A Time to Trim

Food poisoning knocked me off my feet this past weekend. Once the worst of it had passed I decided to cull my RSS feed. When I wrote this post on Saturday I was feeling shaky and really wasn’t up to going out anywhere.

It was sad to see how many blogs have quieted in the last six to twelve months. Some of them have been temporarily abandoned due to serious illness or other circumstances that make it hard to keep writing. Others just stopped. I don’t know if their writers lost interest, suffered a personal tragedy or started a new blog elsewhere.

Silence.

It’s easy to celebrate a beginning.

It’s much more difficult to be happy about an end. There was no joy in hitting unsubscribe, in contacting old blogging acquaintances I haven’t heard from in a very long time. The Mystery of the Disappearing Blogger ™ rarely ends with a happy return to blogging.

Yet there was small puff of satisfaction when I reached the end of my RSS feed. The list is all tidied up and most of my favourite blogs are still chugging along nicely.

Respond

What have you trimmed out of your life lately?

12 Comments

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12 Responses to A Time to Trim

  1. Jesseschoch

    Busy schedules are no more for this 26 year old….from here on out all my summers will contain no mandated working, only camping trips and personal projects:)

  2. Walking (though not necessarily by choice)!  

    Other than that, my wife & I spend the Spring/Summer season trying to pare back our belongings.  Even though we’re poor, it amazes me how much junk we accumulate each year.  

  3. Twyseschoch

    Responsibility! After working 50 hours responsibly, I give it up and do nothing I don’t want to do the rest of the week. We have plans to get out of the city every weekend this summer. 🙂

  4. 'Seph

    It has always caught my attention when I stumble across a blog or post and then notice it was dated something like Feb. 23, 2009, and it was the last post listed.
    Makes me wonder the exact same questions you posed.
    “What happened? Did they give up? Did they more on? Did they give blogging a shot and give up? Did they die?…”

    It’s a little bit sad really. 🙁
    I have always tried to find a balance when I blog.
    I never want to get to the point where I give myself a deadline or a min. posts per week/month/year. That’s how mindless crap and dribble make it onto my blogsite.
    I aim (very loosely) at c. 1 per month. If more happen, great! If not… oh well. Thankfully I haven’t fallen into that catagory of obscurity.

  5. I haven’t trimmed out very much. Same all boring stuff. 

  6. ... Zoe ~

    I haven’t done the blog reading I use to do, so I guess I trimmed that down.  I’d like to trim my blogroll drastically but I’m afraid I’ll hurt someones feeling by removing them.  I’m trying to find out why WordPress won’t recognize my command to put my ACS blog in *Private* mode.  I’m at Secular Wings now and even then I wonder if I’ll trim that down to *Private* mode.  And by *Private* I mean, not blogging there at all.  I’ve trimmed and pruned bushes and trimmed back our gardens (we have a lot) . . . sort of feel like I’m cleaning house only outside instead of inside.  Last night I trimmed my nails.  (Is that too much information?)  *giggle*

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