But I realized today that this blog’s title and much of what I write about don’t overlap. They could overlap if I only made the connection. So I’m going to turn over a new leaf in my blogging and start documenting my foolish moments. Surely, I’ll have at least one every day, right? Because seriously, I’m a nut case.

If anyone knows of a WordPress plugin or a piece of code that would allow my readers to vote Brilliantly Creative or Gigantic Idiot on my blog posts, please let me know. Wouldn’t that be fun for you?

Doh! Is it a good or bad sign that I’m already stuck on my homework, and it’s merely the first day of class? Regardless of the answer, I’m going to hammer this thing out. My first method of attack is revisiting the Cynthia Heimel quote that was the impetus for this blog’s title:

When in doubt, make a fool of yourself. There is a microscopically thin line between being brilliantly creative and acting like the most gigantic idiot on earth. So what the hell, leap.

Frankly, I think this is a great start to an elevator pitch because it sums up my blog quite well. Yes, I do tend to make a fool of myself. Yes, some of what I write is brilliantly creative. Yes, some of what I write makes me look like a gigantic idiot. My audience determines where the microscopically thin line falls. I try to leap once a day, or at least several times a week. And I enjoy a little profanity with my coffee.

Darren’s ideas for writing an elevator pitch suggest that my blog should have a niche (i.e. solve a problem, meet a need, ask a question, etc.), but what do I do when the niche is me? I call upon Akhila Kolisetty who wrote Forget All the Rules and Write What You Love today at BrazenCareerist.com:

Just write for the hell of it. Write whatever comes into your mind at that moment. Hit publish whenever you want, even if it’s 3am and no one’s “listening.” Write what you love, what you care about and are most passionate about. And most importantly, be yourself. Don’t confine yourself to a “niche” or a “brand.” If you’re itching to write about something outside your brand, just do it. Stop worrying what others will think of you. Because people want to learn about and debate the issues, but also they want to get to know you – who you really are. So if you’re not yourself, and if you’re not writing what you love, you’re definitely not going to enjoy blogging or make the most of it. And what’s the point of spending so much time and effort on something that you don’t genuinely love?

Truly, this is what I do on AFOM. It’s just that I love writing. Gloria Steinem said it best when she said, “Writing is the only thing that, when I do it, I don’t feel I should be doing something else.” Sometimes my love of writing manifests itself in loves for blogging or the latest movie or a good book or running or videos of kittens on YouTube, and my readers never know what they’re going to get. Regardless, writing is my cathardic out; it’s how I purge all-consuming musings, so I can make room for more thoughts. It’s how I make sense of myself and my world.

Here’s what I have so far:

Hi, I’m Sarah Jo. I write A Fool of Myself, a semi-personal blog that allows me to make a fool of myself on a semi-daily basis. Sometimes I’m brilliantly creative. Other times I’m a gigantic idiot. My readers determine where the microscopically thin line between the two falls. I write about what I love, and on any given day that can range from blogging to running, from good books to kittens.

I definitely like that I’ve used the foundation quote to shape the elevator pitch. I also like how I’ve given my readers the job of deciding where that thin line falls. I have an image of a Fool-of-Myself Meter at the bottom of each post that allows readers to rate the post as brilliantly creative or gigantic idiot. That would be hilarious.

Darren is correct, having this pitch written down gives me direction for my blog and will help me continue to shape it. I can already think of a few places I need to implement this pitch or some version of it. It’s definitely going to show up in this blog’s tagline and on the About page, and I’m thinking I’ll change the pure-genious category to brilliantly-creative and the w00t category to gigantic-idiot because that’s sort of how they’re already functioning. Thoughts anyone?

First of all, I’m incredibly boring. Maybe you read this blog and think I live a glamorous life, but let me tell you that most of what I do every day is not worth blogging about. Yes, I’m training for a triathlon, but I can only talk so much about that. Yes, I work for a church, but we all know there’s no titillating tidbits I can write about. Yes, I have two crazy cats , but I don’t want to be that girl all the time.

Second, it is summer. No, I’m not in school anymore, but we all know summer changes the rhythm of our lives for a few months. The only show worth watching on TV is So You Think You Can Dance , so I’ve drastically reduced my TV watching and picked up several books. You all know that I’m a huge reader, and this is the first time in a while that I’ve picked up a handful of books that I don’t want to put down. This spring, I did a lot of my blogging while watching the many TV shows I follow, so since I’m down to one, my blogging time has been cut.

That said, I’ll be reducing my blog posts a bit this summer. You’ll still get For-the-Love-of-Links Fridays , Saturday Spam Haiku , and triathlon training updates, and I’ll be reviewing all those books I’m reading. You can expect three or four posts a week from me for the next few months until fall TV comes back on and I’m blogging in the evenings again.

Chris thinks that using SarahJoAustin.com as the name of my blog is boring. He thinks A Fool of Myself is more quirky–more like me. I’ll be changing up the color scheme and images in the next week or so, and as Chris works on my monogram, which will be implemented on this blog, I’m wondering if I made a mistake and if I should change the blog name back to A Fool of Myself (the URL would still remain SarahJoAustin.com).

So my question is which do you prefer? On your blog or blogs that you read, do you prefer the Name.com format for the blog’s name or do you prefer a more original name for a blog? Let me know by leaving a comment!

Because I’m pointing my blog to SarahJoAustin.com again (and not sarahjoaustin.wordpress.com), I’m going to drop the A Fool of Myself moniker. It has served me well for over two years, but I’m hoping to make the entire site a bit more professional, so I can pursue some freelance opportunities.

What does this mean for you? Will you still get the same pithy commentary about my life? Absolutely! If you read this blog via an RSS reader, your subscription title will change, but the feed URL will not. If you link to my site (which I’m very thankful for, by the way), simply note the change in the URL for future links.

Presently, the design of the two sites is pretty similar, but the design of SarahJoAustin.com will be changing, too. Once my awesome designer hubby sits down and creates an uber cool logo for me (he said he’d do it soon), I’ll start making some design changes–interior decorating, if you will–around here.

I’ll keep sarahjoaustin.wordpress.com online for a few weeks longer sans new posts, but after this post, all new posts will be published at SarahJoAustin.com. Hope you’re as excited as I am! I’ll keep you posted!

Top 10 Keywords No surprises here. I haven’t always written about running, and my first post about Kai is a heavy hitter.

1. fear of monkeys
2. kai springfield
3. sarah jo austin
4. kai restaurant springfield
5. kai sushi springfield
6. free thesis
7. silverdollarcity run
8. hot bod
9. should i wear running tights or shorts in the bass pro marathon on sunday nov 4
10. kai restaurant springfield mo

Top 10 Referring Sites Gotta love my fellow bloggers who send me traffic. Thanks, guys!

1. blogger.com
2. google.com
3. completerunning.com
4. xanga.com
5. xgravity23.blogspot.com
6. creator.zoho.com (Anyone know what this is? Is this you?)
7. smsu.facebook.com
8. marathonleap.blogspot.com
9. runningchick.blogspot.com
10. nevadamtnbear.wordpress.com

Top 10 Posts Oddly enough, some of my most random posts are the most read. Seriously, who cares that I don’t like monkeys?

1. Kai Serves Up Sushi in Downtown Springfield
2. My Training Calendar (Seems to not be working at the moment. I’ll check it out.)
3. Papa Murphy’s Veggie deLite Pizza
4. Why Don’t Family Restaurants Make Their Nutritional Info Available?!
5. Fear of Monkeys Not So Funny Now
6. Same Kind of Different as Me
7. Could Helena Bonham Carter Be My New Favorite Actress?
8. San Francisco Oven’s California Aloha Pizza
9. Thesis Writing Is Hard Work!
10. Two Ways to Nerd Out Your Baby

Top 10 Countries Nope. No clue who is reading me in Argentina.

1. United States
2. Germany
3. Canada
4. United Kingdom
5. Australia
6. India
7. France
8. Philippines
9. Spain
10. Argentina

Top 10 States Hmm…Pennsylvania? You out there?

1. Missouri
2. California
3. New York
4. Illinois
5. Ohio
6. Texas
7. Minnesota
8. Washington
9. Florida
10. Pennsylvania

I certainly found these lists interesting, but you all are probably bored out of your minds. Maybe bottom-ten lists would be more interesting. I’ll get to work on that.

And one last thing—I sold out. I approved an ad through Feedburner today, so I guess I’m starting to put ads in this blog’s feed (but not the site, yet). I still have mixed feelings about this, but I’m going to give it a try. I wouldn’t have the opportunity if I wasn’t part of the CRN family, so I might as well take it. Maybe I’ll learn something from the whole experience…thoughts, anyone?

And if you happen to be an Ozark Mountain Ridge Runner, I created a group for us, too!

• Curly Su (she’s a musician and a triathloner)
• Frayed Laces (she’s a graduate student in Hawaii who has issues with her toes)
• Junk Miles (she’s another Sarah and lives in Idaho)

I’m also adding these blogs to my Technorati favorites (you’ll find all my favorite blogs listed there).

Walt Disney World Marathon Weekend
When I started running and committed to some longer distances, I discovered the Goofy Challenge (runners run both the half-marathon and full marathon) as part of the Walt Disney World Marathon Weekend, and ever since I’ve wanted to tackle the challenge. The WDWMW was last weekend, and many of the bloggers in the Running Blog Family were in Orlando for the fun. Check out these reports from the runaudreyrun, cdnrunnergal, and eatdrinkrunwoman blogs.

Blogging Tips
I’m relatively knew to the blogosphere, and I’m overly competitive with myself about how many people subscribe and read A Fool of Myself, so blogging tips that come across gReader are especially valuable to me. For those who are new to blogging and need a blogging primer, you’ll find this post over at TeamCrossWorld helpful. And if you’re a blogging veteran and want to take your blog to the next level, this post over at NorthxEast lists 31 Ways to Become a Better Blogger.

Punctuation News
I’m a writer by trade and a lover of grammar, mechanics, and style, so the news that Panic at the Disco dropped the exclamation mark in their name fascinated me this week. This article from MTV News will fill you in on the latest punctuation drama.

Juno Movie Review
The hubby and I watched Juno last weekend with a bunch of teenagers at our local theater. If you haven’t seen it yet, what are you waiting for? Need more convincing than my expert advice? Just reading Relevant Magazine’s coverage of the movie makes me want to watch it again (not that I need much encouragement).

Someone Else Who Loves Mr. P as Much as I Do
My office is full of Mr. Potato Head paraphernalia, so when I read about this octopus who won’t let his spud go, I totally understood how he felt.

Stay tuned for more link lovin’ next Friday!