Five Things Friday: just five things I’m thinking about or things that made my week, or things that I otherwise feel like sharing.
Let’s see – what has happened since Tuesday’s Morning Coffee Chat? I have a couple of posts in the pipeline but I am not ready to hit publish on them yet. In the meantime, I seem to be able to put together these quick check-ins to at least catch you up on my life in bullet points. One of these days, this will change again.
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ICYMI, Meike (one of our beloved NaBloPoMo participants) has posted again for the first time in a while. I am mentioning this so you can hop over to her blog and show her some love and encourage her to connect more often again. But I also mention it because I can very much relate to what she wrote in this first post in a long time: “I feel like I am constantly trying to figure out how to balance it all. […] Every new school year for the kids, it’s new schedules combined with my work and the general life stuff (like shopping, cleaning the house, laundry, garden, taking care of my health and my kids, everything).“
Well, I don’t have kids and my day-to-day is a little different, but I often feel the same way about managing my time and juggling responsibilities. This leads me to the next point…
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Will I ever be able to stay on top of my Feedly reader? I don’t know. Every time I am caught up with all the blogs, it only takes a few days of ‘busy’ or a weekend trip, and boom, I am hopelessly behind again. I need your tips and tricks, friends. How do you stay on top? Or don’t you? How many blogs are in your reader list? What’s your strategy? I already have a “favorites” list which I usually catch up on first. I subscribe to a lot of blogs but not all of them are part of our amazing Cool Bloggers community (you know who you are), so I don’t feel quite as guilty if I glimpse over the postings that I missed.
At least my posts (seem to) show up again promptly. I hope that’s true for everyone else. We’ll see for how long.
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Random tidbit from this week: I found my favorite Champion High Impact Sports Bra (and yes, this is Ally Love, the Peloton instructor, repping for Champion @ Kohls. Haha.) at the outlets last weekend for $15. If you also struggle to find well-fitting, supportive (sports) bras and usually drop a pretty penny for them, you know what a huge deal this is. The color choices weren’t great, but I now regret that I didn’t buy two.
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Are you going to watch the Olympics? I am not super-invested yet but I know I will tune in.
Have a great weekend, friends!
Lisa's Yarns
July 26, 2024 at 12:16 pmYay for finding a sports bra you love at a great price. I miss the champion sports bras that used to be sold at Target. They did not have cup liners which is why I liked them. I HATE REMOVABLE CUP LINERS. They are a pain to stuff back in after you wash them. I bought some new liner-free bras at Target that are ‘just ok’.
I am excited about the olympics but I don’t get REALLY excited until I start to watch the coverage.
I am not sure how many blogs I read. It is hard to keep up. I do a lot of reading/commenting on my phone which is a pain but then I can do it when I’m monitoring the boys or something kind of mindless like that.
San
July 26, 2024 at 2:38 pmI think when I bought this Champion Sports Bra (the one I linked) for the first time, I got it at Target. It does not have cup liners or removable cups. That’s why I liked it, too. Maybe this is one that would work for you as well.
Tobia | craftaliciousme
July 26, 2024 at 1:34 pmI love the Olympics but I was called to work the weekend at a trade fair so I missed the opening ceremony and then will miss some of the first meets. But I am hoping to see a few in the upcoming weeks. For one of my clients I have to do Olympic themed posts so I get to check in during working hours. Yeah me.
I don’t stay on top of the feeds.y I have a couple lists
– favorites
– NabloPoMo
– check out 2024 -> when there happens to be a blog I love and don’t want to miss it moves to favorites
– google blogs… because commenting those is a struggle for me as I can’t do it in my standard browser.
– a ton of lists on topics, business etc which I rarely look at.
so no, I have no system. I am just trying to play catch up.
San
July 26, 2024 at 2:38 pmThank you for explaining your system – I have different categories like that, too. I think I am just subscribed to too many blogs LOL
NGS
July 26, 2024 at 1:48 pmI think I don’t worry about catching every single blog as everyone else does. If I have a busy few days and my reader is exploding and it stresses me out, I click mark as read and move on. I don’t need my fun hobby to stress me out! If I’m reading a post from one of my favorite bloggers and they refer to something and I can’t figure out what went down, I’ll read what I missed. I have to keep blogging fun and not weighing me down.
San
July 26, 2024 at 2:39 pmWell, I don’t really “worry” about it… I am just sad when I can’t keep up with my favorite blog friends (because I love reading from them ;)).
Birchie
July 26, 2024 at 2:16 pmWhat Engie said! Blogging is supposed to be fun and not stressful. I’m pretty sure that I read everything but I can’t always comment – I do my best and hope that everyone understands. On the flip side, I’m very flattered that people take the time to leave me comments, but I’m not taking attendance and I’m not going to notice if someone skips. For the writing side, I have a ton of things that I could be writing about, but right now my schedule isn’t playing nice so I can’t blog as much as I want to. It is what it is!
San
July 26, 2024 at 2:40 pmOh for sure, blogging should be fun. It’s not really stressful, I just like to connect with everyone and when life gets in the way, it makes me sad because I feel like I am missing important things. ;)
coco
July 26, 2024 at 2:33 pmWe just watched sprint documentary and now the girls are invested to watch the olympics track and field races!
Feedly is showing up your post, finally!!!
San
July 26, 2024 at 2:40 pmOh, that’s exciting to watch with your girls! And thank you – I am so happy that Feedly is working right now.
Elisabeth
July 26, 2024 at 4:16 pmYes! Your blog is showing up in Feedly quickly (mine seems to be delayed by up to 24 hours now…??!!).
I follow about 35 blogs, but a few of those people rarely post. I’d say I read about 15 posts a day, mostly on my phone. I mark the ones I want to return to and comment on by adding them to my Read Later list (that’s exactly what I did with your post; I read it during a commercial break in the opening ceremonies and am just coming back now, hours later).
I USED to comment on almost every post I read; now it’s more like 65-70%? Like Birchie I tend to read every post from the blogs I follow, but I don’t feel like I can or should/need to comment on every single post. There are certain bloggers where I almost always leave a comment, but when I’m on vacation or having a really busy week, I just read posts and don’t comment at all (or very rarely)!
It’s a fine balance because commenting really does make the blogging community – at least our core group – so much closer and stronger. So it is important to me to weigh in. But, as NGS said, it’s a fun hobby so we want to keep it fun!
You have a super busy work and exercise schedule, so it makes sense it’s hard to stay on top of a big list of blogs! I’d say…either whittle down the blogs you follow or if that sounds too harsh and unpleasant just commit to reading the most recent blog post from everyone and then marking all the other ones they post as read? Maybe then it would feel like daunting when you “get behind?”
Suzanne
July 27, 2024 at 6:45 am$15 sports bra! That is an amazing price, especially if you already know you love that particular make/model!
I am terrible at staying on top of blog posts. It stinks because I LOVE our Cool Bloggers group and I adore everyone’s posts and reading what people are thinking about and the thoughtful and funny things people have to say, plus I want to be a supportive blog friend. But there is just not enough time! I also have a really bad habit of reading posts on my phone in bed — but I can’t comment on blogs from my phone for a bunch of boring reasons, so then I feel like I can mentally “check them off” when I haven’t completed the interactive part of the blog reading! Ugh! Anyway, you are not alone.
Ernie
July 27, 2024 at 3:34 pmI just updated my blog feed and added new blogs I follow since NaPoBloMo and that has helped me stay on top of blogs more consistently. But, there are only so many hours in a day.
My first sports bra was/is by Champion. It has no annoying bra cup inserts and even though it is terribly discolored and practically an antique I still wear it.
Melissa
July 28, 2024 at 4:53 amI know what you mean about getting behind with blog posts. I currently have 85 unread posts in my Feedly because I’ve had some migraines and a busy week. I will probably end up scanning through to pick out any that particularly catch my interest, then hit read all. Realistically, I know I can’t comment on every post, but there’s a few that I comment frequently on and try to spread my comments around.
I need to just find a good sports bra that fits well, we don’t get as many different styles over here.
Grateful Kae
July 28, 2024 at 8:09 amI feel like we’ve chatted about this before, but I do struggle with keeping up with blog posts, too! When I first started blogging, I really only followed a couple of blogs. I started with SHU and really only read hers for a long time. So I would just go to her URL every morning and read her (usually) daily post and that was it. Easy! But then I connected with Lisa, and started doing the same thing. From there, I ended up branching out to a bunch of other bloggers….enter Feedly, since clearly going to all the different sites was a mess…. Anyway, I have 15 blogs in my “Favorites” section in Feedly. And then I have 19 others in the lower “Blog” section. I feel like the 15 Favorites is not too unmanageable in theory, but if I miss even a day or two, then they compile and it gets hard. Also, I REALLY don’t like commenting from my phone. Something about filling out that little form with my email address etc feels like such a drag! I just enjoy the whole process much more on my laptop. But, I don’t really have specific “blog reading” time built into my day, exactly. I mean, it can take quite a while! Even if I have just 6-7 posts to read, if each one takes 3-5 minutes to read and comment, well, that can be upwards of 30 minutes. And that’s only counting 6-7 posts! Then I also try to carve out time for ME to blog, which is a whole other beast and I feel like I’ve been generally struggling to keep up there, too! So, I hear you! If I get really behind I will just mark “read all” on some, but I try not to because like you said, then I feel like I get out of the loop. My work has been more intense lately too, so I feel like compared to a couple of years ago, I don’t have as much downtime/ work day little breaks to pop in and out of blogs on my computer. I definitely haven’t been commenting on every post anymore, but I try to comment at least weekly or so to stay engaged with my friends and to make sure people know I’m still here reading and enjoying their content! Then for the rest, if I just read it on my phone and don’t comment, I don’t feel too bad.
Meike
July 28, 2024 at 1:09 pmThank you for the mention San! It definitely helps with the motivation if you know that others still read your musings. You are completely right – I don’t think kids or no kids makes a big difference. I often thought ” oh, I need to just finish this project and I will have more time again.” It almost never happens because before long the next project comes around.
J
July 28, 2024 at 4:06 pmI’m so old school regarding how I read blogs. I have a blogroll on the side of my blog, and I just click over. This works well when Feedly isn’t working, because I’ll still find the post. And if I’ve had a busy week, I don’t really worry about catching up. And to be honest, sometimes it’s not a busy week that gets in the way, it’s just me…sometimes I do other things instead of reading blogs. Like playing a dumb game on my iPad, reading a book, whatever. Since I don’t use Feedly, I don’t really have a big list of posts that I’ve missed. Just a nagging feeling in the back of my head. ;)
Congrats on the sports bra find, that’s a steal.
Stephany
July 28, 2024 at 7:50 pmI love the discussion happening in the comments section on this post! I have to say that utilizing Elisabeth’s “read later” trick has helped me immensely. I separate my blogs into “First,” “Second,” and “Third.” First are my non-negotiables – bloggers I have connected with and who comment frequently on my blog. I always try to read through those posts first before moving onto any other sections. Second are bloggers I’m either trying to connect with or people who comment infrequently on my posts so I don’t feel as if I need to read every single one of their posts. I click “mark all as read” often on that section, especially if I’m more than a week behind on posts. And the “Third” section are bloggers I just follow to read their posts, but I don’t comment so I can get very behind and it doesn’t bother me. I just read their posts when I can.
I don’t really have time carved out for reading blogs. It does help that I can now quickly scan posts on my phone or laptop and click “read later” so I don’t have to worry about commenting until I’m ready for it. As for commenting, I do try to carve out 15-20 minutes a day to go through the blogs I’ve tagged as Read Later and comment on the blogs. It doesn’t always happen, though.
Michelle G.
July 31, 2024 at 3:18 pmIt’s so easy to get behind on reading blogs! I guess I’ve been busy because I found myself really far behind today and felt a little overwhelmed. I don’t have a system, so it’s nice to read what others do. I wouldn’t expect people to comment on all of my blog posts, especially if I post often. The comments are fun, though!
Anne
August 9, 2024 at 1:51 pmSan, I am the Last Person On Earth who should comment on keeping up with blogs… Sigh. I’m worse than you are, by far.
One thing I am doing is saving posts I want to read – sometime – but that are not time-sensitive. Think Kae’s Hawaii daily posts, Daria’s daily Italy posts, other trip recaps, etc. I also skip some posts from people I love, if I know that I a) won’t comment and b) the content isn’t great for me (e.g., Engie’s reviews of SciFi, sorry…). That does kind of help?
Thanks for letting us know Meike is back. I hope she realizes that we read, no matter how frequently someone posts. (Although I am now worried I am Not A Cool Blogger… Sigh.