When you have child care 24/7 there is no end to the time you can spend on the computer working blogging, (honey, I want to hire an au pair!) as I have done this week.  With my husband in another state, and my parents keeping an eye on the little one I can blog when I please. From the couch. The bed (current position). The outdoor porch. Wireless internet is a dangerous wonderful thing!  Problem is, with all the blogging I’ve done this week, I’ve become bloverwhelmed. Overwhelmed by the blogosphere. There’s so much going on tech-wise and conversation-wise out there that my blog brain is spinning. I am living, eating, breathing, thinking blogs.  And it’s building up a vortex of blog blabber in me, so what else am I to do?  Vent. Here I go.
- I now have too many things I want to read, but less time than ever to do it. It’s the ultimate blogging paradox. The more you blog, the more blogs you pick up to read, but the less time you have to read them.  And then, if you’re like me this week, just trying to keep up, you forget what you have read (and commented on) and re-comment contradicting yourself. That’s when you know you’ve totally maxed out.  Because it’s 10 p.m. and you haven’t showered all day and have read nothing but things that are funny and personal.  Forget reading old-school media. Forget working. Oh yeah, and forget taking care of my child. I’m stumped on how people keep up with this new media world. And to think, blogging is pretty much dead already. (Or is it? I hope not). (BONUS- If you think you might be overdosing, or at least addicted to blogging like me, check out LA Daddy’s link to this neat survey tool. I’m at 84% YIKES!)
- I am finding that my real-life friends now may know less about me than my internet/blog friends. I don’t have too many that overlap, so this is kind of strange situation for me. I can’t seem to get my real-life friends to read my blog regularly, and I’m not sure I’ll ever get the chance to meet some of my internet friends who I keep up with. But I like them both.  A lot. Do I have split blersonality disorder?
- The blogosphere seems to be filled with hot button controversies lately. People are getting fired up. Which is cool, but I’m not interested in being all that controversial. Or fired up.  I don’t like confrontation or getting into fights. I shouldn’t care, and just go about doing what I want, but there is a nagging part of me that feels a little bird-brained for not raising awareness of some issues I do I care about on this forum. But I’m tired. And lazy. Is that so bad? I really did this blogging thing to have fun. Not to have more mommy guilt.
- But, now that we’re on the topic of controversies I do have to mention just one thing that is one thing that is pushing my bloggy buttons – affiliate programs.  Some of my favorite bloggers have been rightly down on my fellow PR peeps who do not understand how to reach us bloggers, (which, by the way, makes me want to run up and down the hallways of my office screaming, ”please, please read our internal memos.”) But all this conversation also makes me question those affiliate program
monstersmanagers, too.  I’ve gotten a few e-mails lately from these non-traditional advertisers who live in the hinterlands of “I’m sort of an ad, but I’m not paying for the space, but I’m not a PR person because I don’t need you to write about me” that are making me cringe. Trust me, I’m not above selling space on my site if it makes sense for the topic of my blog, and I won’t stick up for dumb PR people. No way. But I just want to put my two cents in that affiliate programs and rogue advertisers also need to read our blogs and figure out who we really are before theystalkwrite us for placements. People, just think before you write, and you’ll be so much better off.  And thanks for the offer, but my name is not Ali
- Lastly, I’m totally confused by this post. But Izzy Mom was so passionate about the topic and so many people followed and obeyed her directions, I feel like I have to do it too. But I have no clue what it means. Am I a lemming, or what? Can someone out there on the internets help me understand this?Â
Well, that’s enough venting for one night. And since my week of 24/7 child care is coming to a close, I now have to go home to a husband that needs my attention, which really means that I won’t be blogging at all this weekend. I think that’s probably the best way to treat this overdose.
Tags: blogging rants, affiliate programs, mom blogs, momosphere
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Great, oh so sad, fabulous, insightful, we-better-get-a-grip, list. I honestly think when we don’t have a balance we burn out no matter what. You went on a little blogging bender it seems, and now you’ll go back to real life. Don’t stop blogging though, your posts this week have been great.
LOL
I relate the most to #2. I feel like such a suck friend sometimes.
Regarding issue #1 – have you tried using a reader?
Since I started subscribing to blogs with Google
reader it has really cut down on the amount of time
it takes because it tells me when there are new
posts instead of my having to check. It’s wonderful!
The downside – it’s so easy, I now have about 50
blogs I try to keep up with.
Do you think they’ll come up with a Bloggers Anonymous program soon? Maybe it can be a subset of Crackberry detox.
oh, Sara, so true… very one of your thoughts resonates with my feelings on the state of my personal life vs. the blogosphere. Now that you wrote this spot-on post, I can just link to it without having to spend an hour writing it! (LOL)
btw, I use Google Reader and have 138 blogs in it. I am a slave to my reader.
Your #1 has been on my list for awhile, too. Like BetteJo and Shelli, I’m a Google Reader fan, but even with using folders to sort the feeds and scanning the posts in a list to see what I can “mark as read” without actually reading it (yes, sometimes it comes to that), I’ve still got 100+ subscriptions and sometimes it gets hairy. And you still need to visit the actual blogs to comment and such. And you’ll probably want to write posts for your own blog sometimes too, talking about what you’ve been reading and whatever else might be going on in your (non-blog) life.
Blogging may not be dead, but keeping up with it could kill ya.
I’ve been reading your blog for awhile, but I think this is my first time commenting here – so, hello!
It all has become a bit overwhelming for me, as well. If I don’t have the time
to visit everyone’s blogs and comments, am I being a bad blogosphere citizen?
And then what does that mean for the blogging/writing I enjoy doing? But blogging from
the bed? Hmmmm … that sounds like fun!
I’m also completely overwhelmed by all th e blogs I’d like to read and the very little time I have to surf the internet. I subscribed to Google Reader and that has helped a great deal.
Oh, 84%. You’re worse than me.
Yeah, I’ve just started an affiliate program on my site. It actually seems to work better for me than an ad. I’ve gotten a much bigger return. The advertiser only pays me if someone buys something, but… it’s better than adsense and all that.
I’ve actually felt bloggerwhelmed lately. Back in the good old days when I read a dozen blogs I commented, surfed with ease. Now after almost two years of blogging I just have reached a blog saturation point! Plus I’m finding that if I don’t look at blogs every day I actually have time to read a real book. Eureka!
I just try to get around to everyone’s blog at least once a week and that helps. If I commented on every site I subscribed to it would be insane.
I must be at 110%. When I feel maxed with it all I just write and let the reading die down for a bit. It always creeps back up though. The endless cycle! There’s just too much good stuff out there to read.
Oh yes…i can agree with MOST of this! I may be a dad, but we get into the same situations. It’s tough.
- Jon
- Daddy Detective
- http://www.daddydetective.com