New Year's Promise

Since becoming a blogger, I find myself reading and analyzing other blogs. I probably should have done that before I started blogging, but I am quite sure I would have been too intimidated to begin so I guess it all worked out in the end. I have no right whatsoever to be critical of other blogs but I have noticed a few features that can be a bit annoying.

One is the choice of advertisement styles. I understand that the only way to make a living at this business is to make it a business and that means having ads splashed across one's blog. I just don't want to read a blog that includes flashing, twirling or blinking ads hawking my attention. No words of wisdom are worth that kind of abuse in my estimation. A few tasteful ads placed along the edges of a blog is really all one should have to cope with during a reading experience.

The second annoyance button for me is the word "journey."  Many blogs invite their readers to join them on their journey as they:
a. bake pastries from Grandma's cookbook.
b. care for an adopted 3-legged dog.
c. find peace in fitness.
d. eat paleo, gluten-free and organic meals.
e. balance work, photography, writing cookbooks, raising kids and never sleeping.

No thank you. I will let those folks walk the road on their own. I like bacon, 4-legged cats and sitting.

A third red flag for me is reading paragraphs that are sprinkled with strike throughs and hashtags. Certainly blogging is a writing style that allows for a great deal of literary and grammatical freedom (I am exhibit A), but I need a little more formality so I don't feel like I am reading another paper from my 7th graders. Leave the strike throughs for editing and the hashtags for tweeting.

Finally, I bypass blogs that have formats that are hard on my old eyes. Fancy schmancy backgrounds can be a distraction if they are not balanced with the site's color scheme and font choices. Too many pictures and too little writing can also make my head spin with scrolling and re-focusing.

Therefore, my New Year's pledge to you, dear readers, is that this blog will never have twirling ads that promise to bust belly fat in 5 days. I will not use editing marks to get my point across. I won't use hashtags for effect because, quite frankly, I don't really know what a tweet is. And above all, I will not ask you to join me on a journey to somewhere, doing something that doesn't sound fun.

You, of course, are invited to join me for a cup of coffee and a bag of chocolate chips any day of the week. That's a promise I can keep.

Happy New Year!