Interview with “blogging buddy” ClassyRose

When WordPress started the PostADay/PostAWeek Challenge in January and subsequently made a post about “blogging buddies” I left a comment and ClassyRose came to my rescue. Rose is great, always offering words of encouragement and support both through the good times and bad. ClassyRose also helps and encourages so many bloggers through her blog “Things in life I find annoying” – I thought it would be great to interview Rose and she kindly agreed.

ClassyRose please tell us a little something about you as a person.

PiP, you know how much I don’t like having to write about myself but I guess it is something that needs to be done. I’ll give you a little more than the usual two-minute elevator speech.

I come from a family of 8 children. My parents emigrated from Italy with 5 children and the last three were born in Toronto. I’m number 7 of the 8. When I was 18 I decided I didn’t want to live by my father’s rules anymore and left home. Even though it was the 70’s and he was living in Canada he still acted as if he was living in Italy back in the 40’s and was very strict.

I was born a Canadian and wanted to do all the things that Canadian girls did, which my father just didn’t approve. My Mom was okay with me going out and she would often send me off to my sister’s place for the weekend if there was something I wanted to do. My Mom always said three things to me, to let her know where I was going, what time I was going to be home and if I was going to be late to call her so she wouldn’t worry. My Mom trusted me to do the right things but my father always thought the worst of things. After all, we all know that girls could get into “trouble”. 😳

I did manage to get married, have a child and then got divorced. But then these things happen. The way I look at it, the marriage was meant to happen, because with that I had a beautiful daughter. The divorce was meant to happen too, because without the divorce I would never have grown as a person. I was being stifled in my marriage and getting out of it really helped me grow into the person I am today.

I’ve always been very independent and can also be quite stubborn. Must be the Italian in me.

What skills or abilities do you have that people are always surprised to learn you possess?

There are so many because I love to learn new things. I’ve worked with computers since 1976 and friends and mostly family are still amazed that I know so much about them. I’ve taken them apart to fix them, install new video cards, modems, zip drives, cd-writers, add extra memory and even replace the hard drive. I may not be as tech-savvy today with all the new technology but I still know my way around a computer and on the Internet.

I’ve always been interested in how things work and will often take things apart to fix something that’s been broken. I’m the type of person who actually reads the instructions and manuals to anything I purchase.

If you could go back in time and have a 5 minute conversation with yourself ten years ago, what would you say?

I would go back 15 years and tell myself not to listen to all the negative people who discouraged me from getting seriously involved in a particular business. It was a new start-up that was making great strides; it all had to do with promoting the Internet!

I can kick myself for not taking the chance back then.

Besides blogging what other hobbies and interests do you have?

Actually there are quite a few. I’ve always been a crafty person and for the longest time I sewed practically all my own clothes, from dresses to blouses to pants. People were pretty amazed at the blouses because the buttonholes looked so professional. I also knit, crochet, embroider and do other needlework. I love working outside planning and planting the garden to try and have continuous colour all summer long. I usually have a small vegetable garden too and grow tomatoes, cucumbers, beans, and peppers. And I always had to plant one squash plant so we could have our own home-grown pumpkin for Halloween.

What prompted you to start your blog “Things in life I find annoying”?

I started it on a day when I just had to say something about the games people were playing at another site.

It was also something I had wanted to do for a while. A place to talk about everyday things that are bugging me and to find out if these same things were bothering other people as well.

How has your blog evolved since you began the challenge?

When the WordPress Challenge was announced the blog was barely two weeks old. Joining the challenge gave me more opportunities to talk about other things that I find annoying and having some attention grabbing headlines to my posts brought the readers to my blog.

The blog was attracting new bloggers who didn’t know how to do these things and suddenly my ‘annoying’ blog turned into a blog where I was offering ‘blogging tips’.

The blog is still evolving and probably will for some time still.

What blogging achievements are you most proud of thus far?

There were a couple of turning points this year that I would like to talk about that lead to my greatest achievement so far.

One turning point happened over two days in early January where I was stunned and amazed with all the comments that were left on one particular post. Things just started happening that week and my blog seemed to be taking on a life of its own. It was taking me to places I had never imagined it could.

Another is when I realized that people were actually reading my blog and coming back to read more. I started thinking about what else I could do with the blog. It was around this time that I read about the Random Acts of Kindness Week happening in February and I started to think about how I could help the new bloggers. Eventually I came up with the idea for the RandomBlog2011 Challenge and I only made the decision to go ahead with it as I was writing my post the day before it was launched.

Another turning point was having one of my posts featured on The Daily Post at WordPress.com. It was just incredible and it gave me such a great feeling that Scott Berkun thought my post was good enough to use on their own blog.

I’ve said it before, I’m on a roller coaster ride and it doesn’t look like it’s going to end any time soon because today I get to celebrate my greatest blogging achievement so far, a milestone for my blog, “Things in life I find annoying”.

I am sure everyone who follows ClassyRose will join me in thanking her for all the the useful information she shares with us.
Cheers Rose!