The Evolution of a Blog

 Before I begin, I must admit I had a post in draft about a month ago.  It was a "Ranting and Raving" post, that was mostly ranting, and it was pretty long.  I wasn't even maybe halfway done and something came up and I saved it to draft.  The thing is, I don't like saving to drafts, it usually seems pieced together when I come back to it later.  So a couple days later I came back to it.  I had calmed down, and I realized most of my ranting was pointless (and far too political for my blog).  I always say I try not to get too political, but I had a breaking point before the August primaries, and needed to vent.  After the election I was fine.  For the most part.  I know the November one will be the same and possibly the results will be similar.  I don't care who people vote for (or don't vote for that matter), i just wish we as a country could unite again and while disagreeing on issues still come together at the end of the day.  Its starting to be a pipe dream though.  Anyways, just letting you know I wasn't totally inactive the last few months.

One thing I did address in that blog that never was though, was some personal matters.  Another issue I never really discuss because I'm mostly a private person.  However this year has had some challenges.  This summer especially.  My mom has had some major nosebleeds this year, starting in April.  She was rushed to the hospital for a nosebleed!  At the time it was a one off issue.  She had minor ones for a while after, but that isn't terribly uncommon.  Then in July she had to be taken 3 more times by ambulance.  After the last visit a suggestion to her may have stopped them (hopefully).  She was taking baby aspirin as she always heard it was beneficial.  However the nurse told her to stop doing it, and it hasn't occurred since.  She had an appointment a few weeks later with and ENT specialist (Ears, Nose, & Throat), and that say curbing the baby aspirin may have cleared things up.  Her nose has felt better since.  However that last hospital visit may have caused another issue.  She was sick for a week and she had to be taken by ambulance once again to the hospital.  What we both thought may have been dehydration turned out to be pneumonia.  She was given pills and started to slowly feel better.  Then a leg issue came up and was prescribed more pills.  This gave her a horrible reaction, and once again another hospital visit (this time my aunt drove her).  They thought she caught pneumonia again. So she had other pills to take.  She started feeling better and thankfully for the past week or so she has been starting to be back to herself.  While she had her first bout of pneumonia I came down with something as well.  I don't go to the doctor much (I know I should), so I started looking up what I could have.  In the end I'm not sure what I had.  It could have been something like a stomach bug or flu, to something like kidney stones.  I had a really bad stomachache which then gave me bad back pain.  Then I felt something I thought in my kidneys.  I can't say for sure what it was but for almost a week or two I felt horrible and nearly bedridden.  I gave myself a deadline or else I'd see a doctor.  On the last day or two before the deadline, I felt like I passed something, then I suddenly felt better.  I haven't had issues since.  Well, some back pain, but I've always had back pain so it isn't related.

So as for the long intro, that's how my summer vacation went.

We both felt fine a few days ago so we made a trip to get some food and stop at our local second hand store and Dollar Tree.   As I was preparing the pictures for this post I realized how much my blog has transformed in the.... 10 YEARS??  HOLY CRAP I JUST REALIZED ITS BEEN 10 YEARS!  Wow, um... anyways... transformation, I lost my thought.  When I began this blog it was just a test to see if I could actually write on a consistent basis and talk about mostly my Royals cards and my card collection in general.  When I started the blog, I had just started to get heavily involved in collecting again after my sister passed away.  I had left card collecting sometime around 2000 or so when I graduated, and sold my collection maybe around 2003 or so.  Then in 2006, my dad passed and I was given his collection.  I spent time sorting them, but wasn't super big into getting back into the hobby.  Though I started buying packs of cards again.  So much so that my nephews would buy some wrestling packs time to time.  It never became a hobby again until around the time I hurt my back and couldn't work anymore.  Then I had time to kill and needed something to do.  So I decided to catalog my collection, and that's when I found the Trading Card Database.  It was also around that time my sister was diagnosed with cervical cancer.  For the next couple years with no job I would go with her to St. Louis while she received treatments.  After she passed I fell back hard into card collection (thanks also in part to TCDB and COMC where I could get cards cheap).  Wanting a way to show off the cards I started reading card blogs and thought I should try it.  At first it was mostly about Royals, Mizzou, and Greg Maddux.  I had some ideas for other stuff which I did a few times, but it went by the wayside.  However a couple odd things happened around the time I started the blog.  The Royals, the perennial losers started winning.  My fandom kind of gets burnt out after my teams win.  I was once a Buccaneers fan and after they won a Super Bowl in 2003, I lost interest.  I rooted for the Red Sox as a secondary team, and after 2004, I lost interest.  So in 2014 at the beginning of my blogging days (for cards, I once had a Xanga account, ahh I'm old), the Royals had a chance to be champs.  They didn't win in 2014, but they did in 2015, and honestly that was around the peak of my blogging days.  When I start something new, I go in hard.  Long story short, Royals won, I lost interest, and in an effort to drive myself harder on the blog, I wrote way too many posts and burnt myself out.  So then I started taking some breaks from blogging.  It was also around this time that I started losing some interest in collecting cards again.  Not enough to fully quit, but to a point where I needed to shift what I was showing off.  So I started showing off finds from my local second hand store, Savvy Seconds.  For a while I still had a sports theme as they did have some cards at times, and some clothing and such.  Then they started changing focus to newer items, and I needed to pivot.  So I created a series called "Savvy Loot Crate" Where I'd spend maybe 5 bucks or so and see what I could get.  It was my way of getting a Loot Crate but liking everything I got.  I was able to show off my music and movie collection more, and I didn't really lose my viewers.  Around this time my Dollar Tree stopped selling cards, but I found a new vice- movies.  I got a ton of movies from Dollar Tree, and actually started building my blu-ray collection.  I think my first blu-ray was Last Action Hero, which I bought before I even had a blu-ray player.  I have close to 200 blu-ray movies now and a majority of them were bought from Dollar Tree.  Covid hit and by this point I knew my heart wasn't into blogging or even collecting cards anymore, but I didn't want to stop doing either, just wanted to casually enjoy it, which I did.  Covid caused a rise in card collecting (and prices) and I think in the last 4-5 years I might have bought less than 10 packs of trading cards.  I don't even know when I last added cards to my collection, I know I was given some by some giveaways on TCDB and won a few on Listia, but not sure how recent that has been. 

In the last year Dollar Tree hasn't been getting movies like in the past and now charge 1.25 for items (if not more), so I needed to find something else to collect.  I got a few Hot Wheels, but I never really was a big collector of them (but do wish I could find some of the old ones I had as a kid).  But then one day I found something to fill the void.

SOCKS! (and finally a picture after an hour of typing).  This is my most "recent" picture.  If you've seen previous blogs I think the 3 newest I've added is on the bottom row, the Skippy Peanut Butter, Jello, and Dippin Dots (I didn't take a picture of the Jell-O one I guess).  For about a month I had taken all these off the wall because I had to reorganize them because I had enough to make a third row.  It wasn't until this last Tuesday that I decided to hang them back up and organize them better.  I even left room on each row just in case I added a couple more at some point.

OOPS!

A trip to Dollar Tree on Wednesday made me happy, but made me wish I waited a few more days to reorganize these.

So now I need another row.  So what I noticed about this batch that is different is not only a could have white hangers (maybe I am getting a little OCD, but that might bug me), but these all have $1.25 price one the cardboard, something they haven't had before.  I don't mind that as much, but would prefer if they didn't.  My two favorites are the Doritos (which I've wanted for quite a while), and Planter's.  I prefer the single color background ones more than the multi color.  The Sugar Daddy one and a few others indicate that I should be on the lookout for Blow Pops, Charleston Chew, and Junior Mints.  

Here is the Dippin Dots one I got a few weeks ago.  Again, I thought I took a picture of the Jell-O one, but I guess not.  I've noticed in recent trips that they have branched out and have other types of novelty socks as well, like cartoon characters, and even movies.  I spotted a pair of Happy Gilmore socks last visit but passed.  I try to only get food related ones, because I like how I have them displayed.  However I finally bought a non-food pair which I might display in another area and will fit into my collection nicely...that or I might give it to my nephew, who will really enjoy them.

This pair also has a different hanger, which I like as its closed off so it won't fall off a tack as easily.  I really don't know what will happen when I run out of room on my wall for socks.  I like the location because it faces the pantry.

Another thing that has evolved since the blog has started is I've bought and read more books.  This year I haven't read as many, but still read quite a few.  If I remember I will show all of them I've read at the end of the year.  I figured if I buy books might as well read them.  Currently I'm taking a little break from reading, but have a few I plan to read soon.  I have bought a few recently.  I have also been buying more cookbooks lately.  Mainly for my mom, but I also like looking at them, especially community type ones.  Also the other big thing I've done and shown more on here is puzzles.  Now with over 200 puzzles, we haven't worked on as many this year, mainly because of a few issues with the apartment moving stuff around and also for lack of better word, laziness on my part.  That will change soon.

On my recent trip to Savvy though I did buy a sports related item, one that really surprised me.

A stadium giveaway hockey puck from the New Jersey Devils? In Mid-Missouri?  At any rate it was not only a bit odd, but also kind of spooky I found this.  A day before I mentioned to my mom that I have stress balls of a football, baseball, and basketball (thanks to my sister on the basketball), so it would be nice to find a stress ball of a hockey puck.  Well the next day I found this.  Which is a little spooky.  Not to be outdone, I also found a stress ball.

This is the second body part I have in stress ball form, as I also have a foot.  Now I collect things, but it was never my intention to collect stress balls.  However in the last 5 years I've have relied on them a lot more than I ever thought I would.  I hate needles so when I got my covid shots, a stress ball came in real handy.  In the last year with my mom's health issues, having a stress ball has been very good for me.  I never realized until this year how much anxiety I really have.  I know it has increased in the last 15 years, but I use to be a people person, now I get stressed over the simplest things.  So having an insane amount of stress balls isn't too bad.  Not only can I display certain ones, but I can use one when in a pinch (did I just make a dad joke?).  I don't know if I'll expand my sports ball collection (I can see soccer and volleyball as potential ones, maybe rugby, but not sure if they make stress balls for other sports).  As for body part stress (?balls?) I have a brain and a foot, I don't know what else they would make.  I also have a spine keychain which I can display next to them.  I'm not a huge fan of the human body or anything, but it is kind of a cool/creepy collection.  Once everything is organized, maybe I will show everything off.  Though I just realized its now September and around November I display all my tins for Christmas, so maybe it will have to wait.

Another item to add to my food collection, was this Hershey's coffee cup.  I don't drink coffee, but I could drink hot chocolate from it.  However I am somewhat of a germaphobe (not an extreme case), so I don't like using used mugs, cups, plates, or the like.  I mainly like to display mugs and such I find.  That said, if I ever needed to use them, I know I could clean them up enough to my satisfaction.

I mentioned movies earlier, and it looks like second hand might be where I get movies from now on.  I don't know what the future holds for movies, but I grabbed this one for a buck because not only do I not have this classic on DVD (or Blu-Ray), but I really wanted the bonus "It's Christmastime Again, Charlie Brown".  My dad bought a copy of it on VHS from a gas station in the 90s and I think I still have that copy, but I wanted to get it on DVD.  I try not to go overboard on movies anymore unless it is a wishlist item or something I know I would like.  Since getting a Roku, I have found many free movie options and rarely have a time where there is NOTHING to watch.  That's not to say I can easily find any movie I want, but it has expanded my horizons on movies.  Maybe I can't find Days of Thunder on streaming for free, but I can watch Cannonball, a racing movie from the 70s with David Carradine.  I'll give it a shot.  In fact I never really watched a Charles Bronson movie 10 years ago, and now I've watched quite a few of his, even so much as if I ever want something on for noise I'll turn on Mr. Majestik (which you can usually find on Pluto, palie).

I think I have plenty of DVD-R's but for 50 cents for 3 I went ahead and got them.  I am still planning on ripping from VHS to DVD and have more tapes that I might be able to get commercials from (once I get my VCR working again or a remote for my VCR).  So it was a good investment.

The drywall kit, well it was brand new, and I got it for more screws which I could always use.  If I wanted I could have got about 10 or more others, but I figured one would be enough.

The four pack of bed risers I think was a buck.  I pondered if I needed them, but decided to go ahead.  In the background you can see I already have a set.  I don't plan on using them for a bed, but you can place them under furniture as well.  I have considered placing them under my TV stand, or maybe some other furniture piece. Now that I have 8, it should provide more stability for a larger piece.

I still have books to show and puzzles completed, but I've been typing a lot and think I've shown enough pictures.  I think I will stop for now and organize my pictures a bit for the next post which I hope will be soon.  I am finally getting the hang of using Google Photos for my blog and so I'm getting better at it.  Using a chromebook is still a learning experience, but I can get most stuff done.  I think for the rest of the weekend I might work on getting the rest of my stuff off my old desktop, and trying to clean files.  Its an neverending job, but since I got that 4TB hard drive earlier this year, I am making progress.

Thanks everyone for reading and for those who have been here since the beginning or at least a large part of the run, an extra large thank you for keeping me motivated to keep writing.  I have no plans of stopping, but it might be few and far between at times.  Who knows where the next ten years will bring.  I should do like a best of covering the first 10 years.  Maybe that will be in the future.  Anyways thanks again, and have a great weekend.