Friends, I did it again.
For the past several days, I have been away from the daily grind, spending time with JG’s family at the annual trip to Ocean City, New Jersey. We’re coming back tonight, but I’m off from work for the rest of the week, so when I return to my desk on Monday, nine days will have passed since I was last there. Ah, yes.
Even though WordPress has a post-to-the-future option, I was reluctant to use it because I knew that at least one of my posts would involve pictures, and God forbid I make them public on Flickr before the post goes live! At the beach, I have spotty internet access, and that’s only if someone brings a laptop to use, so I didn’t feel all that comfortable diving into my accounts in light of the secretive nature of this here site. Thankfully, the lovely Nancy Pearl Wannabe agreed to post my content for me, because she is a doll like that. In return, I have promised an Ocean City postcard, or if I have my druthers, an obnoxious souvenir. I aim to send NPW a fabulously tacky snowglobe or ash tray.
Anyway, I put together posts in advance with pictures all set to be made public, but the true insanity of what I was doing did not come to light until I saw the e-mail of instructions I had set up for NPW. I included my log-on information, my general itinerary for each post, and then specific instructions for each day. I realized that I have roughly 27 steps to undertake for each post, and not because I am thorough. I think I just like to complicate matters. When I took a step back, it looked as though I was having an all-out council of war with myself, but with bullet points instead of maps laid out on a table. Clearly, I had gone over the edge. The detailed planning that I funneled into my wedding and my friend’s wedding reared its head again in a new and frightening form: the blogzilla.
And then I sent the e-mail! I sent it because I couldn’t think of a way to cut it back! My instruction-writing training in college does me no favors in that I completely overthink how The User is going to react to my bulleted sequence of events. It’s not that I don’t trust NPW; I feel that I owe her explicit directions so that there is no confusion from any assumptions I have made. Once I am home, though, the crazy can stay in my own little head, rather than looming around, waiting for another project to organize into a bulleted list.
7 comments
I have the same problem, same reasons. The first time we went away and had a cat sitter, I left a 10-page note (handwritten, at least it wasn’t 10 pages typed!). I realized how crazy that looked, but I felt like I owed it to her to give a contingency plan for every possible situation. Here’s the vet’s number in case they get sick, the cat carrier is here, if Madison zips out the door he always goes to this one spot in the alley, here’s the key to the alley gate.
It does end up looking very Crazy Cat Lady, but I feel better knowing that if something happens the poor petsitter won’t go nuts trying to figure out how to open the alley gate or find the cat carrier.
I probably would have done something similar; I know I do the same thing all the time at work (but some of our authors really NEED all those details, trust me!)
I can’t wait to see NPW’s comment on this post. I bet, though, being a librarian, she is just as enthusiastic about organization as you are and didn’t mind the detailed instructions a bit.
You crack me up! You are so cute worrying about your lengthy instructions. I’m sure NPW will appreciate all the help you gave her.
I’m interested to know how you can imbed the Flickr photos in your posts without making them public. I use the ‘Blog This’ feature in Flickr, but before it will send it to my blog, I have to make the picture public. Maybe you just paste the HTML code for the Flickr picture directly into your post, and then when it’s no longer private, the link will work? I post each picture individually, copy the HTML code, delete the picture post, and then paste the code into my post that will contain all of the pictures. Am I taking a really long way around things by doing that?
I fully support the blogzilla-ness.
I could use a little of that around my parts… my blogging and blog friends have been sadly neglected of late!
Hope your trip is / was super relaxing.
Ha, I was about to leave a comment in the same vein as OPH - my dogsitter lists are LEGENDARY. What do your lists for Ted’s care look like?
Somehow I totally thought someone was going to call me out just for hitting Publish on your posts, like they would know that I was phantom blog-sitting. Mission accomplished though, I managed to get everything updated without issue!
I actually very much enjoyed your instructions, the cut and paste links for the widgets were the best. Because I know html, but I would be worried it wouldn’t come out correctly and that I would somehow mess up your blog. Yay, me, not one screw-up!
You are not alone! I give very detailed instructions to people, not because I don’t trust them but because you don’t always know what details people will need. I always feel like a real meany when I give lists to my teaching assistant because the instructions are so detailed. She swears she loves it though!
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