Why I Have So Many Blogs; also, The Demise of the Birthday Cake; and Brake Lines

Gryphon and I ate the last of the Cookie Monster Birthday Cake today. I guess that means this year's celebration of my birthday is officially over. That's okay - it was a good one over all, if not extravagant. I had fun, I got cake, and I got a nice birthday present.

One of the main forces in our life since Saturday has been the saga of Gryphon's brake lines. His old truck (a 90-something Dodge Dakota) had developed leaks in the brake lines. We can't afford to have a shop do the work, but Gryphon got lots of good information from the folks at the local VIP Auto Parts store, and he's a handy guy. It turns out that the parts don't cost much, and it's just a labor-intensive job.

One of the oddities of this is that I've had to help him a lot with it. Once the brake line is installed, someone has to sit in the cab, pumping the pedal occasionally, while the other lies below monitoring the movement of the air out of the line. Apparently, one of the likely consequences of replacing one brake line is that, with a solid section in place, you now discover new leaks in previously un-leaky parts of the system. And that's exactly what happened today. We only had to pump a couple of times on the brake pedal to realize that a new old section of line at the front of the truck was now leaking, and will need replacing.

Sounds like that's this weekend's job.

About the Folkcat Blogiverse

You may have noticed that there's a box on the side of this blog that shows a list of "Recently Updated Blogs". You may have wondered why there are 8 (yes, eight) blogs on that list. Actually, I have 9 blogs - there's a private one that isn't on that public list. This begs the question, though - Who could ever need so many blogs?

I started, as I imagine every blogger does, with only one. It was for my bead store, and I posted news about the bead store.

Mere weeks later, we had to decide to close the bead store. I converted the blog to a personal one, and began posting about my crafts. The blog at this time was called "Folkcat Art", which is the name I create art under.

Then, I started to post about more subjects than just crafts. In fact, other subjects threatened to take over. I had found that blogging came easily to me, and I had lots to say, every day.

Rather than provide my readers with a full novella to read every day in one place, I decided to open a new blog, one that would take the "daily life" postings and keep them from obscuring the craft posts. Life & Times of a Winged Cat was born.

I became more involved with online crafters. I joined a textile arts group at Yahoo. I got more involved in my beading again. The "Folkcat Art" blog became Folkcat's Fiber Crafts, and I created another new blog for the beadwork, Confessions of a Chantraphile. Blog count: 3.

I started taking more pictures for my blogs, and lots of them didn't necessarily illustrate any posts I wanted to make. But they were still good enough I wanted to share them. New blog - Folkcat's Fotos! Blog count: 4.

Gryphon and I became active in Geocaching, and I wound up talking about it a lot. Rather than dominate "Life & Times", I created Folkcat & Gryphon's Geocaching Adventures. Blog count: 5.

I discovered that many of my posts to "Life & Times" were starting to be extensive discussions of things I had cooked, complete with recipes. By the time I posted all about the food, I had taken so much space that talking about life in general would be too much. The answer was obvious - I needed a cooking blog. Thus, Folkcat in the Kitchen. Blog Count: 6

I have a craft circle that meets weekly at my house, and I decided a blog would be a great way to share what happened each week, and to post news for the members about whether we were meeting or not. This is a private blog, so I won't tell you how to find it, but it brought the Blog Count to: 7.

I realized that one of my great dreams, cataloging my library of craft books, could be managed in a useful way by entering each book's information as a blog post. This could also be interesting to other people, because I would be reviewing each book. Folkcat's Craft Library. Blog Count: 8.

Finally, Gryphon and I expanded our geocaching by hiding a box ourselves. Since it's designed to collect pictures and memories from people who find it, we plan to post those items online for others to view. The natural format - a blog! Milford Memory Box, Blog Count: 9.

See, it happened as a logical response to my actual usage of my blogs. I suppose I'm unusual in this, but I'm posting regularly to all 9 blogs. At least once a week, and often twice or more. I guess I just have that much to say.

And with this post itself, I mark a minor milestone. This is the first day that I have posted to all 9 blogs in the same day!

You would think that I spend all my time blogging, in which case - how do I ever have time to do things to blog about? Well, I guess the writing comes naturally for me, and I've organized my blog handling to such a degree that it's a quick matter to knock off another post. It takes almost no time at all, and I'm off to my real-life activities again.

All I really know for sure about it all is this - I'm having fun. My journaling here is helping me to understand the things I enjoy doing more. And it's providing a focus that makes it easier to do non-blogging activities - giving me more to blog about.

Stay tuned - who knows what's next?