Okay, this is it! There always has to be a beginning, right? For a blog, it’s the First Post! Well, that’s not really true – I guess the beginning was when I first decided to create a blog. And there were lots of steps after that – deciding what it would look like, what sort of content it would have, etc. But to actually sit down and write the words for the First Post seems to me to be the real beginning.
So, here it is. I’m sure that my thoughts on what this blog will be are going to morph over time, and I’m sure that my ‘blog voice’ will change, too. But my idea is to create very casual entries that give you, the reader, some idea of what it’s like to live in St. Petersburg. If you’ve never been to St. Petersburg, I hope that my posts will introduce you to our city and will entice you to come and visit. Or maybe even come and live.
If you are already living in St. Petersburg, maybe you’ll enjoy reading about your city from someone else’s perspective. Maybe you’ll hear about something that you didn’t know about and you’ll try it out or visit it. The nice thing is, it’s free to read what I write. If you don’t like it, you can decide not to read it – no big deal. If you do like it, maybe you can make a comment to let me know. I’m likely to keep writing anyway, but I’ll be much happier about it if I know that someone, somewhere, is reading and enjoying what I write.
I used to work in the Corporate World, at Raymond James and Associates, here in St. Petersburg. While there (for ten years), I was known for sending out some rather lengthy emails whenever I was trying to entice people to do something extra, be it baking some wonderful dessert for a charity fund raiser or putting extra creative effort into dressing up for Halloween so that our department would win the annual contest (and we did win, year after year!) People read my stuff and told me that it was fun to read, so that just served to make me keep on writing long emails. I’m not sure that was a good thing, but it is what it is, and I’ve decided that I like the idea of writing blog posts.
Hula Girl Hibiscus Flower
Although the URL for my site is StPeteRealEstateBlog.com, I’ve decided to give it a shorter, crisper title – thus, Assignment: St. Petersburg is the name you see in the header. I like the sound of that, as it fits the way that I’m thinking about this blog. I’ve given myself an assignment to go out and grab bits of St. Petersburg and share them with you. Sometimes, I’ll throw in some history, if I think it’s interesting. I’ve lived here since I was four, so I know a lot about the city and I have certainly seen a lot of change!
To add some visual interest, I will always include a photograph with my posts. I think that it’s much more engaging to have a nice photo to look at, along with the reading. And besides, I love taking pictures. So all of the photos that you see will be pictures that I, personally, have taken. For today’s post, which is all about the blog itself, I couldn’t think of a relevant St. Petersburg photo to include. But when I walked outside of my own front door and saw this gorgeous hibiscus flower looking up at me, I decided that it is a perfect example of St. Petersburg! If you click on the picture, you’ll get a full view of it, and it’s worth a closer look!
This is a Real Estate blog with a twist. I will never post listings on this blog. I will never try to sell you anything on this blog. Rather, I will try to get you to fall in love with St. Petersburg, or to fall further in love with it. If, along the way, you decide that you’d like to consider buying or selling a home, then I’d love to help you, and you can always find a link to my Real Estate business web site over in the right hand column. What I will do, in regards to it being a Real Estate blog, is include occasional posts about St. Petersburg Real Estate and about Real Estate in general – maybe some educational bits, maybe some statistics to keep you abreast of how the local market is doing, some interesting facts. But I promise to try to keep it light and at least a little fun, as I don’t want to chase anyone away. There will be a lot of what I write that is coming right out of my head – thoughts, memories, visions, opinions. But I’ll always endeavor to clearly differentiate between what are my opinions and what are factual entries.
As a First Post, I haven’t really talked at all about St. Petersburg, but I promise that I will in my second post. I hope that I am able, through this blog, to provide some enjoyment and some education and some enticement to some of you out there in the ether to further explore St. Petersburg. I’m looking forward to writing the second post and the third, and on…
