still a bit of hardware to tote but is lighter physically but also mentally. The laptop means work while the iPad is my ereader and entertainment device so turning it on has less pressure. The add-on keyboard just makes it easier for an old school typist to create text.

What Are You Going To Do?

blogging, Uncategorized, writing

Front Porch of an old house with furniture and plantsThe number one question I was asked when I told people I was retiring was, “What are you going to do?”  I wish I had had a more satisfying answer for the questioners and, honestly, for myself. I named my  hobbies including gardening, music, reading, crafting. A desire to travel. I mentioned potentially writing a book. But, ultimately, I didn’t know what I was going to do other than not continue doing the work I had been doing. It was work I loved, which made it hard to leave behind. But, the love had made it all consuming, and I knew it was time to take the next step even without being completely sure of the path.

Because of the holiday weekend, today seems like my first real day of retirement. So, what did I do? The usual morning routine of reading and journaling then feeding and walking the dogs. Rode my bike to the post office. Watched Wimbledon. Puttered around the house and garden. Ticked a few items off the to do list.

Now, as the afternoon wanes, I am getting around to doing the one thing I did want to accomplish on this first day of retirement: writing a blog post. And, in writing, I have come to a short time answer to the question: I have blogged on and off almost since blogs existed. But I never got into a regular practice. Now, I have the time, and I want to use at least some of it to establish that practice.

Not sure what I’m going to write about: technology, education, gardening, cooking, and pretty much whatever else takes my fancy.

Begin Again

blogging, Education, thinking out loud, ,

Solomon's Seal and Dragonflies
A favorite spot in my spring garden

This blog post is inspired by two people. Tim Stahmer has been blogging consistently since the early naughts. I’ve had blogs setup as long as he has, but I never got into the rhythm. But, like many of us, he found himself feeling unsettled in this era of the unknown and it impacted his writing, partly because he wasn’t sure what to say.

Jennifer Orr, meanwhile, has been giving us all a glimpse into the world of teachers right now. As always, her courage to share her deepest fears and griefs and joys inspires me.

I started the year with good intentions and enjoyed blogging in January, partly because I gave myself permission to write about whatever I wanted. I posted a few thoughts early on in the crisis but, like Tim, I ran out of energy and wondered what I had to share.

I admire Jen’s courage to speak her truth. Through her eyes, we also see the lives of her students and their families. And, she reminds us that the wires and switches are about connecting people and supporting community. We can fix the technology problems, but there is an emotional toll that will be harder to repair. We need more teachers to tell their stories all the time but never more so than now.

So, to Tim’s question, what can I say? I think I’m going back to my January philosophy and writing about what comes to mind. I am back to baking regularly with two different sourdough starters. My flower gardens are coming together and there are lots of lessons to learn while weeding. Meanwhile, my husband is putting in extra tomato, squash, zucchini and cucumber plants this year,  thinking that our local community, a food desert, will benefit from fresh produce this summer. I will be channeling my grandmothers as I pickle, can, ferment and freeze. I’m back to reading after struggling with concentration.

For now, I’ll end with a potentially helpful resource for those who are struggling with connectivity. The Commonwealth Coalition, of which VSTE is a proud member, has created a wifi hotspot map for the state:

I like that one near me is at Moores Swamp Church. But it is a picture of inequity as well. Rural folks expect to drive longer distances for services but, at this point in time, Internet is like electricity. It needs to come directly to the house.