Saturday, September 24, 2011

What I've Learned: I Like Shopping More Than Blogging

My year of shopping only in New Westminster is winding down, so I've started reflecting on what I've learned and discovered over the year. Instead of writing one big long post at the end of the month, I've decided to do a few (so far just two!) posts throughout the month.

I like shopping more than blogging. Regular readers of this blog (fingers crossed I haven't lost everyone completely) will have noticed my blog entries have tailed off quite a bit. There's all kinds of reasons for that; mostly, life is busy.

As I've told various people, I didn't find it hard to stick to shopping only in New Westminster. It's true there has been some, ahem, slippage, in my faithfulness to New West as my year winds down. I'll confess: I bought a dress in Dawson Creek while I was on vacation in August. I'm actually leaving on a trip in a few hours, a repositioning cruise to San Francisco. I think the chances of me leaving San Francisco without making a purchase or two are low. Very low.

Still, I feel I've been relatively successful in my local shopping mission. I feel less successful at blogging about it.  Now that my year is almost up, people have been asking me what's next? Despite my inconsistency with the blog, I don't think I want to abandon it entirely. There are so many exciting things going on right now in New West. The River Market is filling up with new tenants. The first building in the Brewery District in Sapperton is now almost complete. Ground has been broken on the new civic centre downtown.

I have some ideas about what to do with the blog, including doing mini-features on local businesses that gauge "How Local are They?" But I'm curious to know what readers of the blog think. Is it worth it to keep the blog in one form or another? What would you like to see?