Random Thursday thoughts

Rather than one big thing, just a handful of little things:

• I’m beginning to think the name Katie/Katy may soon overtake Sara/Sarah as the unofficial Most-Common-Woman’s-Name in the DOC. Thankfully (or not), Scott still holds a commanding lead in the Men’s Name category.

1000th Comment Contest Winner

This one almost passed me by, but this blog  just surpassed another milestone!

Congratulations to Scully for posting the one-thousandth comment on this blog! On my Respect the power of insulin post, she wrote:

You’re right though… the power of insulin is gigantic.
One measly drop…

No, there is no $1,000 prize. I can’t afford it, and filing taxes internationally is a real bitch (I own a couple of shares of  Tim Hortons stock, and with the taxes on the dividends, it’s hardly worth it). But I can offer a prize that is truly priceless: I will finally add Canadian D-Gal to my blog-roll, which was last updated about nine months ago and was woefully out of date.

Other than the one addition, it still is out-of-date, so I don’t think it’s really worthy of your attention. But you should check out Scully’s blog — because that is definitely worth it!

Congratulations!

366 days (a blogiversary!)

Image credit: istockphoto

While the rest of the world focuses it’s eyes on this morning’s behavior of Punxatawny Phil (or your own community’s resident groundhog), there’s another celebration going on today.

Today is Rolling in the D‘s first birthday! Or blogiversary. Or whatever you call it.

When I launched this blog on February 2, 2012, I didn’t know what to expect (it was, admittedly, pretty awful at the start). I didn’t know why I was getting into this crazy thing called blogging, or if I would be able to differentiate myself from the many other diabetes-blogs out there. I had no idea if it would last, if I’d be motivated to keep it going, if anyone would care, or if D-blogging was just a silly fad that would go the way of the Macarena. So when I realized I was about to reach the one-year mark, I was in disbelief. I still am. (A longer-than-normal year: leap year, no less!)

Thank you for sharing your thoughts, reading mine, retweeting the “new #dblog” Tweets, and providing the encouragement for me to keep working at my blog about diabetes.  And to keep working at my diabetes as well.

With that said: Year two starts …. NOW!

Annoying WordPress changes

It seems that WordPress, the platform on which this blog is hosted, has made some rather annoying changes to their comment policy. They no longer will let you comment with just a name/email/URL without “logging in” first.  Also, the “Notify me of follow-up comments via email” box is automatically checked, and if you forget to uncheck it, your email box may fill up quickly.

No, it’s not you, it’s WordPress.

I apologize for the inconvenience this causes (Captcha phrases on Blogger’s platform are just as bad, it’s a lose-lose), and I have to imagine that WordPress will reverse this policy in the near future.  Meanwhile, I’ve set this blog so that you don’t have to leave an email address when you comment, but then the picture next to your comment will look pale and lifeless, rather than your usual vibrant selves.

More on that here, on Flurrious, written by another blogger equally ticked off about that. Click on over… it’s a fun rant read.

But please keep on commenting.  Your comments keep me inspired and keep me going.

RITD changes Focus (?)

There are, it seems, thousands of personal blogs out there by people with diabetes, just discussing their lives and issues that are important to to them.  I figured “who wants to read more of that?”.

So when I started this blog, I decided to be different.  I figured I’d find interesting stories about how people cope with diabetes and how it affects our lives, and share them.   I posted the story about the student who tested her classmates’ blood sugar as a science project, and about the girl and her foster-dog, both with T1D.  I also began writing a few other articles (still unfinished), when I said to myself: self, this is boring!  It was as if I was a student or a journalist handling an assignment.

When I visit and comment on other blogs, I write from the heart.  When I write on TuDiabetes, my contributions are based on experience, compassion, curiosity, and humor (didja hear the one about the “diabetic strip”?)  But the format I’ve taken here seems cold, dull, and long-winded.  It does little to help me connect with my readers, or for readers to connect with me.  (Readers, are you even there?!).

So maybe it’s time for me to re-focus, and to enjoy writing: writing about living with diabetes.  If I don’t enjoy writing it, how can I expect anyone to enjoy reading it?  (And more importantly, what’s the point?)

What would you like to see, and what do you think I should do?

Leave a comment, or if you don’t want to do that, just click one of the poll buttons.