This past week I was the host on the instagram account "Salem Takeover," where a new Salemite takes over the account each week and shows their view of Salem. I had so much fun planning out local places to highlight and running around like crazy each day to cover as much as I could. And equally as good was the interactions I had with other Salemites. I loved meeting people out in the real world who had been watching my stories and getting messages from people who said things like "I go there/like that too!" My favorite thing was when someone would message me to say that they were excited to try a place I highlighted, or had some more questions. My goal with my instagram and my blog has been to get myself to embrace Salem more and to then pass that on to other people so that they can embrace it too. So this week left me feeling energized and fulfilled.
I want to continue that. I don't have the stamina to keep up my Salem Takeover pace and do something fun every lunch hour and evening :) (it was so fun but tiring!). I do, however, have the stamina and the time to find cool things to do about once a week and tell you about my experience so that if it appeals to you, you can give it a shot too.
If you read my first post when I started this blog, you saw that I had an original vision for the blog and some rules for myself. Those guidelines, like only covering things within walking distance of my apartment, don't really make sense anymore because my life has changed. After living in that downtown loft for 2 years, I (with sadness) decided to move to a more affordable apartment right on the edge of north downtown. (BTW - I still consider myself to live "downtown" :)). While I still love downtown the most out of any part of Salem, now that I'm not in the heart of downtown, I'm ready to open up my scope a little more. So, here is the revamped blog's details:
Vision for the blog: This blog will chronicle the things I do and ways that I embrace urban living in the city of Salem. This will encourage me to embrace Salem and give me a creative writing outlet, but I also hope it will encourage others to go out and do something fun in the city or to provide ideas for things to try out.
Rules: Anything I feature on this blog has to be in the Salem area. I can either walk or drive to them, but I should really make an effort to walk when I can! Most of the places or events I cover should be in the city limits, but as appropriate, I may cover things that are in the outskirts of Salem (like Keizer, etc). I will keep in mind that the goal of my blog is to highlight our city, not my own life, so if I do cool things in Portland or somewhere that is pushing the definition of "outskirts of Salem," I will control myself, remember my vision, and not blog about it (unless of course I one day revamp my blog again and title it "Urban Living in the state of Oregon").
I hope you come along with me! And if you want to follow me on instagram, I'm @urbanlivingsalemor
Ready. Set. Embrace Salem. Again.
No comments:
Post a Comment