old country house blog

IDENTITY CRISIS

…okay, I am going to be like that annoying friend, that asks your advice, about some loser guy,and then does what she does and then months later asks your advice…about the same loser guy. Except in my case it is not a loser guy, but a blog name, perhaps a loser one and I really need to meeting of minds to help me figure this out. If two heads are better than one, then hundreds must amount to something…right?

So, my concern all along with the blog title “My Old Country House” is that:

1. I am not a country girl, person, anything
2. what if I move?
3. in addition to not being country, my blog is not about country stuff, like chickens and berries and pretty linens in the breeze, which I have nothing against and in fact love, but do not wish to blog about.
4. for all of the above reasons, I think my blog title is misleading…

My case FOR keeping the name “My Old Country House”is:

1. I happen to live in an old (130 years) house, in the country.
2. Everything I do, write, paint, parent, decorate…blog…all takes place here, in my old country house.
3. this house, and all of it’s oldness is what has propelled me forward into a decorating frenzy, and fix it up hysteria, the house is what gives me my impetus to do it all.
4. The  House is the template upon which all of my projects are tested, though I certainly ant this to branch out into a business where I help people decorate.

Months ago, when I was grilling my marketing major cousin about this she said, point blank
“you need to decide what you want to say! clean it up!  Why should I go to your blog, besides that I am your cousin?”

On the drive home, I thought about this. What do I want to say?
What do I have to offer? What makes me different that any other blog.
well, I like to decorate. But not so much decorate as fix things up and then use them and make things look expensive that are cheap, and make my home flow and feel nice, and like it cost way more than it did…I love to sew, and build and especially to paint. I paint paintings and I paint rooms and when I am planting, I feel like I have taken a sedative. It is addictive, that feeling. Who would not want to be sedated after driving soccer carpool or breaking up a fight about a door knob?

decorate and sedate? sedative?

  OMG. remember Young Frankensitein?
Doctor –  “GIVE HIM THE SEDATIVE!”
Igor-  “waht the “sed- a- give?”
Doctor – “NO the sedaTIVE!!” had to be there.

anyway, please take a moment and share your thoughts. what makes you go to a blog? what makes you go back? I apologize for asking you these questions again, but here I am 6 months later, with 38 followers, truth be told, of whom 4 are my immediate family, I need to take a new direction. There is one blog that started when I did and she has thousands of followers…

in advance…THANK YOU!!!

anyway, 

2 thoughts on “IDENTITY CRISIS

  1. First? You are funny.

    Also? Everyone struggles with this as their subject matter and writing style evolves. And half the time, the blog title doesn’t really make sense at all anyway. Three years ago, I picked my personal blog name, The Big Piece of Cake, as a metaphor for the kind of person I want to be (one who wants – asks for – does more). And anyone who stumbles across my site invariably assumes it’s a food blog.

    While it’s important to be thoughtful – and maybe even strategic – about naming your blog, it’s probably impossible to come up with something that will be perfect forever. Don’t let yourself overthink it.

    Here is my advice:

    Decide what you want to get out of this. If it’s exposure fo your art, you want something that brands you a little bit (you could even just use your name). If you want to become part of the DIY community, then keeping the “house” theme would make sense.

    Personally I think you just have to feel some connection to the name and then fully own it (“no I don’t write about baking – it’s a metaphor…sigh”).

    One more thing – best to pick something that starts with a letter as close to A as possible. If someone puts you in their google reader your location on the list will be alphabetical. People tend to start at the top right? Didn’t do myself any favors there…

    It will be interesting to see what you come up with (or stick with). Good luck!

  2. I started my blog because I had lost my creative mojo there for a bit, and when I found it again, I thought a blog might be a good way to help me keep it. I didn’t have a set goal, I hoped that blogging would help me figure out where I wanted to go with myself, where I wanted to channel my creativity, and huge pipe dream, figure out how to make a living out of it, instead of these crummy part time jobs I seemed to find myself with.

    I got a wine column with a local, online food magazine out as a result. Not that I blog about wine, but I drink alot of it and I talk about it, but people laugh at me when I use ‘winespeak’. Somehow, someone thought I would an interesting wine writer. And I realized I love cooking more than any of the other creative stuff I do, so I’m starting my own venture doing that. I guess I am finding my way and my blog has helped me find it.
    My name came out of a conversation with a friend I’ve known since grade school. She said that in all the years she’s known me, I’ve always had chicken wire and paper flowers, in some form or another, as a constant running through my life. She said I should make it the name of my memoir, so when it came to naming the blog, I chose that.

    I read all kinds of blogs – mommy, food, house, crafty, you name it. What keeps me going back? Being funny, honest, creative, interesting.

    I don’t worry about followers, but then I didn’t start a blog to get noticed. I didn’t tell anyone I had started it for a few months actually. I still downplay it alot. I’m told I should promote it more. Sometimes I put really personal stuff on there, sometimes I put things on there that aren’t pretty. Real life isn’t pretty, nor have I ever worried about being popular, so I guess I’m pretty content with the following I do have. I suppose it depends on what you want the outcome to be. Good luck!

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