Some decisions are hard. Some are easy. And some decisions make themselves.
My longtime readers know that for quite awhile now, I have been vacillating on whether to continue photography and/or my blog. After doing both for so many years, the thrill is pretty much gone, and subject ideas are few and far between.
Last year, I decided to terminate my paid subscriptions to photography sites Flickr.com [see the right sidebar for a link to my site] and YouPic.com. Neither was generating much follower interest, and both had become a bit costly considering my upcoming retirement. I successfully changed my Flickr subscription to the free membership, and made note to do the same for YouPic before its automatic renewal at the end of the year.
Guess who forgot to drop the YouPic paid subscription and got socked with a hefty automatic renewal fee?
Yep. So I’m stuck for another year as a “Pro” member. Which kind of sucks because my pictures really aren’t good enough to justify calling myself a “pro.”
Anyway.
I also planned to drop my paid WordPress subscription. Not because I’m not a good enough writer (because we all know I’m awesome), but because the cost was no longer justified due to my recent lack of posting. Seriously, now that I’m fully retired and seldom leave the house, it’s really difficult to come up with anything extraordinary to write about.
But then I realized that dropping the paid subscription might result in my earlier (much better) posts being deleted, or the photographs attached to those posts being deleted, and it would break my heart to lose all that hard work. Especially after re-reading some of the older posts and the comments made on those posts – many of which comments were by bloggers who have since either closed up shop or died.
So I flip-flopped between wanting to keep this blog open regardless of the cost, or simply cancelling the paid subscription and letting the whole thing fade away.
But then, guess who missed the WordPress subscription renewal deadline (again)?
So it seems that you and I will be “seeing” each other for at least another year. Are you excited? I know I am (sort of).
Perhaps this will be the year my muse returns; perhaps not.
I can promise this, though. A lot has been going on in Cordelia’s Mom’s life recently, and as soon as I can get my ass in gear, I will do at least one (totally awesome) catch-up post. Keep an eye out for it!
After that, we’ll see how much inspiration I have. Of course, I could always start re-blogging some of those great earliest posts. There are those of my followers who may not have read them.
Hang in there with me, folks. I’m not quite done yet.
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I love to hear from my readers. You may comment on this post, comment on my Twitter page (@cordeliasmom), or email me at cordeliasmom2012@yahoo.com
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Image by Cordelia’s Mom/TeddyRosalieStudio
Cordelia's Mom, Still 
I’m still having that “do I want to” or not posting discussion with myself. Like you, I feel like my idea sources are limited, and I’m still considering my interest level. Unlike you, I do not have a paid site, so that’s not a decision that needs to be made. However, you might check to see if there’s a way to transfer all of your existing posts to an unpaid site – when I moved to WordPress from a different blog host, I was able to bring my previous posts with me.
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Thanks for the advice. Would you like to email me with your site link so I know who you are? (or put it here in the comments). My email is cordeliasmom2012@yahoo.com. (Your comments always come in as merely “Someone.”}
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Good to see a post from you and looking forward to your ‘catch up’. Take care.
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Thanks. Wouldn’t want people to forget me, even though I’ve been negligent about posting regularly.
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I forgot to cancel Flickr last year. I am planning on switching it to the free plan this time. I haven’t posted there in over two years. My photos on my blog get so many more comments than I ever had on Flickr.
I’m glad you’re hanging around here. I would suggest a prompt or two if you’re looking for inspiration.
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Dan, I’ll consider any prompt you’d like to offer. As for Flickr, I did recently discover that two of my photos had been picked up and used by educational institutions for their own websites, under the Creative Commons licensing. Both link back to my Flickr account, and I even got one of them to refer to me by my real name as well as TeddyRosalieStudio – guess that makes me a published photographer!
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The two prompts I stick with are Linda Hill’s One-liner Wednesday and Stream of Consciousness Saturday. That’s good news about Flickr
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Thanks, Dan.
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Since my retirement, I also suffer from a case of blogging Lackawanna, CM, that varies from slight to severe. ( I hope you don’t mind me using an area from your neck of the woods to fuel my low motivational pun). Anyway, what has helped me is to not worry about posting multiple days of photos from any single successful outing. The dropping number of visitors don’t seem to mind my tactic. And one thing I still appreciate about WP is discovering the work of longtime blogging friends who still turn out. Thus, keep the subscription and daily post I do. (And yes, I too don’t want the weekly Cuppa Joe guest posts of our departed guest blogger Paul, RIP and so missed, to go away.)
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Aw. Yes, I owe it to Paul to keep the site going at least for awhile – it was his stories that gave my site the boost it needed way back when.
(Wow, this is the second reference to Lackawanna I’ve seen this week. The first was in an episode of the old Night Court series which I’ve been binge-watching on DVD.)
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Paul was a wonderful addition to our lives, CM. I miss him.
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You have not been forgotten, CM! And I look forward to your catch up post and photos of puppy Cody! 😻🌈
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You’re so sweet. I can always count on your support. Thank you.
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Anytime, CM! 😻🌈
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