Rememorandom: 500 Posts Later

Aesthetics
You very likely noticed a stark change here on Rememorandom if you happened to stop by after Friday afternoon.  (Unless, of course, you read via RSS feed or Facebook.)  Since the beginnings of my blog, back in 2005, I've always kept with a simple motif: keep it green.  See, green has always been my favorite color, and since this is my blog, I figured it should be reflective of me.  But then I noticed the stat counter on my blog that I was approaching my 500th post and thought there should be a change or two.  So I started playing around with Blogger's limited tools and my rudimentary HTML knowledge (plus a basic Google search) and came up with what you see now.

At first I wasn't sure about it.  The only greens left were for hyperlinks, and that's a faint green at that.  But, the more I looked at it, the more it grew on me.  I'm not one of these people that hates change.  A little change every now and then keeps us always on our feet and keeps us from getting complacent, comfortable, and idle in our daily life. 

Another change, apart from the color scheme, was the two gadgets on the right of the page.  The "Currently Reading" box changed from one book cover to a montage of all the books I'm currently reading.  I had a "Up Next" box or somesuch prior to the "TBR" box, which really wasn't true, as I'm never 100% sure what book will be up next.  (Usually this process is determined by a number of factors, including, but not limited to how much I enjoyed the book I just finished reading, how long certain items have been in the TBR pool, whether or not the book is in at the library (and it's due date), and other things.)  My new "TBR" box is a better idea of what's to come.  I'm considering doing a similar montage for yearly reads, but I'm not sure about that yet.  (All of these montages are linked to my Goodreads account, and they were created from that site.)

Content
My first post, "Alpha," stated that "Mostly it [this blog] will probably be random thoughts going through me, similar to a journal. Perhaps I shall write on current events. Mebbe religious thoughts. Mebbe STAR WARS. Definitely STAR WARS."  For the most part, this is still true, though perhaps the motivation has changed since then.

At the time, I probably had no desire to start book reviewing like I do now.  I really just wanted to keep up with my life, and being a child of this techno world, blogging seemed the way to go.  Of course, there are many posts dealing with creative writing, and this is still another reason Rememorandom has kept going.

I think I've fallen into a rather succinct pattern for posting.  I review every book I read (if not here, definitely on Goodreads), and I enjoy reviewing.  But what reader doesn't like recommending a good book they've read?  In no way do I consider my reviews even a third as good as the blogosphere's esteemed SFF bloggers, but these are my words, my recommendations, and my joys.

Lastly, and mentioned above, is the creative writing content.  If I've got the next installment written, I post a serial piece on Writing Wednesdays, otherwise I treat the day as a regular post.  I've also started writing flash fiction, which has been loads of fun and rather trying, and these sometimes appear on Flash Fiction Fridays.  Plus, even if my posts aren't creative writing, they're still a writing exercise.

Bloggers
When I started, I had no Followers and few readers.  That pretty much stayed the same until late 2008/ early 2009, likely because the blogging from 2006 until then was sporadic at best.  Now I have 39 public Followers and I don't know how many RSS & Facebook readers.  On some levels, I view this as a success, that I'm somehow attracting readers.  But honestly, it doesn't matter if I have 39 Followers or 39000, I'm still blogging for the same reason.

However, I do enjoy meeting new people, and whenever I get a new reader, I make every effort to visit their blog (if they have one) and check it out.  I've met several folks with similar tastes in music, books, and whatnot, and these friendships are special.  When a blogger stops writing, I wonder what happened to them.  Did they burn out?  Did they spontaneously human combust?  Will they ever come back?  Who knows.

The Future
Rememorandom has no plans of retiring any time soon.  Where once I went from irregular posts to daily posts to semi-frequently posts, I think I have enough material to keep me busy for a while.  There are nigh a hundred books on the TBR pile, not to mention the occasional surprise read, and I fully intend to review them.  Keisha is pregnant and we're expecting our first child come June/July 2011, so this will undoubtedly generate some posts.  I am constantly thinking of stories to write and explore, and while many of them seem to start and get abandoned, a few do actually make it on to completion. 

I am proud of Rememorandom, and as long as I remain in this mindset, I see no problems continuing my blogging.

So, for those of you that have read my blog, I thank you and hope that you continue to do so.  And for those of you that have not read my blog, the ones that are not reading this sentence right now, I shake my right foot at you and call your dog names.

Questions
Any feedback is appreciated.  What do you think about the new layout?  Is the text hard to read?  Are the colors distracting?  Does my site take longer to load now because of the gadgets?  Anybody else hate cold coffee as much as I do?