Wrap-up the #bloggiesta!

Well, I didn't get near as many posts done as planned.  I had to go into the hospital and work most of Sunday (ugh) but I did clear out my backlog of movie posts, reminded myself that ages ago I had a post footer that I liked (and somehow forgot about) so I rounded that up, and finished my review post for Brazen Reads.

So not nearly as much done as last Bloggiesta, but it was nice to give myself "permission" to sit down and finish things for once.  You have no idea how hard that is some days.

Current book-in-progress: The Perks of Being a Wallflower
Current knitted item: Camellia shrug (halfway through second sleeve!)
Current movie obsession: MI-5 has been keeping me company all day.  Finished an entire season (or series, as the Brits put it).
Current iTunes loop: Imagine Dragons, Night Visions.  Love the opening song "Radioactive"

(nice footer, huh?)

Bloggiesta September 2012: Ole!

So it's Bloggiesta time again!  Time to work on the blog! 

I'm a shade late to the party (thanks, work) but I really only have one project this Bloggiesta:
WRITE. MORE. BLOG. POSTS.

Last Bloggiesta I got TONS of stuff done, but no posts.  So I'll reverse that trend and write up some of my backlog of reviews (and a few for Brazen Reads to get ahead, hopefully). And drop in on a few mini-challenges (just lurking).

Ole!

So, I won some books...

Quite a while ago. I completely forgot to post about them and thank the very lovely person/people who sent them.  (And then they got put under my desk for "safekeeping" - my office is a mess.)

Back during the Spring Bloggiesta bloggers who signed up were entered to win either of two grand prize packs (of books, obviously). Me being me, I forgot about it completely. I was having fun with Bloggiesta and was getting a lot accomplished. Go figure.

And then Danielle emailed me to tell me I won the Walden Pond Press pack.

Color me surprised!!  Thank you so, so much!

These are all really popular/well-written MG/YA books that I've considering reading.

I have no choice now!  And I can't wait until I can share them with my nieces (they're six, and they can read, so they're getting sooooo close.

In order top to bottom the books are:

• The Hero's Guide to Saving Your Kingdom by Christopher Healy (this has since come out in hardcover and looks so wonderfully funny)
• Juniper Berry by MP Kozlowsky
• Neversink by Barry Wolverton
• The Fourth Stall Part II by Chris Rylander
• The Fourth Stall by Chris Rylander
• Breadcrumbs by Anne Ursu (which has so many good reviews I'm surprised I didn't already own it)

Thanks so much again to Danielle and Walden Pond Press!!



#Bloggiesta March 2012: Hasta la pasta!

All done!  How did I do with the Bloggiesta this year?

Voila! The "definite TO-DO list":

1. WRITE. REVIEWS. Lots of them. I have a huge backlog thanks to writing and sick mom (Mom is doing much better - the parents called me from Savannah, GEORGIA, the other week because they took a surprise trip to celebrate the end of radiation treatments - a little warning, parental units, please otherwise I worry unnecessarily).  I wrote four (not as many as I meant to write but I got SO MUCH ELSE DONE).
2. Back-up the blog (haven't done this in donkey's years). Done and done.
3. Write post for April Literature by Women book (the moderator skillz are in the toilet, too).  Done and done, too.
4. Suey has a nice Goodreads widget that counts up her reading challenge there. I like it - must investigate Goodreads site to find the code.  Easy as pie - go to "edit profile" --> "widgets" --> scroll down to the one with the picture of the challenge.  Installed.
5. Find widget/linkage for my Posterous account so I don't have to cross-post all my pictures, only the ones I really, really want to.  Not only did I create linkage for my Posterous page but MADE AN ENTIRE FOLLOW ME GADGET!!!!  Look left! Some buttons were a snap (Pinterest and Ravelry have goodies pages to make life easy) but the rest was scavenged by looking up source codes in Google Chrome for widgets I admired and studying how those widgets were put together.  I am QUEEN of coding!!  (lol, not)  Also, I followed Blogger Sentrals tutorial on how to add a Pinterest "Pin It" button to the bottom of every post (look down - you have to be in the post so the pins have the correct source code).  Made. Of. Win.
6. Redesign header picture. I like it but the books seem a bit too one-note (no offense, Prydain and Lloyd Alexander). I have the fancy D-SLR now and a Photoshop Express account so I ought to use it.  Mostly done.  I now must learn to use all the benefits of owning Photoshop CS5.1.
7. Buy a mouse for my laptop. The touchpad is fine for basic navigation but sometimes my tap-taps just aren't fast enough or the drop and drag gets a bit wacky (PS Express editing is crazy-awful with the touchpad). Mouse will help with that. There were only about, oh, thirty mice to choose from at Best Buy. I wound up going with a Logitech that uses darkfield laser tracking (and is wireless).

The "would like to-dos":

1. Investigate new Blogger theme. I've had my current template layout since the beginning of The Blog and it is non-customizable. Interpretation: both columns are too narrow and can't accomodate even the Blogger-designed widgets in places. Drawback: I can use basic HTML but I don't know doodle-squat about CSS, etc. I am willing to learn - is there a good book anyone recommends? Not only did I find a really great, thorough, well-designed, easy-to-use book of HTML and CSS...I started dinking around with the Blogger Design Template and re-arranged my blog template to make it more user friendly. And then I started updating the widgets (had two dead widgets, how does that happen?). Not done yet. Haha.
2. This post on Mashable discusses how to use Pinterest to promote your blog and track your content. I lurve Pinterest. Must investigate.  A little more advanced as far as tracking your pin feed.  I went with the "Pin It" code instead.
3. Go through the Google Reader and remove the blogs with dead URLs/updated URLs.  I winnowed the blog list while watching Great Expectations.  Side note: Gillian Anderson is fantastic as Miss Havisham.
4. Check prices on Photoshop (I queried the Oracle of Twitter about Photoshop vs. Elements - only Hannah answered; she was in the affirmative on PS so I will check it out). One of us (me) remembered that I am a staff member at a University and can, therefore, get the academic pricing from the campus bookstore. Considering that I could use any skillz honed in private in photo editing at work (possibly, you never know when designing gown/glove studies) I could definitely use the price break.  Purchased.  There are beneifts to remaining employed with an academic institution.  Definitely a learning curve when using it, though.

Add-on tasks I finished, too:

1. Sidebar widget clean-up/consdensation.  I moved some old badges and widgets to their own page, cleaned up my Goodreads widgets, removed a search box no one used, fixed my Netflix feeds, migrated some widgets to the bottom of the page, etc.  This allowed me to reduce the number of old posts listed on the page just to fill the space next to my very long sidebar.
2. I moved the "About Me" section (controlled by Google+) to the bottom of the blog and wrote a new "Welcome" post to introduce myself.

I even joined a few mini-challenges.

• Lisa of Adventures of 2.0 hosted a mini-challenge about social media icons and sidebars (which resulted in my boss widget construction)
• Joy hosted a mini-challenge about Pinterest (where I found the idea of the "Pin It" button) 
• I tried out Liza's mini-challenge about using Facebook to promote one's blog where I made a Facebook page and figured out how to get Networked Blogs to import the feed (not intuitive)
• My sidebar re-arrangement fit in with Penelope's sidebar clean-up mini-challenge
• April's mini-challenge on SEO optimization has so much information I feel like my head is bursting with things to remember! But it's all stuff bloggers need to know (even if I have to look up what a tag is, lol) so I followed her "best-practices" to SEO my post on The Weird Sisters (since that's my current "push" for the book club).

This was the second Bloggiesta I participated in since I started the blog and I was really productive.  Thanks to everyone who hosted an event - lots of fun.
Whew!  Have I been productive on the blog this weekend!  If only I could muster this much energy to clean the house or mow the lawn...hahaha.

#Bloggiesta: Tricks of Composition

Things to remember when taking a new header picture (since I'm getting a little looney - too much coffee):

1. Remember where the blog title/subtitle will go.  My first ten shots had no room for the text.
2. Iron your backdrop.  (I ironed and ironed....the remaining wrinkles will need to be Photoshopped out.)
3. Think about tying the color into the blog theme.  I went through soooo many piles of books until I found several that were representative of everything I read but had cover designs that wouldn't clash.  Ditto with the knitting.
4. You will not need all that stuff you gathered up for the photo.  My original set-up included a "Keep calm and carry yarn" knitting bag, Christina Rossetti's Complete Poems from Penguin, the Norton Anthology of Poetry, and my three-headed dragon puppet (he's blue, I like him alot) plus all the pointe shoes and books.  Oh, and Chaucer because he thought there should be a cat in the shot, too.  I took pictures and pared down and shot and pared down....  It took two hours.
5. Shadows = the devil.  The lighting in my house is terrible.  I jerry-rigged a desk lamp to help with the shadows.
6. Patience.  Patience.  Patience.

And pet the kittehs.  They get jealous and underfoot if you don't.

#Bloggiesta March 2012: New template?

So, in the very-early Saturday morning I have made progess on both the "definite TO-DO list":

1. WRITE. REVIEWS. Lots of them. I have a huge backlog thanks to writing and sick mom (Mom is doing much better - the parents called me from Savannah, GEORGIA, the other week because they took a surprise trip to celebrate the end of radiation treatments - a little warning, parental units, please otherwise I worry unnecessarily). [ETA: wrote two so far]
2. Back-up the blog (haven't done this in donkey's years).  Done and done.
3. Write post for April Literature by Women book (the moderator skillz are in the toilet, too).
4. Suey has a nice Goodreads widget that counts up her reading challenge there. I like it - must investigate Goodreads site to find the code.
5. Find widget/linkage for my Posterous account so I don't have to cross-post all my pictures, only the ones I really, really want to.
6. Redesign header picture. I like it but the books seem a bit too one-note (no offense, Prydain and Lloyd Alexander). I have the fancy D-SLR now and a Photoshop Express account so I ought to use it.
7. Buy a mouse for my laptop. The touchpad is fine for basic navigation but sometimes my tap-taps just aren't fast enough or the drop and drag gets a bit wacky (PS Express editing is crazy-awful with the touchpad). Mouse will help with that.  There were only about, oh, thirty mice to choose from at Best Buy.  I wound up going with a Logitech that uses darkfield laser tracking (and is wireless).

And then there are the "would like to-dos":

1. Investigate new Blogger theme. I've had my current template layout since the beginning of The Blog and it is non-customizable. Interpretation: both columns are too narrow and can't accomodate even the Blogger-designed widgets in places. Drawback: I can use basic HTML but I don't know doodle-squat about CSS, etc. I am willing to learn - is there a good book anyone recommends?  Not only did I find a really great, thorough, well-designed, easy-to-use book of HTML and CSS...I started dinking around with the Blogger Design Template and re-arranged my blog template to make it more user friendly.  And then I started updating the widgets (had two dead widgets, how does that happen?).  Not done yet.  Haha.
2. This post on Mashable discusses how to use Pinterest to promote your blog and track your content. I lurve Pinterest. Must investigate.
3. Go through the Google Reader and remove the blogs with dead URLs/updated URLs.
4. Check prices on Photoshop (I queried the Oracle of Twitter about Photoshop vs. Elements - only Hannah answered; she was in the affirmative on PS so I will check it out).  One of us (me) remembered that I am a staff member at a University and can, therefore, get the academic pricing from the campus bookstore.  Considering that I could use any skillz honed in private in photo editing at work (possibly, you never know when designing gown/glove studies) I could definitely use the price break.

So, if you like, feel free to give feedback on my new template (outside of the header picture - I plan on working on a new picture when I have a bit of daylight to hand). I'd love to hear what to you think of the work in progress.

#Bloggiesta, ole! March 2012

So I hemmed and hawed....  I wasn't sure about signing up for Bloggiesta this year.  My schedule is crazy, my family is crazy (I haz a new nephew, he is cute as a bug!), I'm on edit 7 of my book (getting very close to the point where I'm willing to let other people read it), I've been in a blogging slump....

Ah-ha.  Blogging slump.  Giant backlog of reviews.  Lots of housekeeping to do.

OBVIOUSLY, I should sign-up for Bloggiesta.  I need it really bad!

I have to work part of the weekend, so I shouldn't bite off too much, but the definite TO-DOs:

1. WRITE. REVIEWS.  Lots of them.  I have a huge backlog thanks to writing and sick mom (Mom is doing much better - the parents called me from Savannah, GEORGIA, the other week because they took a surprise trip to celebrate the end of radiation treatments - a little warning, parental units, please otherwise I worry unnecessarily).
2. Back-up the blog (haven't done this in donkey's years).
3. Write post for April Literature by Women book (the moderator skillz are in the toilet, too).
4. Suey has a nice Goodreads widget that counts up her reading challenge there.  I like it - must investigate Goodreads site to find the code.
5. Find widget/linkage for my Posterous account so I don't have to cross-post all my pictures, only the ones I really, really want to.
6. Redesign header picture.  I like it but the books seem a bit too one-note (no offense, Prydain and Lloyd Alexander).  I have the fancy D-SLR now and a Photoshop Express account so I ought to use it.
7. Buy a mouse for my laptop.  The touchpad is fine for basic navigation but sometimes my tap-taps just aren't fast enough or the drop and drag gets a bit wacky (PS Express editing is crazy-awful with the touchpad).  Mouse will help with that.

And then there are the would like to-dos:

1. Investigate new Blogger theme.  I've had my current template layout since the beginning of The Blog and it is non-customizable.  Interpretation: both columns are too narrow and can't accomodate even the Blogger-designed widgets in places.  Drawback: I can use basic HTML but I don't know doodle-squat about CSS, etc.  I am willing to learn - is there a good book anyone recommends?
2. This post on Mashable discusses how to use Pinterest to promote your blog and track your content.  I lurve Pinterest.  Must investigate.
3. Go through the Google Reader and remove the blogs with dead URLs/updated URLs.
4. Check prices on Photoshop (I queried the Oracle of Twitter about Photoshop vs. Elements - only Hannah answered; she was in the affirmative on PS so I will check it out).

So much for not listing too much.  Haha.  Maybe I will peep in on a mini-challenge or two, too!

Bloggiesta, ole!!

It's #Bloggiesta weekend! A tiny, tiny goal for me

Natasha is hosting Bloggiesta again this year!  Happy 4th Bloggiesta!  (If you're wondering, it's like a "working weekend" where bloggers do housekeeping on their sites, a little pruing, maybe a few mini-challenges and help each other out).

I did some Bloggiesta-ing last year - added my header picture and changed up the template to something a little more custom designed - but I won't be really joining in since I'm still unpacking boxes.  Although I could work on the Reading Chemistry blog...hmmmm....maybe.

But anywhoo the reason for this post has to do with programming.  I really don't understand how blog templates set out widgets, colors, columns, etc. and I have no idea how to read the code (I know a little bit about HTML but this seems to be CSS).  So this is my tiny, tiny Bloggiesta goal.  Ready?

Bloggiesta 2011 goal: Find a book/good reference so I can start to understand how blog templates/websites are put together so that next time we Bloggiesta I will be able to do some more customization/cleanup.

So this is where everyone else comes in - do you have good reference material that you use when you do tweaks and updates?  Books or websites are fine so tell me your faves!