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Where I Blog

August 30, 2010 By

Where Do You Blog?


I’m always a little late to the party, thanks to a day job, but I saw through a few different sources that Centsational Girl is having a Where Do You Blog? Party. The idea is to show the world where you spend most of your time blogging, and do the whole linky thing on her blog to join the party.

Without further ado, here is a picture of my disaster area desk:

Where I Blog


Besides my giant monitor with my favorite drawing from this blog post on it, my desk has on it: some bills that need to be paid, writing books, html and css books, my college writing portfolio, a calculator, some pictures, colored pencils, pens, tissues, a big K hiding behind the tissues, some organizing boxes that I can shove things in to forget about, my headphones, a notebook for blogging ideas, some cards from my husband, and a whole bunch of crap – I’m not sure exactly what all is there. There’s also the purple curtains that are always closed because Mister sits behind me and doesn’t like the sun on his monitor.

Below my desk is a turquoise filing cabinet with more stuff in it (not sure what), and on top of that are boxes with CD’s and software in them. What you can’t see is what isn’t in the picture – a huge pile of books and magazines in front of the filing cabinet, which prevent me from opening it, and to the left of my desk is a huge pile of bills that need to be filed in the giant 4-drawer filing cabinet next to Mister’s desk. Obviously, I excel at piling and suck at filing.

I’ve never been good at having an organized desk. Check out this post for a picture of my desk before I met Mister. But because I’m a Gemini, my desk at work is as neat as a pin. Seriously. I get annoyed after the cleaning crew has been in because I have to move everything back to its just so position. If they did the same thing at home that they do at work, I’d never notice because my desk already is a train wreck.

I really need to clean that mess off one of these years. I’d like some space to keep more books handy, which I think would go where all the pencil cups are now. I’d love to paint my little corner aqua, but Mister already has a hard time with my file cabinet, which is probably why he doesn’t say anything about the pile of books in front of it. I’d love a sliding keyboard tray. The desks we got didn’t come with them, but if there was an easy, inexpensive way to attach one to a glass desk, I’m open to suggestions. It would help keep my desktop clear so I have more space for writing. Right now I have to shove my keyboard back to have enough surface space.

So where do you blog? Did you participate in Centsational Girl’s party?

Filed Under: House, My Blog

Blogging Pet Peeves: Auto-Play Music

August 30, 2010 By

I’m the first person to tell you that I love music. If I’m at work, I’m probably listening to my iPod. If I’m at home, I’ve got some sort of music playing. It’s an important part of my life.

It isn’t, however, part of my blog.

If you’ve ever read any sort of blogging tips, I’m sure you’ve seen this classic: Thou shalt not have auto-play music on thy blog.

Personal bloggers are especially guilty of this. I’m not sure why. Maybe they like to go to their own blogs to listen to music rather than listening from another source?

While I’m all for expressing yourself, and I believe that a personal blog is a great way to do that, I must draw the line at auto-play music (this also applies to auto-play embedded videos). I have a few reasons for this:

  1. While you might have your favorite song playing on your blog, it might not be my favorite song. It might even be on the other side of the spectrum for me.
  2. I’m a big fan of tabbed browsing. That means that I can have many websites open at the same time without a huge effect on my computer’s performance, so what I do when I come across a bunch of links I want to check out is to open them all up at the same time. It’s not unusual for me to have 20 tabs open. If even 2 of those pages that I just opened have auto-play music, then it’s really annoying, and I have to figure out which of the dozens of tabs are the guilty ones so I can close it.
  3. I also have either Mister’s music in the background or I’m playing music from my iTunes collection or iTunes radio at the same time. Again, it’s a fight for my brain and I get auditory overload. I don’t know too many people who can listen to multiple songs at the same time without some sort of discomfort. Do you watch tv and listen to the radio at the same time?
  4. Some people out there, believe it or not, have not yet figured out how to turn the sound down or off on their computer. Volume settings are as foreign to them as C++. They end up getting blasted with music at top volume.
  5. Some of us (not me) might want to sneak a peek at our favorite blogs while we’re at work, which ends up giving co-workers a not always appreciated musical interlude.
  6. Auto-play music can seriously affect the load time on your blog. It might take a few minutes for all the text, pictures, and widgets to show up, but gosh darn it, the music starts up before I can read anything.
  7. Exception: You are only allowed to auto play music if you are a musician and I’ve come across the front page of your website. THIS IS THE ONLY EXCEPTION!

What’s a blogger to do if they really, really, really want to feature their favorite music? There are a few options.

Go ahead and put the music player on your blog, but let the visitor decide whether or not to listen to it. Also, don’t hide it down at the very bottom of the page so we have to scroll for miles to find it. Alternatively, you can write a post featuring your favorite song or musician.

I’m going to use a weird analogy here, because that’s how my mind works.

Think of it this way: if you were over the moon about how delicious your favorite TV dinner was, how would you handle it? Would you force visitors to your house to eat it, shoving it in their mouths the second they walked through the door? Or would you forgo the assault on their taste buds and simply tell them how much you loved that TV dinner, and why it was so good?

Now substitute “TV dinner” for “music” and “mouth” for “ears” and you get a clear picture of what auto-play music is like for visitors to your blog.

Please, I’m begging you – stop the auto-play music. Now.

Filed Under: Personal Blogging

I Opened My Eyes

August 27, 2010 By

When I was a senior in high school, one of my English assignments was to write a story with a moral to it. As is a habit of mine, I whipped up the first draft of this the night before it was due and typed it up during lunch.

When I got to class, I let other classmates read their stories first, and listened to far too many that opened with, “Once upon a time there were some bullies.” It seemed every story was the same! Finally, I got tired of hearing the same story over and over again, so I raised my hand to read my story. This is that story.

I don’t know how I survived. My calendar told me it’s been three years, but in my mind and in my heart I know it was an eternity.

I loved city life. The excitement was so great that I could never sit still. So many sights, sounds, and smells to take in! I had lived there my whole life, and after all those years I knew that there was so much more that I had to see.

My mother died when I was a baby, so I never had a woman’s influence. My father and brother were the only family I knew. We had the best of everything, my father made sure of that. He didn’t want us to have to struggle. How ironic. He worked so hard for us to survive and he’s the one who didn’t make it. Strange the way things happen.

I came here when I was fifteen. The two day trip in a dingy old train didn’t thrill me, nor did the poverty-stricken town I ended up in. An old, austere woman approached me on the platform and instructed me to follow her. The only time I had met my aunt was in old photographs, but I could tell that the years had not been kind.

I didn’t talk much at my aunt’s farm. She had chores for me, which I did. I wasn’t happy about them. I didn’t exert myself, but I didn’t complain. I knew I had nowhere else to go. The monotony of the days meshed them into one. One long, dreary day that lasted three years.

Every morning I go down to the river to get water for the day’s washings. This particular morning I was more tired than usual, so I laid my head in a tuft of grass and closed my eyes.

When I opened them a few minutes later, everything seemed to have come alive. The trees, the flowers, the sky – they all seemed to have faces. I splashed water on my eyes and looked again, but the faces were still there. Everything had such a vitality that I never noticed before!

I couldn’t help but notice an unusual little flower sticking out of the grass. To anyone else it would have been an ordinary dandelion, but because I had never taken the time to notice it, when I finally did, it was unusual. It seemed to have a personality. This flower was so intriguing that I knew I had to keep it or I would regret it. As I was putting it in my pocket, I heard my aunt calling me. I opened my eyes, splashed some water on my face, and ran toward the house.

While I was cooking supper that evening, I went to wipe my hands, and I noticed the same little flower embroidered around the edge of my apron. It was as if my dream had come alive.

“What are you smiling for?” my aunt asked. “You’ve been here for three years and not once have you been pleasant about anything, so why start now?”

If only she knew.

Here I am after yet another three years, but it seems like no time has passed. Not a day goes by when I don’t notice birds singing or new flowers growing. My chores give me a wonderful opportunity to see different things around me. To anyone else, they are the same, but to me, every day brings something new . . .

After I read the first paragraph, my teacher stopped me and pointed out to the class the way I just jumped into the story, skipping the “once upon a time” type intro and immediately drawing you in. I remember being annoyed at the interruption. Once I finished my story, the entire class was quiet – very different from the clapping and cheers that everyone else got. After a full minute, one person said, “Wow!” I guess they liked my story. I buried my head in my hands. It was the first writing assignment of the semester, and I was worried about how I was going to top that. After all, aren’t you supposed to get better at something as you get further into a class?

I also included this in my writing portfolio for a college English class. I got an A+ on the portfolio as a whole. My teacher wrote, “It’s important to take risks in your writing – you’ve done that.” On this particular story, she wrote, “This is a poignant piece of writing. I’m moved. Keep writing.” Encouraging words from someone with a PhD in English.

I’ve been trying to write more, as I’ve really fallen out of the habit since my schooling days ended. I hope you enjoy this, and I’ll try to write more.

Filed Under: Reading and Writing

Pictures of Me

August 25, 2010 By

I don’t have a ton of pictures of myself. I haven’t been a ham in front of the camera since before I hit puberty. After that, I was much more interested in being behind the camera. Then one day, it seemed that I wasn’t really taking pictures anymore. Mister likes to take pictures, and it’s not that we don’t try to take any, but sometimes we’re just so busy living life to stop and take a picture, know what I mean?

I talked to my mom the other day. I remembered that Grandma had a couple of those collage frames in her dining room, and since the photos in them hadn’t changed for the last 15 or 20 years of her life, I can remember quite a few of the pics that were in there. I remember one in particular that is really dorky, but I want to put it on my about page. I was probably 7 or 8, at Grandma’s house in the yard, wearing a red t-shirt with white iron-on letters spelling my name. Very dorky, but perfect for an about page.

I uploaded some pictures and created a set of pictures of me on flickr. There aren’t too many, because like a lot of people, I’m very picky about what can be considered an acceptable picture of myself. You will see the picture from my header, which is me pretending to look at the sunrise over Salisbury Beach, MA. I say pretending to look because even though I had sunglasses on, it was really bright so I had my eyes closed while Mister took the picture.

Salisbury Beach at Sunrise

I love seeing pictures on blogs – I think they can really enhance a story. What I don’t like, however, is including an image for the sake of having an image. I did that quite a bit when I was first starting out, but now I try to stick to pics that are in my personal collection. I also think that pictures help draw people in more. I don’t use pictures as often as I’d like to, but I’ve been trying to do something about that lately. Also, organizing the photos on my hard drive would help a lot – and probably provide me with some inspiration.

Do you like to take pictures? Do you use your pictures on your blog? Leave me a comment to tell me about your favorite post that includes your photos!

Filed Under: My Blog

About Pages for Personal Bloggers

August 23, 2010 By

A lot of the professionals will tell you that having a well-written about page is essential. If you’re running a business, it certainly is. But what if you’re a personal blogger? Do you need an about page?

I’m going to go ahead and say yes.

I know that there are some blog platforms that, until recently, did not allow separate pages unless you were really good at hacking your code. I’m not here to tell you how to put up an about page. I want to talk about why I think they’re important for personal bloggers and what you should consider including in yours.

As personal bloggers, we write about our lives – the people in our lives, the things we do, and the things that interest us. We also read other bloggers, many of whom are like us in a lot of ways. So why do we want to read the blogs we read?

I asked this question not too long ago in my post What Makes a Personal Blogger Worth Reading? Often times, through link surfing or stumbling, I’ll find myself on someone’s blog who has compelling stories, or I’ve come across a post that’s clearly small chapter in a bigger story. I’ll turn to the about page, if it’s available, to find out more about the blogger without having to sit there scrolling through years of posts to get to know them. If I like what I see, then I’ll stay on their blog and read some more.

Think of your about page as an introduction. Tell your readers a little about yourself. You don’t have to give an in-depth biography, but a little bit of background is always nice. If you regularly blog about other people, introduce them as well. If you use pseudonyms, let us know who’s who. For example, when we’re reading a story about John Doe, it’s nice for newcomers to have a cheat sheet so we know that he’s your husband. If there are other things you blog about regularly, like crafting or cooking or whatnot, let us know that too. Basically, I want to get to know you a little bit, and the about page is the perfect place to do that quickly. The about page is a great way to help you make new friends in the blogosphere.

Here’s a compilation of tips I picked up from around the web for writing your about page:

  • Have some personality – Your personality shines through on your regular blog posts, and you should show it on your about page as well.
  • Let us know why you wanted to have a little piece of internet to call home. Even if it’s just to showcase your hobby, telling us why you blog can help us get to know you a little better.
  • Photos can help add that personal touch. If you’re not comfortable showing your face online, then a quirky photo of you partially hidden behind something, a childhood photo, or a drawing can all help liven up the page.
  • Tell us a bit about what you do. Nitty gritty details aren’t necessary, but tell us about things that are relevant to the topics you blog about. You’ll notice on my about page that I don’t mention what my day job is, but everything that is there can be found within my blog posts.
  • If your blog name or pseudonym is unusual, tell us about that. More often than not, there’s an interesting story behind it.
  • If you’re active elsewhere on the internet, let us know where we can find you. You might have a link to your Twitter profile on your front page, but put it here as well.
  • Don’t include personal information that you wouldn’t put elsewhere on your blog. Keep it safe.
  • Let us know where you are. You don’t have to give your exact address, or even your town, but I like to know what general part of the country or world someone is in. It can help readers get to know you better in a cultural sense.
  • Keep it updated – if you wrote your about page when you were single, and you’re now married with triplets, be sure to change that in your about page! Again, it’s all about getting to know the person behind the blog.

What other tips do you have for writing your about page? What unusual element did you include in yours?

Filed Under: Personal Blogging