I'm back! And two new sites....

I was reminded yesterday of a truth which tends to slip out of my awareness: after I have overextended myself, as I did at the end of March, I tend to become severely withdrawn, like a turtle that's been poked. The more drained I allow myself to become, the longer it takes to begin tentatively poking my head out, seeing whether it's safe to emerge.

But, I'm on my way back.

While I was holed up in my cave this month I actually got quite a bit done. With the help of a friend my laundry is current. My kitchen is clean, my personal albums have their own shelf and my product display is updated. I've set up an improved filing system for my mystery shopping reports and medical receipts, referrals, etc., which had overwhelmed my original system.

I've been decluttering and freecycling, with more pickups due tomorrow. With the laundry done I'm ready to begin a Closet Purge. (Missus Smarty Pants)

I even tackled the back bathroom. I didn't have the patience to wait three weeks to see whether the Automatic Shower Cleaner could actually deal with the crud that was left from the plumbing disaster; within a couple of days after cleaning out the shower and bathroom I was down on my hands and knees, scrubbing.

I've also been cooking more. I even resumed baking my own bread!

What I actually logged on to share, however, is that I finally have web sites up and running for my writing on two different topics.

Whole Foods for Health and This I Believe are both communities hosted on yuku.com. I chose that site because it is designed to support entire interactive communities, rather than simply blogging with comments. I can group the topics within each community into categories. I can specify differing levels of access for different groups of viewers.

Yuku used to be ezboard; when it was, it was easy. Once they migrated to Yuku, which was supposedly an improvement, I completely lost my ability to control the structure and appearance of my sites. I would check in every now and then, waste a lot of time trying to figure out what I was doing wrong, then give up and leave again. I really wanted to get the sites up and running, but it was like beating my head on a brick wall.

Now it works! I don't know whether they changed, or I changed, but now everything makes sense, I'm able to add, delete and move forums, control access, control the appearance...everything I expected to be able to do when I joined several years ago! There are still some features that I need to spend time mastering, but I know where the controls are, and where to seek help.

Whole Foods for Health is a site where I can share what I've learned about the relationship between diet and health, diet and illness, diet and premature death. I can gather the resources I find most useful, share my recipes and meal planning tips and solicit suggestions from others. It will be a single site to which I can refer people who ask my help. It will also be where I solicit feedback on the books I am writing and have outlined.

This I Believe was supposed to be called Works in Progress, but that URL was taken. It's a place for me to publish my talks, essays and other commentary related to my faith and beliefs. Some of this material has been in my head for decades, or on my various computers, notes tucked in my scriptures, lists in the back of my Bible,....

I believe that having a home for these writings will help me to take the time to get them out of my head and into the light of day.

I use a different username on yuku than I do on all my other social / blogging sites. You'll be able to find my sites by using these links; people who discover my writings on yuku will not necessarily find their way here.