Catharsis of the Bogue

Oddities, Profundities, Profanities and Dad Stuff

Category: Personal Growth (Page 5 of 14)

My Blog Is Calling And I Must Go!

May 27, 2014 / / 5 Comments

I wrote a post a couple of weeks ago about the mountains.  How the mountains were calling me and John Muir. During the course of that post I said that my blog is calling and I must go, paraphrasing John Muir of course.  I had said that it would be a great t-shirt.  It still would be.

Today I wanted to write about commitments.  I know there are posts all over Blogistan about how to divide your time and do everything that you want to.  This is only partially about that.  We all have our commitments to our families, wives, husbands, kids etc.  We have work commitments.  We have housework commitments.  There are church and community commitments.  And, if we want a piece of this wonderful internet pie, there are commitments to our websites and blogs.

My blog is my second mistress.  My laptop is my first mistress and I dearly love the internet.  It is hard to budget the time to sit down and write and read blogs and comment on blogs and take care of the kids and cook dinner and do laundry and mop the floor, and entertain the wife, and on and on and on.  So where do you dig out the time to write?

The answer is wherever you can.  Forgo TV for a night, or a couple of hours.  Forgo watching the kids go to sleep.  Go to bed a bit later or get up earlier.  Ben over at 6aliens.com and James at the infopreneur both talk about this.  Carve out the time for your blog and your website.  There is a lot of time devoted to growing your blog and sometimes the web design gets pushed back.  Hard to read, cluttered sites do not bring back traffic.  Work on your site as well.

Tell your friends, “I can’t.  My Blog is calling and I must go.”  Tell your wife (only once in a while), “My Blog is calling and I must go.”  (Flowers smooth that over if you do it too much).  You can tell your kids the same thing, once in a while.

The hard part is figuring out when it is actually beneficial to just shut the laptop and let your blog call.  Devote everything you possibly can to your site so that it will make you money.  Throw everything you can at it so that you can have more time with your family when it is keeping its own head up.  It will still call to you, but not as loud.

When you are at that point, you can take off and go on fabulous vacations because you will be one of the pros like David Risley, or Darren Rowse, or John Chow even.  Your blog will still be calling, you will still go, but you can go from around the world.  John Chow likes to have all of his stuff online so he can access it from anywhere.  WordPress is like that as well.

My blog is calling and I must go, for I want to be a Pro.  I need the cash.

I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments below:

-Justin

A Valentine, just in time!

May 27, 2014 / / 8 Comments

This Post is part of the secret Valentines Project contrived by the lovely Kelly Diels at her Cleavage….blog.  Alas, this valentine is not for her, but for my wife.

17 years have passed since we met, yet it still feels like only 2.

12 years of marriage have gone, yet I still feel only for you.

3 children have arrived, the fourth is on the way

Yet you are still as beautiful as I saw that first day.

This is Valentines Day number 16, 16 required days to care

16 years of cheesy flowers, candies and poems with flair.

But those days are just as any other,

you are still my friend, my wife, my lover.

We have grown and changed, yet still laugh and play

Our love knows no bounds, no need for Valentines day.

Yet all the fluff of red hearts, candies and roses,

are fun for the day the world celebrates closeness.

I will love you forever, whatever mindset we are in,

for I cannot change you, my lover, my friend.

Happy Valentines Day 2010, Brenda.

Justin

Should I sleep or Write more?!?!

May 27, 2014 / / 6 Comments

The time for bed approaches and I am trying to decide if I should give up and go to bed or keep writing posts! My body says tired, my mind says tired, the energy drink I had a while ago says Write you lazy bastard!  So I write.

Lately I have been working on organizing my day to get everything done that I need to.  I have discovered that I can’t just go all out and hope to get my blog maintained, posts written, house cleaned, family taken care of, and the “other” stuff done.

I found myself glued to the computer, reading blogs, trying to figure out where I am going to be able to open my rss reader, and all of a sudden it was time to get the kids from school and get dinner started.  Oh crap the laundry hasn’t made it downstairs yet.  Oh crappier, the dishes still have to be done…so that was the smell…did we eat lunch?

Yea, it was getting to be a mess.  I am working through some sort of “getting to writing procrastination” garbage that is not helping.  I am still getting my stuff done, just not how I want to.  I started to divide up the day and use the timer method that many others use.

I even got a special timer to help with this, I will have a review of that later this week.  It’s called the Gymboss, it’s beauty.  Anyway, it seems that the timer method is very much going to help get me organized.  I am splitting time into 2 hour blocks and devoting 30 minutes to each task.  At the end of the 30 mins, I have been just stopping and going to the next task.  It has been great to actually get some things done around the house.

Now I have to get time figured out to add in outdoor stuff.  Spring is coming to Utah and my yard needs some help.  If you know how to get rid of freaking grape hyacinth, let me know.

I think I am getting a good balance figured out.  Writing, emails, reading, commenting, maintenance, housework, outdoor work, writing, and blog posts.  A good way to fill a day.  I also realized that I have got to crank out some more fiction for my Saturday Series.  I have used the only 2 complete short stories that make any sense already.  Time to get writing some new stuff!

So now you all must be asking yourselves, how can I help.  Ok most of you are probably not asking yourself anything but when this post is going to end.  Soon I promise.  Here is how you can help.  Keep reading my humble blog, recommend it to your friends, your enemies, and that guy down the street who may have a use for it.

I am going to be running a poll this week about future posts that you may like to see.  I hope to get some great feedback from that.  I have decided to place the mailing list on pause for a bit, I will still make myself put out the newsletter every month but that will be about it.  Please sign up if you are so inclined, I will start putting up exclusive to the newsletter stuff starting in May.

Now for the big one, Please leave comments with how you organize your time so that you can get everything done that you need to do.  What things do you slack off on?  What do you give up on altogether?  I hope to get some great comments and be able to do a followup with lots of backlinks and credits.  Maybe a prize for the 17th commenter…

Of course if you feel so inclined as to write a ton of stuff and want it included, I am open for guest posts!  All you have to do is email me.

If you are reading this, you are fabulous!

-Justin

PS.  If you are reading this, you are incredibly patient.

PPS. If you are reading this, you are finally at the end!  Go comment and get on with your life!

How I Got Into Kettlebells

May 27, 2014 / / 6 Comments

It has been over a year now.  I mark the weekend of St. Patricks Day as my official entry into the kettlebell world.  I guess that I could say it was February of 2009 that I started but that was not as memorable.

So here is the chronicle of my rise to the kettlebell.  My wife and I have been looking for something to supplement our weight machine and elliptical.  She asked if I had heard of these “kettle thingies”.  I didn’t realize it but I had.  I remember saying “those are those Russian things that are supposed to be really good exercise.”  I did some research after that and decided that I was right, kettlebells were a great workout.

In February, I went a bought a set of kettlebells at Big 5 sporting goods.  The set had a 5#, 10#, 15#, and 20# and it was on sale.  That is what sold it for me.  I looked up some exercises and started with the 15 and 20#.  I was quickly done with both as they were way too light.

It was St. Patricks Day weekend in 2009 that I bought my first 35# bell and went crazy from there.  Now I have written about how cool kettlebells are for me before.  I have also written about how much time I have spent researching and playing around.  I am fairly content now, using my 35# for most things and my new 55# that I got for Christmas for swings and heavier practice.

I just love using the things.  I don’t do much with the lighter bells anymore.  Even with all the time I spent drilling out the 15# bell I don’t load it up much anymore.  I am teaching my kids to use the bells though.  My 3 year old uses the 5# for “up downs” which are her versions of swings.  This is one of the main reasons that I started with kettlebells.

I want to get healthy and stay healthy.  I want my family to be healthy.  I want my family to have something to do together that will let us go play baseball all day long.  I want my kids to be strong both mentally and physically.  They should be able to lift heavy things.

I would live to hear comments!

Justin

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