This post is part of the blogging fundamentals tutorial offered by WordPress. If you are a regular follower of my blog, you are probably not interested in this path. I will try to remember to title all related posts with Blogging Fundaments so you can recognize and skip them.

A few days ago, I wrote a great introduction of myself and why I am taking the introductory course again. But I live on an island in the Caribbean, and we have power issues that do crazy things to computers and other electronics. We’ve been having daily power failures for a month now, with no sign of relief. Since the major–make that only–industry here is tourism, and we are in the middle of “low season,” the hotels are having fits because they need to constantly use their backup generators. The generators run on gas. If Californians think their gas prices are high, they should move here and fill up their tanks a couple of times. There’s nothing like paying $90 for an average tank of gas to make $5 or $6 a gallon seem reasonable. The hotels might get a break, but it’s expensive to run those generators, especially when the establishment is running well short of full capacity.  To make a long story short, the power went out, internet service (generally iffy at best) went down, and I lost my post. I’m not sure why it didn’t get saved in my WordPress draft folder, but I have learned that many things done on an Apple product don’t function as expected by Windows users.

Enough with excuses. I’m here because I need to refresh my blogging skills. It has been well over a year since I took this course the last time. At that point, it was more like a traditional online class setup, with a hundred people starting on the same day and apologizing for being behind before the third day assignments come out. Working independently gives me no one to need to apologize to except myself. And I don’t accept my apologies.

The reason that I’m starting with the fundamentals class is because I am not sure I  have mastered them. Best to review old material and find something new than to move too far ahead under the assumption I already know this stuff. Maybe, maybe not. So here I am.

Anything you want to know about me can be found in my About page–probably. I am a former teacher and university educator; I worked in computers back when mainframes were the standard; I retired a few months ago; and I am taking art lessons in my spare time even though I have no talent. Perhaps the only thing I haven’t added recently is that I have taken up Zentangle art. Originally, I started  because it was supposed to be relaxing and tension-relieving. There’s a meditation aspect to the Zentangle philosophy, but I learned quickly that I should stick to the art form of it, as I lack the patience and discipline to meditate. I’ve been blogging about the new patterns I am learning using the book called One Zentangle a Day. I have actually picked up several new followers with the Zentangle posts. Many are professional artists, photographers, writers, poets, or just plain doodlers like me. Other readers have been following me for as long as I have been following them–also a mix of professional and amateur writers and photographers whom I “met” during blogging, writing, and photography classes here at Bloggers U.  Reading their posts helps me pick up a lot of ideas for my amateur work, and I am very grateful for their patience with a little old lady whose hand tremors show up vividly in her artistic endeavors.

Happy blogging!