I have a blog now!

I've been trying to minimize my presence on social media and I'm slowly moving towards spending less money on my online hobbies. Currently I have a self-hosted WordPress site that I use for my professional endeavors... but with a blogging script like this doing a lot of the automation for me in terms of tracking posts and archives, I might be able to move that site to Neocities and get out of the habit of spending $100s on websites altogether! (I do have a paid Neocities account, but $5/month is nothing compared to what I'm paying for the other things.) I think the only thing that could possibly stop me from having a personal space online is the digital apocalypse. Or maybe if Neocities shuts down.

In the past one of the things that got me back into writing in a journal was doing a "monthly sum up" where I talked about my experiences, adventures, ideas, and finds that month. I'm going to try to do a weekly one from now until the end of the year, since it's just a few weeks, to expedite that process. Next year I might do something different, but this gives me something to help focus.

To those of you following along (probably no one), I am one step closer to eliminating social media as a major presence in my life. If I really want to be successful I have to find ways to replace what social media gives me, rather than going cold turkey. This is one of those things!

Related, yesterday I finally filled out my hobonichi journal. I got the weeks journal for 2025 in an attempt to do some more structured journaling and keep track of things better over time. I don't have the hardest time getting things done now that I am on my ADHD drugs and a lot of the struggles with getting started were eliminated, but I do need a journal or tracking system to keep visibility into what I've done. I usually don't remember what I did this morning, the previous day, much less the whole week... Just taking some time once or twice a week to challenge myself to remember was so helpful when I was younger so I'm trying it again!

Hobonichi Weeks journal open to the Nov 25-Dec 1 week showing my reflection so far

It's very interesting and cool how no matter how old you are, no matter how many experiences you have over time and no matter what changes you throughout your life, you can always revisit an old habit or method and it might get you what you want now.

Anyway, I'm taking a moment to write while I set this up so I have something on the page while I'm tweaking the design later, but also so I can be proud that I did it! I am one of those people who can't use the first page of a paper journal and similiarly it can be hard to make the first post in your blog, so that's what this nonsense is - page filler to get myself started later. Nothing could be worse than this entry! HA. (That sounds like a challenge.)