the titled blog

It’s been a while since my last post (and for good reason!)  I work part time in the floral industry, and with Mothers Day this past weekend, my work days were long.  And once everything died down…I got strep throat.  So needless to say I’ve been not in a blogging mood lately.

Two weekends ago was the annual Mennonite Brethren BC Pastors and Spouses retreat out at Harrison Hotsprings Resort.  It’s always a really lovely time, and Dave and I really enjoy meeting with all the other pastors and their spouses from all around British Columbia.  Not to mention all that time in the hot pools was glorious.  I brought my camera…but barely captured anything.  (I was too busy relaxing!)

(Ice-cream at the beach in Harrison.  Yes.)

This last weekend Dave and I went up to Rolley Lake to take advantage of the beautiful weather we’ve been having here.  I love how there are so many beautiful places to visit in BC.  Even after travelling all over the world, I’m pretty convinced that this is one of the loveliest corners of the earth.

Dave was being a good sport.  He’s not generally a fan of modelling for pictures. ;)

“Oh, Hi!”

Ack.  Too close.

That’s better.

For starters…I’m sharing this pretty picture because the rest of this post may be a little ugly.

For most of my life I’ve had a *bit* of a contrarian attitude towards a lot of things.  I’m not sure where it comes from.  I do feel, however, that it’s highly important to do/wear/listen to/eat things that you like.  Because you like them.  End of story.  Because of that, I approach trends with maybe a more cynical attitude and try to evaluate if I actually like the trend for realzies or if it’s just popular culture swaying my opinion.

This brings me to blogging.

It’s pretty cool, right?

I know.

I’ve had this blog since 2007 (that’s 5 years this summer!) When I started it was kind of a dorky thing to do  and I didn’t really share it with many people because: a) who really cared anyway? I just liked designing the page and writing random thoughts and b) in 2007, when you said “I have a blog!”  people would go, “A what?”

Today pretty much everyone has a blog and to be perfectly honest I’m having a difficult time being one of the throngs.  It’s made me back up and seriously evaluate what I put on my website because I really don’t want to be just another one of those “lifestyle” bloggers.

Because lately I’ve been noticing a trend.  Everyone wants to be the next big blogger.  And what’s huge in the blogging world now?  DIY’s!  Personal Fashion!  Personal Fashion DIY’s!  I totally dug DIY posts when I first started getting into reading blogs.  It was fun to see what other people where making out of virtually nothing.  I also thought that the personal fashion thing was neat; you know, “Hey, I’m not a model, but I can make these clothes look good too.”

But now it seems as though everyone is so eager to be the top blogger (Hm…I wonder if that’s a TV show yet?) that they flood the blogosphere (totally hate that word) with watered down crummy posts just for the sake of saying to their readers “Hey!  I put something on my website!  Read it! Love it!”  But for serious, why do we need DIY’s on how to hot glue feathers to a t-shirt? (or virtually anything for that matter, it seems)  Or how to paint a terracotta pot? (Come on.  Get a pot.  Get some paint.  Done.)  The part that makes me really sad, is when I see the 1057 comments on the post where everyone says “OMG! TOTALLY SWOONING OVER THIS RIGHT NOW!!1!1″ and then post the link to their website, which, let’s be honest, is just a complete knock-off of any one of the top blogs right now.

Fashion blogging has also gotten strangely narcissistic.  Do you really need to share 20 shots of yourself in the same outfit?  Maybe, just maybe, you could cut the number down?  Three, possibly?  Wide shot, detail shot and a movement shot?  Think about what you yourself would want to see if you were on someone else’s website.

Blogging is becoming the new lifestyle magazine.  So I think it’s important as bloggers to realize that magazines take a lot of time working on each article.  They also have a whole team of people making sure that the content is publishable.

But really, it all comes back to doing what you like because you like it.  I feel like so many of the blogs that I (now no longer) follow got caught up in posting as often as possible (even if the post sucked) for the sake of keeping their readership.  Stop posting dumb last minute blasé DIY’s.  Use your creative mind and post cool things again.  And if you can’t think of anything this week, then don’t worry.  I can wait.  (One of my most favourite bloggers hasn’t posted in a month.  I don’t mind.  Because when she does come back, it’ll be awesome.)

So I’ve decided to make a blog oath:

I, Courteney Rodda of “The Titled Blog” solemnly swear that I:

- Will post about things that I:

A) Really like, and not things that are just trendy right now.

B) Feel need to be said.

- Will not post 504 pictures of myself in the same dress in one post.  I will use my discretion when picking images for a post.

- Will not water down this corner of the interweb with careless blogging.  If I don’t have anything good to post, I will not post at all.

- Will never hot-glue feathers on anything and share it with my readers as a DIY.

I will truly and faithfully, and to the best of my skill and knowledge, execute blogs in this manner, and no other.

Signed,

Thursday I made a skirt with some great navy blue polka dot fabric (that I found at the thrift store) following a tutorial on a fabulous new website I found called “Gerties New Blog for Better Sewing” (if you are into retro sewing, this is the place).  After making the skirt, I decided I also wanted a blouse out of the same stuff.  I found an etsy shop (Embonpoint Vinage) that sells PDF’s of out of print patterns.  It’s a whole drafting system, so you get instructions and a template, and you have to draft out the pattern yourself.  I’ve been wanting to learn a little more about drafting my own patterns, so I figured I’d give it a go.

Bigsby, on the other hand, figured it was a bad idea.  We had a stand off for a while, as I didn’t want to shoo him away and have him tear the tissue pattern paper.

I should have the blouse done on Monday, in which case I will try to make a point of sharing…something that I seem to have forgotten to do on this blog lately.  Apparently I don’t have much to share as of late.

PS:  I do often post to instagram.  My user name is “courteneyrodda”  Today is Caturday, thus, the above image of Bigsby.  Although…let’s be honest…every day is caturday with me.