I Must Be Insane

I recently found out about a site - Blurb.com - that automatically slurps (uploads) your entire blog so you can save it as a book. I have now slurped my blog and I am in the process of putting together my book. There are lots of options for page layouts, colors, pictures, graphics, etc., so there is a lot of opportunity to customize your book. I decided to do one book for July 2006 (the beginning of my blogging) through December 31, 2007 (Volume I) and then do a separate book for each year thereafter. I started working on Volume I this week. The only bummer about this program is that it does not upload your comments and I've received so many wonderful, supportive, and entertaining comments that I want to save. I'm having to go through each blog entry and copy the comments and then paste them into a new page in my book.

My point ---> like I have TIME for this project?! I've been up until 1am the last few nights working on the book and I'm only into the first week of comments. I typically get to bed around midnight but I've now extended my late night/early morning project time another hour by adding this to my list of things to do. I must be insane! I really need to set a limit on how much time I'm allowed to work on this each night or I'll be incapacitated from lack of sleep very soon.

Another idea I have is putting together a book of all my email correspondence with Jack's doctors over the last nine years (amounting to hundreds of emails). It's interesting for me to see my emotional progression as it relates to the questions I ask Jack's docs, what I want from Jack's docs, what I want from Jack and how I've related my frustrations to them through the years. One of Jack's docs recently told me "you have mellowed beyond description in many ways". (he calls it mellowing, I call it throwing up my hands and saying "I give".) I think it would be really neat to publish a book and call it something like "Conversations with a Doctor". I'd use different names and alter the emails some to protect the innocent and, of course, I'd have to get everyone's permission first.

Wait a minute, am I talking about yet ANOTHER project?

Actually, I'll probably just start transferring the text of the emails to a book, but won't likely consider publishing anything until . . . well, until the story is over. (and let's hope that's very far off in the future.)

For those of you with blogs, I highly encourage you to preserve your writings in some type of book to give you something tangible to look back on. And, don't wait two years into your blogging to get started like I did unless you have lots of extra time on your hands.

It's now rounding 11:30pm and I've got emails to answer and an appeal to Aetna to work on and I'm only giving myself until midnight or else... I'll turn into a pumpkin ... or something like that.

Peace my friends.