Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Getting into Galleries and Blog Anniversary!


This Blog is One Year Old! Woo-hoo and Yippee!!

First of all I would like to thank each and every one of you for taking the time to read my posts. Thank you for leaving comments, thank you for your support and thank you for your friendship.

As part of honouring this anniversary, I spent some time yesterday making an addition to the blog. A new section of Featured Writings has been created and it is located in the right hand sidebar. When you click on a category, such as getting into galleries, a page will open up that contains posts that were written over the past year pertaining to that topic. I appreciate the fact that there are so many interesting and diverse blogs for me to read. From them I get inspiration. So credit goes out to Marsha Robinett. I saw her featured articles many months ago and since then it has been on my to do list. Credit also goes to Casey Klahn who had instructions on his blog. His advice on going back into my old posts and creating a single label so they could be gathered up was invaluable. And also, I must mention Rose Welty. From Rose's blog, I was able to click on her 'buttons' and see how to write the code for the hyperlinks.

Another change is that I have created a new blog roll which now appears with all the bells and whistles. It too can be found in the right hand sidebar.

A review of my year as a blogger:

- Biggest surprise My biggest surprise was how much time blogging would take. My husband and I had just moved, I was setting up my new studio and I had a rather ambitious teaching schedule. I am not sure I would have started blogging right then if I had known the amount of time I would spend, not just on creating my own blog but on reading and commenting on the blogs of others. I quickly realized that getting known so that people would visit your site took an investment of time.

- Biggest challenge Just a couple of months after creating the blog we discovered that my Dad was dealing with some sort of health issue. I had just started to develop a readership and so I tried to keep the blog going even though I was now out of town a lot. Finally in the summer, I gave up. I was away more than I was home and given the situation, blogging just wasn't important. I am very grateful to the readers who started reading again once I returned.

- Greatest reward By far, the greatest reward has been the other bloggers I have met during this process of blogging. Wonderful friendships with people around the world have been created and I value you very much.

- Favourite blog post In order to put together the featured writings, I have spent a fair bit of time looking at the posts from the past year. You can reread my favourite post by clicking here. It isn't about art but the post has a picture of my Dad taken just two weeks before he died and in the post I have my thoughts on how to live life, a bit of a tribute to the the incredible man he was.

Thanks again to everyone, whether you are a follower or an occasional reader. I hope you continue to enjoy this blog. I welcome your feedback, I appreciate your comments and if you have been 'lurking', why not say hello? I would love to meet you. You can always drop me an email if you are not signed up to leave comments via blogger.

On to year two!

9 comments:

Ann said...

Happy blog anniversary! It's always a pleasure to stop in here and your side bar looks great!

Rose Welty said...

Congrats Teresa on a year! May there be many more...you've done a wonderful job so far. Always a pleasure to stop in here...

Teresa Mallen said...

Thanks so much Ann and Rose. The two of you have been blogging quite a bit longer than I have. But now after my first year, I feel less of a newbie. It is mutual admiration all way here as I really enjoy your blogs.

CountryDreaming said...

Congratulations on your successful accomplishment of one full year of blogging. May you have many more! I'm rather a newcomer who is glad to have found your blog as one of the very first ones that I highly enjoy visiting. I may not comment all the time, but I do read and appreciate all your efforts.

Beth Macre said...

Happy Blog Anniversary Teresa! You do a great job with your blog. Its always very interesting and informative! Thank you!

Teresa Mallen said...

Thanks so much Country Dreaming! Please let me state that commenting often is not required. Please feel free to pop in for a quick read. And besides, you have left several comments since you started following! :-) Thanks again for your very kind thoughts.

Hi Beth, goodness, people are saying such kind things - "always very interesting and informative" -
now you must have missed that post last fall when I had the flu and I entertained everyone with pictures of a cupboard I was painting and the festive pine swags I made that you couldn't see in the photos. LOL Looking back can be a humbling exercise... :-) Seriously though, thank you for your kindness.

Casey Klahn said...

Happy Birthday, Teresa!

Way to go - and the buttons look great!

Anita said...

Congrats on your first year! And you are right - it takes a lot to blog. Not just to do your own but then to catch up with everyone elses! I often think I should be one of those bloggers who never writes on other people's blogs but I think that is half the fun.
Looking forward to your second year.

Teresa Mallen said...

Thank you Casey. I am a fan of your work and I am honoured by your visit! :-)

And thank you Anita. I often wonder if I am the only person that has blogging gremlins - things like line breaks not working or getting bumped off line. I really enjoy reading blogs and commenting but maybe I read too many. An hour can go by and I am still reading posts! And I keep finding new interesting blogs!! :-)