Casa de Charlotte Della Luna

Wednesday!

It’s Getting to Know You Day on Creat A Connection and I am your joyful hostess! I’ve posted the questions for this week so please visit and participate, if you wish, or just enjoy reading the entries. Here are mine:

When did you begin your first blog and what inspired you to do so?

I started my first blog TravelingMermaid in November 2005 as a venue to talk about and interact with other New Orleanian bloggers in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. I just closed it last week and it chronicles my thoughts, feelings, frustrations, hopes, etc for NOLA and our lives here. At first it was my therapy for the 6 months post-K — my company did not return to NOLA after the storm and I was unemployed for those 6 months. It was very hard living in a crippled city then. Over time, it morphed into a forum to rant, rave, scream, hope, beg, etc for all the things this city and it’s people deserve. I just ran out of steam. So I moved on. But I still love NOLA, of course, and will still do all those things…..just not in the blogosphere.

Do you have more than one blog? Why? How are they different?

Well I described TM above.
This blog was actually begun when I decided to close TM last year because of the frustration and negative energy I was feeling with the NOLA blog. I vowed to never speak the K-word on Casa. Once I really got into Casa I realized it was a good outlet for my creative and curious side and it worked having the two separate blogs….they kinda balanced each other – kind of a yin/yang thing.

How would you characterize your blog?
Creative?
Political?
Informational?
Community-oriented?
Or something else?

Creative, informational, knowlege-seeking, curious…..it includes many subjects/things that interest me.

To paraphrase Oprah, what is “one thing you know for sure” about blogging?

That it’s ADDICTIVE!

Is it important to you to get feedback in terms of comments or pings? Why or why not?

Yes! If I wasn’t interested in interaction I’d have a private blog. Talking into a void is boring. Interaction and learning about my readers is tres’ interesting! I love comments….and you don’t have to agree with me, either.

What 3 blogs would you recommend to our readers and why?
(They don’t have to be blogs you read everyday and CAC is disqualified because everyone would, of course, put it on their list.)

Actually, I recommend any and all of the blogs over in my sidebar….that’s why they are there! It’s so hard to pick just three but I guess I have to since that’s what I asked for. Hee.

Miss Malaprop — “Indie finds for your uncommon life.”
This is a local New Orleans blog/website with an international flavor. It’s the most informative, entertaining and just plain cool site ever. You will find everything Indie including arts, crafts, clothes, handbags and stuff you’ve never even thought of, along with organic products, recycling ideas and recycled products, environmental causes and information…..the list goes on and on. I have no idea how Miss Mal finds all this information but I’m so happy she does!

Squandered Heritage — Another New Orleans blog that is a running documentary of the demolition or scheduled demolition of historic buildings post-Katrina and Federal Flood. Many homes of the New Orleans diaspora are included here….homes that have been in families for generations….families that, for various reasons beyond their control, are unable to come home. Imagine if you evacuated to another state, were unable to afford to come home or your home STILL had no city services (2 years later) making it impossible to renovate, and on top of that the city plans to demolish your home. (Sorry for the run-on sentence!) eh. I could go on and on. Just visit.

WillieBaronet — An art blog of very unique art….if you follow rrramone’s entries you will begin to see several “themes” to his drawings and a “message”. Of course, as with all art, the message I perceive may be different than the one you perceive. And both may be totally not what he’s getting at. That’s the great thing about art and poetry….you can always make it your own an no one can say you’re wrong! This blog is fun, rrramone is very interactive in the comments section and a really nice guy too.

So there ya go. That’s Charlotte the Blogger 101!