And so it begins...

Well, I'm off to my usual start but I declare this first post as a victory over my procrastinating past!

I recently promised some friends that I would set aside all of my considerations about doing a blog and just do it--just because I can. I got my primary inspiration to do this from my sister, who proposed it over a year ago, and my friend Nancy, who started her blog about 8 or 9 months ago. I've challenged myself to be as openly self-expressed as Nancy has been and not devolve into my usual "analysis paralysis" and stifling perfectionism that has kept me on the sidelines for much too long.

To give you an idea of how things typically go for me, here's how it went to get to this point:

1) coming from a commitment to being generous, I decide that blogging is the answer to my getting familiar with sharing whatever I have to share much more publicly;

2) promise my friends that, within 3 months (yes, that's right THREE MONTHS!), I'll have started blogging;

3) create a list of prerequisites to getting started (some reasonable, like researching sites, tools, and features; some not so reasonable, like finishing certain projects and chores first and, of course, staying overly involved with my job, even on my days off);

4) with just a week to go before my self-imposed deadline and being committed to honoring my word, I finally dive into getting things done;

5) last night, having indulged myself with two final distractions (creating yet another email account and setting up my Treo to synch with it), I stub out my blog page and get oh so close to that first post;

6) at 3 AM this morning, can't decide between a "first post title" of "And so it begins..." (the winner) and "Hello world!" (which comes from my computer programming experience);

7) about an hour ago, it's bothering me that I don't recall where the phrase/quote "and so it begins" comes from and I decide that maybe it's lame to start off my "self-expression" project by just repeating something that someone else said, so I'm off Googling for references to it; and

8) I realize that I'm still just stalling AND it's inconsequential AND between the two titles I've thought of "Hello world!" is as bad as it gets AND someone else (Living Photoshop blog) used the exact title to start his blog BUT it looks good--so I'm stealing it!

So here it is! Step one complete. Now I'll be getting on with making your future visits worthwhile.

Hmmm, about that posting a picture issue ...