Following the Sun

Okay, I am clearly enamored by my sunflowers (this is currently the only one fully open but other buds started to open today).  I even went out last night to take pictures of it, but I won't bore you with the results, as I've long forgotten how to do correct manual settings for night lighting.


They are so majestic.  So grand.  The stalks are big (the tallest is 10 feet!) and the bloom is bigger than my face.  There are constantly all sorts of huge insects hovering over it, and it even has a good night-life.  Last night I saw a praying mantis on one of the leaves.


My sunflowers don't turn towards the sun like they're supposed to.  They just hang down like a shower head.  Mr. Welcome speculated that perhaps they need to be pollinated first before they start following the sun like all good sunflowers are supposed to do.  I just think they're too heavy and can't be bothered. We'll see what happens with the other blooms.


I've been feeling insecure about my blog lately.  I hope someone out there can relate to me.  I don't know if it's summertime and everyone is away (and not sitting home like me reading blogs), but I don't often get comments these days.


I have some blog friends who really just write for their own sake (or children's sake) and if someone out there also happens to enjoy what they wrote, well ... tant mieux (all the better).  If not, they have still pleased themselves.  Earlier on, I said that I had my sights set on fame and fortune for my blog and had no interest in reading anything that wasn't meant to entertain.  Humor aside, even the gist of it wasn't entirely true.  Now that I've sort of figured out the spectrum of possible blogs, I find I do like to read the daily lives of people - friends or strangers I've come to know, because it's their lives. 


Mr. Welcome said right from the beginning to simply write consistently, and consistently well and that the rest would follow.  It's true that I do love writing just for its own sake.  Being the domestic natural disaster that I am, I do not get the same satisfaction in having maintained a well-ordered kitchen as I do in having written a well-ordered post.  There's something about that post that's just so perfect, each little string tied up into a big bow at the end, that gives me a thrill like nothing else.  And if someone lets me know they appreciate it, well tant mieux!   So I suppose my blog is principally for my own satisfaction as a writer, a depicter of life as I see it.


But I do wonder (sorry, shaking my head here at my own ego - bear with me please) when I'm not on someone's sidebar or when someone doesn't follow me whose posts I comment on religiously, why that is.  And I start to think, perhaps I turn people away by my humor hidden in my ego (or my ego disguised in my humor).  Perhaps I don't follow people quickly enough myself.  Perhaps I don't invite guests or give anything away, invite comments or have anything that makes me interesting to turn back to.  Living in France, it's not easy to get to all these english-speaking blog conferences, but perhaps I should be less of a SAHB (stay-at-home blogger) and more of a networked-blogger.  


I wonder if I'm the sunflower that follows the sun or the one that just stares down at herself.


In any case, I think it would be difficult for me to follow too many people and leave too many comments or guest-post too much, even if it gets me a lot of exposure.  I guess I'd rather follow a few and make it count.  So I may be more of a fly-under-the-radar blogger than I thought when I set out.  However, that said and done ... I would be grateful if you had suggestions for me - you don't need to feed my already deplorable ego (grin), but if you had an idea of something that might make my blog more perfectly welcoming, do let me know.


And thanks so much for reading me.