It’s Monday, which means most of us probably ask and get asked the “how was your weekend? question a lot.

Short answer: good.

Long answer:

I enjoyed a great weekend in and around Waterloo. It was sunny and warm, which meant I spent most of the weekend outside. I harvested a large colander full of cherry tomatoes from our veggie garden. We shared a meal with friends and saw Canadian musician Danny Michel perform at Bestival (the outdoor festival in Belmont Village). I enjoyed a long walk around Waterloo Park and watched the world go by as I sat on our beach (a small plot of sandy area overlooking the pond, which some people call a lake). I took my car through the car wash and then drove out to Stratford for lunch and shopping with a friend. I bought a ridiculous, amusing, and large octopus Jellycat that I will now consider an art feature / talking piece in our home.

And chores. There are always chores like laundry that get done on weekends. But noone likes to talk about that!

I’m glad I kept White Cabana alive even if I haven’t posted in two years. During this time, I have regularly shared links to old blog posts with friends (mostly for travel ideas). Each time I shared a link, I was able to have a little walk down memory lane, which made me smile.

And smiling is good.

Yesterday, I read through pages of my old blog posts. And you know what?

I really really really like White Cabana.

I have shared some beautiful spaces and objects over the years. I have shared some personal stories, too. I have shared so many travel photos. To my surprise, I still like just about all that I have shared. I was surprised to discover this actually. Even though a lot has changed in two years, there’s plenty that hasn’t.

I still dress in black and white.

I still use this Bentgo lunch box.

I still have an organized pantry in an antique French armoire.

I am still crocheting this blanket. Sigh.

I still would love a black and white striped sofa.

I still love doing the Globe and Mail crossword puzzle on Saturday mornings.

I still get this jumbo calendar each fall.

And I am still looking for the best kitchen garbage set-up. Help?

Reading years worth of my writing was interesting. It was interesting to observe the evolution of my writing and my blog. I clearly remember writing some posts, and I have no memories of others. I guess that’s natural.

Perhaps in two more years, I’ll be reading this blog post, remembering this time when I felt compelled to write.

When I pressed publish on yesterday’s blog post, it felt like when I first published a blog post back in, gosh, when was it? 2008? 2010? Will any read it? Do people still get updates in their inboxes?

And then I thought, cool. I wrote a blog post like in the good ol’ days of blogging. Before SEO. Before content creators and influencers. Before ads, sponsorship, and affiliates. Cool.

And once I published the post, I clicked around the back-end of WordPress. The first thing I noticed was the SEO analysis. According to this new-to-me feature, I did so many things “wrong” in yesterday’s blog post. No focus keyphrase! Missing social markup! What the what?

Things have changed in the blogosphere. I should have known.

I also spent a bit of time looking at the front-end of my blog. Meh. I need to clean it up. I re-learned how to customize widgets (like the things you see on the top/side/bottom of the page around the main middle area). Goodbye blogroll. Goodbye dated announcements. I was unsuccessful at deleting the Google ads. I’m working on it.

I need a fresh place to write.

I need to learn and relearn about this platform. I have lost touch with the “rules” of blogging, and I’m finding that the blogs that I do read are harder to navigate. There’s just so much stuff and pop-ups and banners. Many online spaces are just. so. cluttered.

I like white space. Even if WordPress or Google tell me I’m wrong.

After two years, I felt the urge to write a new blog post.

Getting here wasn’t as simple as I had thought this morning at 7am when I opened my computer. Why? Because I completely forgot how to log in. Over the last two years, I’ve gotten a new computer, set up countless new accounts and passwords, and packed away all my blog-related notes. Since I stopped blogging in October 2022, I’ve kept my site alive, but I wasn’t sure I’d ever want to actually revive White Cabana. Am I even reviving it today? To be determined.

This morning, I just felt like writing.

So, with no passwords or notes in hand, I was basically stuck at the login page. Luckily, my hosting company is (and has always been) very helpful, so I reached out, and voilà here I am.

Hello, world.

What did I even want to write about this morning? Gosh, who even remembers! I’ve been at my computer for many hours now…writing…writing emails, writing an academic article, writing texts, writing a PowerPoint…writing. But not writing a blog post.

I am happy to have successfully logged in, happy to have reviewed comments that have been sitting unread for years, and happy to have updated all my plugins as well as the latest version of WordPress (I missed many updates). I’m writing. I’m writing a blog post about nothing. Didn’t Seinfeld have an episode about a show about nothing? This is what this blog posts feels like it is. A blog post about nothing.

But I’m here. And I’m writing. And I’m thinking about White Cabana.

I might even write something else tomorrow. Or the day after.

At least I now know my login.