Changing Blog Hosts

When I started putting my thoughts to the keyboard, I created my first blog using Blogger. It was blogging for dummies. A lot like AOL was for the internet. They made it easy, and easy is what I needed since I was just beginning the road to blogging. That was around 2008 or ‘09.

I started by using the actual website to do my posts, but when I discovered there were other applications that you could use, I was intrigued. There were other cool features you could do that the website didn’t allow or offer. So, I’ve been using an outside application to create blog posts all these years.

Over the last few years, I’ve had more and more problems with that application. I believe it’s due to Blogger putting limits and discontinuing certain things, which causes me problems when it comes to posting. This is one of the main reasons I have gone from blogging daily, to once a month. The annoyance is just too much.

I’ve thought about changing to another site, like maybe WordPress or Wix, but after playing around with both for a while several years ago, I ultimately decided it was best to stay where I was comfortable and not change anything.

I’m once again entertaining the idea of changing from Blogger to something else. I have a spreadsheet created that will help me beak down all the things each offers. This should be fun. I’ll let you know how it turns out.

Writing Challenge: Day 1

Yourself

What can I say about myself that you don’t already know? What can I tell you about myself that my About Me page doesn’t already tell you? Well, how about this…

Great White Sharks

I am fascinated by Great White sharks. When I see them on television, I immediately stop in my tracks and watch. Shark Week is something we look forward to in my house every year.

I see television shows, internet videos, and pictures, of people diving with sharks, and I can’t help but think they’re just crazy insane. However, you put me in a metal cage, and I’d be down there with them. Something I’ve always wanted to do. But there MUST. BE. A. CAGE. Safety, people! Safety.

 

Now it’s your turn. Tell me something about yourself.

Writing Challenge

As if I don’t have enough to do every day, I’m going to challenge myself to do one more thing. A blog post every single day during the month of May. I don’t exactly know where this challenge came from, so I can’t give proper credit, but here are the daily topics…

Join along. We can learn so much about each other during the month.

 

Trying something out

I've gone ahead and downloaded a blogging app for my phone. My hope is that it will allow me to blog more. My current problem, is that I just don't sit down to my laptop much anymore. When I do, it's for something quick that might take too long to do on my phone. Or to edit photos. Since I always have my phone with me no matter where I am, I'm hoping this will work.

I just need to figure out the whole picture thing on here.

Here's to more blogging in 2016!

-val

To Hide or Not to Hide

As an adult, we face decisions on a daily basis. Sometimes they’re difficult and complex and involve A LOT of other factors in the decision, and sometimes they’re as simple as choosing between which route to take to work. The decision I currently face, is even simpler than that.

For over a month, I have struggled with the decision to make this site private. Since this website is run through Blogger, I have the option of allowing only certain readers to access it. And believe me when I say, I’m leaning that way.

When I started blogging back in April of 2009, it was mainly because I wanted a little piece of the internet to call my own. I wanted a place where I could write about my day-to-day activities, along with my rants. At the time, I had about three readers, and they were friends. I didn’t care about what I said or whose feelings I hurt, because those friends ultimately had similar rants and either were with me on my day-to-day adventures, or already knew of them from real life.

Today, things are different. People take offense to the littlest, stupidest things, and anyone that knows me, knows I’m not interested in dealing with that type of bulls**t. So to avoid that type of stuff, I hold back in my writings. I don’t always say things I fully want to say, because I know there’s a chance someone reading it will either take it wrong, or be mad because I have my own different opinion on something. After all, when you can’t write your entire thoughts and feelings, what’s the point of writing at all?

So now you know what’s going on, just in case the next time you stumble upon this site and it’s marked ‘permission denied’.

It seems that most of my readers are already official followers, so this won’t affect those. You won’t even notice it’s private unless you’re not logged into your Blogger account. However, there are some others that read this blog that I know aren’t followers, and those readers will be affected. I could tell you who you are, but it’s a sure bet you already know.

Until next time….

The Blogmopolitan Quiz

I think I did this once before, but not real sure if I ended up posting it. So, this time I am.

Found this fun little game over at Brittney Breaking Free.

{Currently}

{Thinking About} The birthday party I’m attending today at lunch. Boss#1 is turning 73-years-old, so we’re all taking him to lunch. Can you imagine still being active at 73? I sure hope I am.

{Reading} I’m not a big book reader, but a blog reader I am. So, currently I’m reading about how great pregnancy is for Stephanie over at Southern Mess, how much Amber dislikes Ginger Ale at Airing My Dirty Laundry, and how Perfectly Imperfect Jenn’s baby is. So freakin’ adorable. Makes me want another one. But shhhh! Don’t tell SS. It just might scare him away.

{Listening To} My XM radio vary rarely changes from the two country channels, so currently, we’re jamming to Brantley Gilbert, Justin Moore, and Thomas Rhett’s new song Small Town Throwdown.

{Watching} Since SS’s daughter is here for the summer, we’ve spent several mornings waking up to shows on Disney. We’re not huge Disney fans around here. Partially because I’ve never seen a more cheap group of people. Any time we get a call for an animal to work on a Disney show, the cheap rundown of B.S. we have to listen to, makes us roll our eyes and hang up the phone. Billion dollar industry, and they want to claim poor? Get real!

{Thankful For} The glass half full point of view I have been given. It wasn’t so long ago, that every glass seemed half empty. Thankfully, someone came along and showed me the difference.

 

Bloglovin’

Ever since Google Reader shut their doors, I haven’t had a place where I can view all the blogs I follow, in one place. I have a bunch of bookmarks here and there, but nothing organized.

Until today.

I decided to sign up on Bloglovin’ and organize all the blogs in one place. Finally!
Follow my blog with Bloglovin

 

How do you keep track of all the blogs YOU follow? Is there a really cool app/program/reader that I’m not aware of?

Tell me! Tell me!

New design

Hey all you professional bloggers out there. Help me find someone whose willing to redesign this blog. I have a feeling there could be so much more to do here, but i don't have the creativity to do it myself.

Ideas?

-v

Blogging Question

Hi Readers!
It's 1/2 way through Thursday, which means Friday is peeking it's head around the corner. Can't. Wait.

Got a question, so figured I'd go directly to the source.

When you (as the reader) leave a comment on someone's blog, how do they normally respond? There are times when I respond directly to the person, because sometimes what I have to say is not appropriate to post publicly, but sometimes I just post directly in the comment section.

I know, I know. It depends on this and it depends on that, but I'm talking generically. There are some people that comment that do not have a reply-to address. This makes it difficult to respond directly.

So I ask you...

How do YOU prefer your responses?

I’m featured

Whoa! I logged on to Studio30Plus and guess what I saw? I’m this weeks featured blogger. Awesome!

Thank you!

It’s been an entire year

Today is the day. April 12th. I celebrate the Blogiversary of this fabulous blog.

Share some cake with me. Don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone you had some.  :-)

 

And here are a few things I’ve learned…

• You can be closer to someone you have never "met" than to someone you see every day.
• Not everyone will like what you have to say.  Say it anyway-- your blog is your space.
• There will be days when it feels like no one is listening.
• Sometimes the most random things can inspire the best posts.
• There are a LOT of people who watch the Bachelor.
• Twitter has become more popular than I ever thought it would.
• Just keep writing.  Even when you think you've hit a wall-- keep writing.  The words will come.

Anonymity

Something has been puzzling me lately, and I’m not sure if talking about it on here is the right thing or not, but I’m going to anyway.

With all the technology there is out there, why does one still think they are invisible? I know when you visit my blog. I know how many times a day, from what location, at what time, what operating system you use, and even your screen resolution among several other things. This isn’t front page news, as lots of bloggers use this way of tracking their visitors. So why do people still think they are “anonymous”, when they clearly aren’t? It’s like those people that have their eyes blocked out, but you can see the rest of their face. You still know who they are by all the rest of their features.

And so I sit here, puzzled even more, about people that “lurk” as well.

 

Blog app

I found a new app for blogging. Let's see how this works out. The last one didn't work out so well, so here's to hoping.

Fingers crossed.

Blogging 101

When I first discovered blogging, I thought it was... People letting other people into their lives. Telling the world things that can say so much about you. I wondered how people did it. I continued to stalk browse the blogs that some of my friends had, and before long, I had my own. (my very first blog) --->Food for Thought<---  I made it private so that I could control who was able to read the rants and raves I sometimes posted. When I built my first blog, I had 3 blogs that I followed regularly. I peeked at other blogs, but nothing that made me want to say Oh my gosh, I have to follow this one. That was one year ago this month.

Over the past year, my blog following list has grown from 3 to 157. A few of the ones I have been following don’t get updated anymore or are completely non functional. I’ll need to eventually sit down and go through them all, deleting the inactive and forgotten and saying goodbye to those I’m not finding I need to follow any longer.

This entire year has brought on new ideas and new ideas have brought on new blogs. I now currently have five.

• Food for Thought
• Everything but Val
• Blog Ramblings 101
• Jeff & Val
• Ryan James

Enough from me tonight. It’s time to move on to another blog.

g’night   -Valerie