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Career Moves, Podcast Inspiration, and a Blog Check-In
All right, so I just listened to the Brown Ambition podcast, episode 585: How to Start & Monetize a Blog in 2025 ft. Jannese Torres [BROWN AMBITION] Let me tell you, life has been lifing. I haven’t posted on this blog in a while, but that episode really motivated me to do something.
I can’t promise I’ll be consistent—I probably won’t—but I had to at least start. I’m currently navigating a career transition, and that’s been taking up a lot of my time and mental energy. As of this writing, it is September 2025 and if you know anything about this period, it has been one of the worst job markets in awhile. So, that’s what I’m dealing with. Still, I wanted to check in.
We’ll see where this goes. That’s it for now.
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Pulled a Paper: Daily Update
I’ve taken some time off from working on the blog as I was working on something very important work related. I’m back at it now though.
Sort of. I pulled up a paper to read pertaining to the next section of my blog post. I haven’t read it yet, but it seems useful. You have to start somewhere.
Originally written on 8/29/2023
Photo by Lukas
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Choosing a Logo: Daily Update
I don’t like to rush things, but I think it’s more important for me to publish OddExample sooner rather than later. With that said, I’ve been working on logo ideas for Odd Example for a couple of days. I doubt it will matter all that much in the long term. Would you hate me if changed the logo around a few times? I just need to get it going.
Other than that, I started reading another research article and have made some notes about that.
I have also found how to add free themes to my site, the other one, rather than stressing about Bluehost’s Site Builder. How do I choose which one though? Now, I’ve been googling best free WordPress themes for XYZ. Next, I might google how to choose a theme. I don’t want to be bogged down with this though.
Originally written on 8/4/2022
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Choosing a Theme: Daily Update
Looked for courses on designing your blog on LinkedIn Learning. There was a lot to sort through. What I did come across was a reminder that I could find themes to purchase rather than building it on my own.
WordPress.org does not have free themes though, apparently. So, now there are a plethora of themes to choose from and I’m not sure which one I like best and would be willing to pay for.
I reminded myself to go look at other sites I think would be similar or ones that I like to get a feel for what their designs are. Not sure how I will be able to search for those types of themes on WordPress, but it’s a start, I guess.
P.S. I don’t remember if I made a note of this, but I started mapping this domain to WordPress. I should be publishing soon. I also found a blog that I might really enjoy, fs.blog
Originally written on 8/1/2022
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Domain Name Purchased: Daily Update
Solved my login problem.
Purchased the domain name for the blogging site and wordpress plan. Can’t transfer info yet though
Originally written on 7/27/2022
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Logging In and Unpacking: Daily Update
I still haven’t straightened out the login issue with Bluehost.
I was dog-tired yesterday and couldn’t do a thing.
I read the results section of a highly cited journal that I started Monday. There’s a lot to unpack, but it’s a good read. I need to get access back to my website though.
Originally written on 7/13/2022
Photo by Miguel Á. Padriñán
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Coaches and Friends: Daily Update
I talked to someone about the name of the blog, this blog’s name last week and they said to change it. They said it was too on the nose and they don’t like blog names with “learn” in them or the like. I came up with another name that felt good, PrimeExamples.com. This other person threw out evenexamples.com and oddexample.com. I think I’m leaning toward either PrimeExamples.com or oddexample.com.
The original name of the blog was tolearnalot.com
I tried logging into my website hosting service, but I couldn’t, so, it looks like I’ll be contacting that company.
I had a conversation last week with a career coach about the blog and we talked about setting up a good design for the site. My plan for today was to go back into the site and work on that for a bit because I haven’t for awhile. I guess that will have to wait.
Alternatively, I started reading a new research paper, one that is highly cited and seems pretty relevant to the blog’s topic. I got through the introduction and discussion pretty quickly. So I’ll go over the entire paper tomorrow and really comb through it. Thus far, I think I’m seeing a consistent pattern in the research and I will probably move on to the next level soon. Say, if I am examining a question at one layer, I think I may have a decent grasp of the top layer and will progress to the next one below soon enough.
Originally written on 7/11/2022
Photo by Alex Green
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Daily Update-Fatal Error
Decided to look up a tutorial on how to navigate my site’s host website and my host site.
Started to follow along with the video, but from the very beginning, I ran into an issue. I could no longer see a preview of my site. Now, I get an error message. It’s almost as if I’m starting over. I probably won’t learn what happened, but will just have to start over. I was thinking about letting it go, because I didn’t get too far, but maybe I should contact someone in case it happens again.
What happened to my site?
In the meantime, I’m looking at new themes for my site and listing a couple that I thought looked good here in case my work gets erased and I have to start from scratch again.
Themes
Blogpaper
Moina Grid
Photo by Polina Zimmerman
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Life be Lifing
One day most of these posts won’t be about how I start and stop working on my blog. One thing’s for certain, I’m still trudging along. I actually have a relatively big update about the blog, but I want to release some of the old updates that have been sitting in the drafts folder for awhile first.
I’m still working people and I hope you are too!
Photo by Yan Krukau
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What’s the target audience? Daily Update
What did I come up with recently? I said that I would want the tone of the blog to be casual and the target audience would be college educated, but not have studied the field. I may even pull it back a little bit.
The first post on the blog is probably going to sound a little bit more academic than I’m ultimately striving for, but it’s better to get it out and LAUNCH THE BLOG than to sit on it for however long trying to perfect it.
Until I hit publish, I decided to add some images to the post. I’ll finish that, clean up the end of the post, then it should be in good shape to make any minor tweaks before publishing.
Growing an Art Instagram Page
I think I mentioned an Instagram page I started as a way to share some of the AI Generated images I’ve created. I’ve been slowly posting on there and getting a handful of followers here and there. It’s been fun to watch it grow, I only have…oh wow. The last I remembered I had something like 22 followers, now I have 44. As fun as it is, I can’t let it be a distraction from my 8-5 and this blog I’m trying to launch AND build.
If this Instagram page and brand grows to something that I could get a few coins from though, I will probably take advantage of that opportunity. For now, it’s just fun to share.
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay.
Odd Example 