What is the name of your Blog?Down the Garden Path
What is your name?
Patricia Christmas
Where are you from? (include country, state and/or city)
Buda, TX, USA
What is your current age or age range?
40
Please describe your blog
My blog is mainly about whatever is going on at the time, especially in the garden or in the natural world around me. There may also be posts about local wildlife, travel, my family, pets, interests, food, crafts, travel, classes I'm taking at the university, you name it.
Describe the main purpose of your blogging, what are you trying to accomplish?
I use my blog to help keep up with the myriad scattered friends and family members, for one thing. I'd like to see it help me make new friends and correspond with other gardeners and people with interests in common all over the world.
What blogging platform do you do and why?
OK, I don't know how to answer this. What's a blogging platform?
What do you blog the most about?
My garden and local wild life, I suppose. Gardening is year-round in my area, so it takes up quite a bit of my free time. I tend to notice the birds and wild flowers while I'm out there, and I'll write about them.
What kind of blogs make you angry?
I don't think I've ever found a blog that made me angry. A few are annoying -- ungrammatical posts with free-form spelling are irritating. I'll also hit the back-button quickly for blogs with music and no way to turn it off.
Give five of your best blogging tips.
1) Don't post if you don't have anything to say. No one's going to fault you if you don't post every day, but they will if every other post is inane.
2) Pictures. Use them well, not just copiously. One or two carefully selected pictures will help communicate your point. One or two dozen, or just one poorly chosen, will only detract from it.
3) Let your readers find their own easy-listening music.
4) Grammar and spelling count. I'm not saying it has to be perfect, everybody makes mistakes now and then, but it should be recognizable for native speakers of the blog's primary language.
5) Please don't let yourself be drawn into an online argument with people who post nasty comments. There are people out there who amuse themselves by locating controvercial or sensitive blog posts and making horrendously ugly comments to the author. They are sad, sick and ugly people. They are not worth a post on your blog. Hit "delete comment" and move on.
What are some things you would NEVER blog about?
You will never see anything about my sex life, I can assure you. You don't want to know, and I'm not telling.
Did you start blogging for the purpose of making money and if so, are you making enough money?
No money is being made here, nor is any expected. This is all for fun.
How long have you been blogging?
Let's see, off and on for a couple of years. I stopped updating my first blog for a variety of personal reasons -- the year from hell -- but have recently been keeping up with it fairly regularly. I only began this current blog this past weekend, so it only has a couple of posts at the moment.
About how many hours per day do you spend blogging?
"Hours per day" -- that's a joke, right? Seriously, I work full-time, attend classes part-time, study, play in my garden, clean house, knit, do needlepoint, read anything with print on it -- I may spend a couple of hours per week blogging, but that's pushing it. That's about all most of my hobbies get.
Do you track RSS feeds and if so, how many do you usually track daily?
A couple. I'm kind of new to the whole RSS thing.
Do you use Digg, and why or why not?
Nope. Don't know what it is.
Do you use Stumbleupon, and why or why not?
Nope. Same reason.
What promotional techniques work best for you and why?
I'm still trying to figure that out. I'm hoping this one will. I've had some success with adding my blog address to the bottom of emails to my list groups.
If you could post a blog on any blog in the world, which one would it be and why?
My own. I'm not a big fan of the multi-poster blogs. I like to feel like I'm getting to know an individual, not attending a cocktail party were everyone stands up and gives a monologue.
What mistakes have you made that you could warn others about?
Don't get married at eighteen to someone eight years your senior. He's probably not the person you think he is.
What are your top five blogging site picks and why?
Bloomingwriter (http://bloomingwriter.blogspot.com) -- Jodi's comments on gardening in Nova Scotia are sweet and eloquent. Her's is one of the few RSS feeds I'm on.
Dancing Down the Moon (http://diannesylvan.typepad.com/dancing_down_the_moon) -- I don't care for Diane Sylvan's books, but on her blog she is smart, funny and genuine.
Wild Hunt (www.wildhunt.org) -- Pagan news of note from around the world, with pithy commentary.
Musings of a Kentucky Gardener (http://kentuckygardener.blogspot.com)-- Historiana's blog is fairly new, but promising. I enjoyed her post about the gardens in her family photos from the early 20th century.
The Bubbling Cauldron (http://bubblingcauldron.blogsome.com)-- she doesn't update often, but has yummy, yummy recipes!
Have you met anyone offline as a result of your blog?
No.
What is the url of your blog?
Down the Garden Path
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