Happy Blogoversary to me! Happy Blogoversary to me! Happy Blogoversary to me-eeeeee! Happy Blogoversary to me!
Yes, it's true, today I have been writing a blog for two years. I cannot believe it, truly. The date snuck up on me and I would have forgotten entirely, had not Teena from Toronto, a random woman I do not know, wished me a happy blogoversary. The wonders of cyberspace, my friends!
I could use this time to wax poetic or meta and comment on blogging generally and this blog in particular....but it's been a long day. We've had company, friends in from Alabama, and we started the day with Souper Saturday, a craft day at church for which I made an ENORMOUS batch of pumpkin soup (first time, made it up, FABULOUS, recipe to follow later) and at which I made a crayon caddy and a "clippy frame." Explanations and pics on both to come. Our female friend went with me while our husbands watched our two babies (both of whom resisted napping heroically and largely successfully). That lasted all morning.
Then we came home and tried some more napping (them, not us) to little avail, after which we went to a local eatery to watch the Florida/Georgia game with some Pharmacy phamily phriends (ooh, hilarious!) on the patio. Or that was the plan, until Baby J fell asleep on the way there (finally), so I dropped the husband off and went to get gas and scour some recycling bins (triple coupons next weekend!) in an effort to preserve a longer nap for the baby. An hour later, we joined the rest of the crew and stayed until half-time, by which point both babies were tired and/or hungry.
After that, we went downtown to the Battery and Rainbow Row to enjoy the twilight and some Ben and Jerry's (I had free hot praline samples instead) and then got home just in time to put cranky babes to bath and bed.
In short, I'm bushed! So more details and more celebrating later. For now, I hear my cranky baby protesting sleep mightily, and that is just not an option. He's thrown up twice today and appears to be running a low-grade fever, so we hope sleep will stave off whatever appears to be lurking just beneath his less than happy surface.
Showing posts with label bloggety blog. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bloggety blog. Show all posts
Saturday, November 01, 2008
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Come on thunder
Because I am new to the blogworld and because I am obsessive like that, every few days I go on a massive bloghunt and decide I need to do something new with my blog. But, you're thinking, I haven't seen anything new here, except for a few links maybe, in, umm, ever. So what gives? Well, often what I want to do exceeds either my level of skill (like a site redesign, for instance) or my level of commitment (like any one of the following tips). You see, to be a "good" (read "popular") blogger, you really have to do a lot of work I'm not willing to do right now. Lots of people will agree that taking any of the hints below will help get you noticed, but let me tell you why I am destined to languish in obscurity for, well, ever!
Tip #1: Comment, comment, comment. Omigosh, who has the time? I mean, well, clearly people do, because some of the popular sites get hundreds of comments, even thousands. I recently saw that for one of her giveaways, Dooce got over 46,000 responses!!?!! But I barely have time to read the (admittedly) few blogs to which I link and follow a few of their links and even doing that takes up too much time and causes me all sorts of guilt. And these bloghunts I do take up even more time, so I can't get all chatty and comment all over the place. I have to give my baby a bottle some time, people! Oh, and maybe interact with him once in awhile, too.
Tip #2: Use social networking sites. I've posted before about my ambivalence regarding Facebook and my now defunct Myspace and Friendster accounts. I mean, I do have an active Facebook page under my real name in which I link to this blog, which sort of flies in the face of my relative anonymity here, but I want to maintain the vestiges of that anonymity for two reasons. One, I am still employed at a college about which I write and I think it's wise for my students not to be able to google me and find this blog, at least for the time being. Of course, they could look me up on Facebook and find the URL there, but most of my students think I am older than and about as hip as dirt, so I'm pretty sure they would never even dream that I might be on Facebook (gasp!). Two, the husband continues to be employed at a hospital about which he writes and I link to him so I want to maintain his anonymity as well. We both work in industries which monitor information exchanges pretty heavily (FERPA and HIPAA, anyone?), so one always feels a bit of trepidation in writing about one's life in one's job under those circumstances. You wonder how much of your own life is actually yours to discuss. I am continually amazed by what is illegal when you actually read the fine print. Leaving student papers, graded or not, outside your door? Illegal. Emailing a student his or her grade? Illegal. Talking to a parent about a student about anything, ever? Illegal. Emailing the class and leaving the email addresses visible, even though all the students have access to their classmates' addresses via the school network? Illegal. Things like these cause a fair amount of paranoia, you see. Sooo, more intensive social networking? I think not.
Tip #3: Host giveaways. Because who doesn't like free stuff? But I'm just not that into them. I don't have anything people want; I'm not connected enough to be friends with someone who has something people want; and all the rules involved in giveaways kind of scare me, to be completely honest (but I could get over that, I suppose, leaving me still with many objections).
Tip #4. Post frequently. I thought I was doing okay in this regard, but apparently in the blog world "frequently" means more than once a day. See my thoughts on Tip #1: who has that kind of time? I'm a fast typer, and I have a lot to say in general, but even I have to think A LITTLE before I post. SHEESH!
Tip #5: Write well. Well, now, this is just as subjective as it can be, and I'm not even going to attempt to discern whether I write well or not because even though I teach writing for a living, it's not "creative" writing, and I have no frame of reference here because my goal is not Literature with a capital L.
Tip #6: Pick a niche and stay there. This was my goal originally, to write about pop culture and media, but I have strayed so very far from there by now, I have trouble even spelling the word "niche." And, in fact, it was difficult to stay with just one topic, and I got stymied many times during those early days of my blog because I wanted to go off topic and felt compelled to stay there. Apparently, "mommy" blogs are the exception to this rule, but you still have to have a consistent voice.
So many rules!! What the heck EVER!
Tip #1: Comment, comment, comment. Omigosh, who has the time? I mean, well, clearly people do, because some of the popular sites get hundreds of comments, even thousands. I recently saw that for one of her giveaways, Dooce got over 46,000 responses!!?!! But I barely have time to read the (admittedly) few blogs to which I link and follow a few of their links and even doing that takes up too much time and causes me all sorts of guilt. And these bloghunts I do take up even more time, so I can't get all chatty and comment all over the place. I have to give my baby a bottle some time, people! Oh, and maybe interact with him once in awhile, too.
Tip #2: Use social networking sites. I've posted before about my ambivalence regarding Facebook and my now defunct Myspace and Friendster accounts. I mean, I do have an active Facebook page under my real name in which I link to this blog, which sort of flies in the face of my relative anonymity here, but I want to maintain the vestiges of that anonymity for two reasons. One, I am still employed at a college about which I write and I think it's wise for my students not to be able to google me and find this blog, at least for the time being. Of course, they could look me up on Facebook and find the URL there, but most of my students think I am older than and about as hip as dirt, so I'm pretty sure they would never even dream that I might be on Facebook (gasp!). Two, the husband continues to be employed at a hospital about which he writes and I link to him so I want to maintain his anonymity as well. We both work in industries which monitor information exchanges pretty heavily (FERPA and HIPAA, anyone?), so one always feels a bit of trepidation in writing about one's life in one's job under those circumstances. You wonder how much of your own life is actually yours to discuss. I am continually amazed by what is illegal when you actually read the fine print. Leaving student papers, graded or not, outside your door? Illegal. Emailing a student his or her grade? Illegal. Talking to a parent about a student about anything, ever? Illegal. Emailing the class and leaving the email addresses visible, even though all the students have access to their classmates' addresses via the school network? Illegal. Things like these cause a fair amount of paranoia, you see. Sooo, more intensive social networking? I think not.
Tip #3: Host giveaways. Because who doesn't like free stuff? But I'm just not that into them. I don't have anything people want; I'm not connected enough to be friends with someone who has something people want; and all the rules involved in giveaways kind of scare me, to be completely honest (but I could get over that, I suppose, leaving me still with many objections).
Tip #4. Post frequently. I thought I was doing okay in this regard, but apparently in the blog world "frequently" means more than once a day. See my thoughts on Tip #1: who has that kind of time? I'm a fast typer, and I have a lot to say in general, but even I have to think A LITTLE before I post. SHEESH!
Tip #5: Write well. Well, now, this is just as subjective as it can be, and I'm not even going to attempt to discern whether I write well or not because even though I teach writing for a living, it's not "creative" writing, and I have no frame of reference here because my goal is not Literature with a capital L.
Tip #6: Pick a niche and stay there. This was my goal originally, to write about pop culture and media, but I have strayed so very far from there by now, I have trouble even spelling the word "niche." And, in fact, it was difficult to stay with just one topic, and I got stymied many times during those early days of my blog because I wanted to go off topic and felt compelled to stay there. Apparently, "mommy" blogs are the exception to this rule, but you still have to have a consistent voice.
So many rules!! What the heck EVER!
Friday, July 25, 2008
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Pages from my book of love
It's time for some link love from the web....
So I LOVE this idea, even though it would take ages even to do just my small library, let alone a large university's behemoth collection. But look at the helpful details:
Not to mention all the pretty colors (21 in all, for the LofC main subject divisions). It's hard to know if this is a graduate project for a library science degree or a degree in design, but the fact that the project crosses those lines at all is new. And interesting, at least for me!
This person almost makes me want to start running, even though I hate it with a passion. But the steps to go from sedentary (check!) to running seem so straightforward and the approach so commonsensical, I just might try it...after my ankle heals...and it gets cooler here (108 degrees heat index yesterday. Where are we, Baghdad??).
A while ago, one of my friends recommended I check out Etsy and I did click over but it looked a little too granola for me--handmade items for sale? Don't we already have places for that, like farmers' markets and craft fairs? But since then, I've seen the error of my ways and have returned to Etsy to discover there's a more going on than I thought. For example, it's a great place for craft supplies. I recently purchased some suspender clips that were only available elsewhere on the web in quantities of 1000, many many more than I needed. I've also found some fabulous fabric I'm planning on getting when (and if) I get a sewing machine (on the list of home essentials I want) and out of which I plan to make some killer totes. So there's lots to see and even more to buy, if you're interested. And yes, I'm behind the curve on this one. Deal with it!
So I LOVE this idea, even though it would take ages even to do just my small library, let alone a large university's behemoth collection. But look at the helpful details:
Not to mention all the pretty colors (21 in all, for the LofC main subject divisions). It's hard to know if this is a graduate project for a library science degree or a degree in design, but the fact that the project crosses those lines at all is new. And interesting, at least for me!
This person almost makes me want to start running, even though I hate it with a passion. But the steps to go from sedentary (check!) to running seem so straightforward and the approach so commonsensical, I just might try it...after my ankle heals...and it gets cooler here (108 degrees heat index yesterday. Where are we, Baghdad??).
A while ago, one of my friends recommended I check out Etsy and I did click over but it looked a little too granola for me--handmade items for sale? Don't we already have places for that, like farmers' markets and craft fairs? But since then, I've seen the error of my ways and have returned to Etsy to discover there's a more going on than I thought. For example, it's a great place for craft supplies. I recently purchased some suspender clips that were only available elsewhere on the web in quantities of 1000, many many more than I needed. I've also found some fabulous fabric I'm planning on getting when (and if) I get a sewing machine (on the list of home essentials I want) and out of which I plan to make some killer totes. So there's lots to see and even more to buy, if you're interested. And yes, I'm behind the curve on this one. Deal with it!
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