Tag Archive: Blogging


Someone wrote in a blog that a good way to get comments and traffic to your blog is to pose a thought provoking, interactive question on a provocative subject. Pick a controversial subject, write your thoughts on it and then say, “So what do you think?” And people will post, whether or not they agree, they will post.

However, no one has written anything about how to cope with the bone crushing disappointment when no body posts a comment. I mean NOBODY. I am afraid that is what would happen to me, no one would post a answer or add a thought of their own, I would be checking everyday to see if ANYONE had bothered to come by and make my day. In the end I am left crying in my bed under my blankets because no one want to talk to me. And where are all these people who told me I would be more popular? They’re off fielding questions and getting comments from my readers!

And that’s all, she says.

Who am I thanking? Why all of you of course. I subscribe to a service called Sitemeter, they record how many hits or visits your ‘site’ or ‘blog’ gets and then every week I get a report with the numbers. It looks like this:

— Site Summary —
Visits

Total …………………… 4,067
Average per Day ……………… 6
Average Visit Length ………. 7:04
This Week ………………….. 45

The next section is Pageviews, which I am not really sure what that is, although I am sure some (most, o.k. everyone but me) knows what that means. But this is what has me feeling pretty good, I get an average of 6 visits a day, which is not a lot I know, but the average length of a visit is 7 minutes. That means people aren’t just popping in and popping out, people are actually (gulp) reading what I am writing.

So I want to thank all of you for stopping by, for reading, and for making me feel important, if only for 7 minutes and 4 seconds.

Last week I said that I was going to post every trip Em and I made to the city. The only problem I have is coming up with new and original titles. Also right now, I don’t know if the problem is with WordPress or my router, but I am losing posts. It is very annoying but because that is happening, this post may not be what I want it to be, as in, not as long and no pictures, since the pictures seem to be the problem. For instance, I have been trying to get my review post done for almost an hour and a half. It’s not the writing that is taking so long, it is getting the pictures in the post! There again, I don’t know if it’s my browser or WordPress.

It is making me so frustrated, I can’t even remember what I was going to say here.

All right, my reviews are posted. So Saturday, we got a late start, I had to go to Weight Watchers (up 0.6 pounds) and Em was not feeling great. Fred came with us, I never got a reason as to why, not that I care. First off we stopped at the soupman. Fred kept saying he wanted soup from the ‘Original’ soupman, so we went, Em had a groupon. I got black bean and he got Lobster bisque. On the wall was a T.V. with clips from Seinfeld, every so often a quote from an episode featuring the Soupman was shown and I would laugh, then we would have to explain why it was funny to Fred. After we finished the soup we walked to Bon Chon Chicken for lunch. Another groupon, before we get finished with Em’s groupons, we will probably have eaten in every part of Manhattan. Make sure to check out my review of Bon Chon here.

Next was Em’s appointment to get her nails done, Fred was getting a manicure also. We were early, so we stopped at the Yankee store since I had promised Em a sweatshirt for opening day. She didn’t find any she liked, but I found a navy blue jersey that was half price. While she was getting her gel manicure and Fred was getting a plain manicure, I went to wait for him at Starbucks across from the nail salon, thinking I would go online and check my e-mail, track my food for the day, guess what? It wasn’t working. I was frustrated. After Fred was done he came over to Starbucks and we went to the library, where I let him use the computer and I went online there with my iPod. Such fun, I don’t know what he did, but I checked in with four-square, and what else I don’t remember.

We took the subway to SoHo. It was cold Saturday and I don’t think Em was feeling very well. The original plan was for Em to go look at earrings, by that time she had changed her mind, one because Ashley wasn’t going to be there and two because of the cost. But we still wanted tea so we went to Harney and Sons. Check out my review here. I also bought tea, so as soon as I finish my chocolate rose tea, I can start drinking my Irish Breakfast. The other Irish Breakfast I currently have is going to feed the plants.

We had one last groupon we used, for dinner, at a pizza place called zPizza. According to Em it is in Greenwich Village but the website says it is in the West Village. I didn’t write a review, it is small and you can buy a slice of pizza already made, or you can pick your crust, your sauce, your cheese and your toppings for a custom made pizza. When we were done, once again we headed for the subway instead of just walking up to Grand Central. When we got there we had to go outside because Fred wanted to try on these shoes he saw at Models. They are ‘toe’ shoes, remember toe socks? Well these look creepier. Then to the train, then home and I was so tired, I took my shower and went to bed. Didn’t even turn on the computer.

Hard at work

The transfer from Blogger to WordPress is almost done. I spent most of this evening copying my blog roll from my old blog to here. It involved clicking on each link, copying the title and url, and then pasting them in my link list here. If you scroll down to the bottom you can see them, I am quite proud of myself. As I was doing it, I noticed a couple of people that had moved their blogs, they had just left the old ones and started new ones. No transferring of posts or any of the shit I’m going through. But then, I am a tiny bit obsessed. Just a little.

There are some things that don’t work on WordPress, and I will just have to learn to live without them. All that is left is the list of websites and I haven’t decided if I am going to add them to the links list at the bottom, or make a page and put them on it. So many decisions.

The tiny picture in the header of the blog is my hummingbird tattoo. It was taken right after I had it done so my skin is red and irritated. I am still thinking about what my next tattoo is going to be.

Comment moderation is on

Recently I read the following blog post about getting more comments on your blog. 40 Dead Simple Ways to Get More Comments on Your Blog This was one of the suggestions, copied directly from the post, “10 – Don’t moderate comments. Nothing about the words ‘Your comment is awaiting moderation’ encourages a reader to comment more. Nothing.” The next suggestion seems to be written for me “11 – If you do moderate, approve comments as quickly as possible.” since this blog will always have comment moderation. I am way to much of a control, OCD psychotic freak to just let people write whatever they want and me not approve everything on this blog. Please, you are talking about the person who goes back over 3 month old posts to correct typos. Comment Moderation is on.

However, something that will NEVER be on this blog is word verification. I hate word verification. In fact I was just leaving a comment on a blog when I clicked to post the comment, missed that I needed to put in the word verification and when the page came back up, my comment was gone. So I left the blog, without leaving a comment.

Something else that will never be on this blog is music. When I first started blogging and reading blogs, I would go to some blogs and the music would start. “Oh that is kind of cool” was my first thought, and I searched around trying to figure out how to put it on my blog, I never found out how. But as time went by and I read more blogs, I discovered that a lot of people don’t like it. I would just mute my computer if I didn’t like the music that was playing, but now that I think about it, it is kind of intrusive, putting your taste in music off on your readers, so if you don’t like hearing strange music come out of your computer speakers, this blog is safe for you to read.

That’s all. Says she. Have anything you want to add?

Questions

I have more questions then a kid. I think it’s because I’ve had more time to come up with them. My question today is when you are sick it is called being under the weather. Why is that? And what weather are you under? Are you under good weather or bad weather? I probably could find the answer if I googled, but I don’t feel like it.

Mainly because I am under the weather. It started as a sinus infection. Now the sinuses seem to be clearing up and I have a wicked sore throat and a tightness in my chest. A trip to the doctor is probably in order, except I want my sinus infection to be completely gone. If it’s not gone, my doctor is going to want to do another MRI. Something I do not want to do, I have all these earrings and they are a pain (one of them literally) to take out and put back in. So I am waiting.

On the bright side, it does give me something to blog about.

I’m Posting every day in 2011!

So I guess this makes it official, the following is a sample post that WordPress provides for you to sign up with the post a day.

I’ve decided I want to blog more. Rather than just thinking about doing it, I’m starting right now. I will be posting on this blog once a day for all of 2011.

I know it won’t be easy, but it might be fun, inspiring, awesome and wonderful. Therefore I’m promising to make use of The DailyPost, and the community of other bloggers with similiar goals, to help me along the way, including asking for help when I need it and encouraging others when I can.

If you already read my blog, I hope you’ll encourage me with comments and likes, and good will along the way.

Signed,

If you go to the DailyPost, there is a question, I don’t know if you are supposed to use that as an idea for your own blog post or if they just want you to comment and answer.

However, they provide you with a nifty badge, scroll down and you can see mine (I just got the right one in, I had the Postaweek one on there and my posts with now be tagged with “postaday2011”. Now that is it official, the pressure is on!

Some changes here too

Nothing you would really notice though, I just made a few little changes to my widgets. I now can see how many posts I have made in a month and I am only 3 post behind for February. That is one of the reasons I decided to pop on here and make another entry.

Now comes the really tough part of the year, when I’m trying to blog here and blog on my Yankee blog. I also need to keep up with my book review blog. Its going to take some juggling and some discipline, and less time on twitter I think. I also think I can do it.

Since I switched to WordPress I haven’t been blogging much, although I have been around. I have been going through old posts and cleaning them up. I noticed that the titles and first space in the post now had a > and I have been going through posts and taking it out. I had no idea how long that would take with 1,200 posts. I was working on it for two solid days and still had over a thousand posts to go.

So then I started just redoing the ones with pictures, cause the importing caused the pictures to get a little whacked out. Not formatted right and in some cases not there, I had to find them on my passport and reinsert them. Even doing that I still am only to August 2008.

Something else I am doing is moving my poems to my craft blog and my reviews to my review blog. The poem posts are being deleted but the review posts normally have more in them then just the review, so now I have duplicate review posts. I sometimes wonder why I am going to all this trouble when most people are not going to be reading the old posts (except for my freaky stalker person). The answer of course if because I have a compulsion, my posts have to look the way I want them to. That is all.

Another thing I was reminded of when I was reading my old posts was why I started this blog. I wanted a place to talk about my weight watchers progress. I was online and the message boards can be, well, kind of snarky. Here on my blog, if someone said something I didn’t like, I could just delete it. Anyway, I am going to start that again. This weigh-in I was 139 pounds. That is up 3 from my last weigh-in. I haven’t been tracking my food, I haven’t been exercising and I haven’t been drinking my water. So, time to buckle down and lose the weight.

>What was I thinking?

>When I said I was going to post everyday this year, I should have taken a moment to think first. Here it is the middle of January and I have already run out of things to say.

Seriously! How many posts can I make about the trouble with MetroNorth and what an ass**** my boss is and how the cold is affecting my skin and lungs before people’s eyes start to glaze over and they fall down dead? Well maybe not dead, I mean I hope not dead.

What really annoys me is thinking of something and wanting to write about it, but at the time I can’t, then when I get here and open my computer, …… nothing is there, the idea is gone. So take notes I think, but it never happens.

This is momentary, this will pass, if I keep writing. Rob Thomas says, keep writing, even if you know it is crap, just keep writing, the creativity will come. Hopefully, I won’t lose everyone that follows me while I’m spouting drivel.