Time for a change...

Three years ago today I started my first blog.

It was a way to share all the jokes emailed to me without bombarding my friends with zillions of nonsense email. I just put the word out and if they wanted to see that day's joke, they could. I also started to save fun websites that were accessible from my day job du jour in a call center. My co-workers visited my blog to find an interesting site to help pass the time during lag times between calls.

Since then, this simple blog turned into a portfolio of 18. Not all are public - in fact most are not - and I use them as my own sandbox to experiment, learn HTML, park future blog posts, etc. I keep them separate so I can work on the HTML of one while experimenting with some gadget in another. It's been a lot of fun and I have learned tons.

This blog, "The Adventures of Pam & Frank" is an extension of a series of emails I sent out in the late 1990's to keep friends informed on our hilarious adventures as DIY home-fixer-uppers. (They really were hilarious.) "The Adventures" emails later evolved to share funny parenting stories and to let everyone in our lives know what was happening with a job search which started in 2001, eventually landed us out here in Oregon in late 2002.

Since then, "The Adventures" has been an exploration, and often travelogue, of life in Oregon written for the folks back home. There have been posts in here about crafty and business stuff, social experiments (giveaways and blog parties) and lots of food.

But no real focus.

And other than my mom, no regular readers. Which doesn't really bother me, but why am I blogging when I can email her? Maybe on the off chance that my real life friends will read this? Maybe a few of my foodie friends in the call center.

I guess it's time to change the focus of this blog. It's been fun, and I don't want to kill it, but like my most hated cliche "Something for Everyone" my blog was all over the place and lacked focus. (I really do hate that cliche. Nobody has something for everyone. It's impossible.)

With the events of this past summer, I also have been struggling to find something to do. I'm not quitting my day job, but I am looking for something that I really enjoy doing that could lead to a new career. So I started contemplating what I am really good at, what I like doing, and what I have a lot of experience with.

Here's a rough list of random things that I like to do or have a lot of experience with:

Being funny
Write stuff
City driving
Baking cookies and desserts
Folding laundry
Eating ice cream
Living frugally
Blogging
Marketing (as in business and advertising stuff, not shopping at the grocery store. Although I have a lot of experience with that, too.)
Photography
Crafty stuff
Sewing
Managing curly hair
Watching tv
Salem & Portland

I decided to start with the thing I like the most and the thing I think the most about: Marketing.
Oh wait, I've already got a blog about that.

Next on the list - what do I have the most experience with? I hate to say it, but Living Frugally is at the top of the list. I wish I didn't need to know how to do it, but I do.

(This is the part where the little lightbulb goes off. Can you see the glow?)

I have already decided to change the focus of this blog from random stuff to... something, so why not blog about frugal-ness for a while and see how that works out? If I don't like it, I give myself permission to change once again.

You're already asking, why not blog about food? Eh, I read more about food in blogs than I write about here. If you want to read a food blog, you can start with Frank's blog. It's pretty good.

Oh - last thing. I know this is "The Adventures of Pam & Frank," and it will still be, even though I'm the only one writing the darn thing. As long as we are still alive it will continue to be an adventure.

So onward. From today forward, this will be a blog about Frugal Nesting. (Do you like that? Nesting is a joke on our last name.)  I think Frugal Nesting fits so much better than simply "frugal living." Frugal Living to me makes me think of something like a bowl of plain oatmeal that was bought in the bulk section of the grocery store but Frugal Nesting makes me think of a bowl of oatmeal topped with a little bit of leftover yogurt, some sliced apples from the tree in the back yard, drizzled with honey that you got from a neighbor for watching their cats while they were out of town, and eaten for brunch with the family while playing a game of cards.

Good?
Good.