Tag: memes

Categories
Faith

Why I “Dig” Jesus

So I’ve been tagged by Laura at OpinionMom to share 5 things I dig love about Jesus. I’ve been obsessing over this list because I want to get the ‘right’ five (as if my salvation or yours depends on this!). But since it doesn’t, I’ll just go with the first five that come to my mind and heart.

  1. He has graven me upon the palms of His hands; my walls are continually before Him (Isa. 49:16).
  2. I can do all things through Christ and then enabling power of His atonement—and more than once this week, I’ve had to pray just to make it out of bed in the morning.
  3. He was tempted in all points like as I am—He knows what I’m going through (but, y’know, without the whole sinning part; Heb 4:15).
  4. He is the great mediator, the intercessor, the only one who can reconcile my soul with God’s justice.
  5. He is the light, the life and the way, the perfect exemplar.

So, there are some rules about tagging five more people, but I’m not always sure that my blogging friends want to discuss their beliefs (and not every personal blog is the right forum for that kind of discussion).  Instead, feel free to share your five things (or one thing) in the comments or in your own post (just let me know about it).

Thanks!

Categories
Random

Just like Daddy

I was sitting in my room Sunday when Hayden marched in quite matter-of-factly (for a 16 month old, you know). He purposefully set about his business:

Just like daddy

Categories
Random

Thirteen Reasons for the Group Writing Project

Yep, next week is the MamaBlogga Group Writing Project II. I finally came up with a good idea for the topic and I’m really excited to see what people will say about it!

Wondering if you should participate? I recommend it! Here’s why

  1. It’s fun. Really, it is.
  2. It’s challenging to fit into a topic, even though it’s really general.
  3. You don’t have to think of a topic for once. Aren’t you glad I made your life a little easier.
  4. It brings you visitors. I saw my traffic increase by 46% that week. See the redux to see how many visitors I sent out last time.
  5. It brings you comments. Almost 60% more comments. Again, see the redux for details.
  6. It’ll make me happy. I know that’s your ultimate goal in life 😉
  7. It’s a great way to find cool new blogs. I know I found a bunch last time around.
  8. It’s a great way for people to find your cool blog. Maybe they’ll even subscribe!
  9. It’s a great way to make new friends in the blogosphere. And we all need more of those, don’t we?
  10. It’s a free link that says whatever you want. And let me tell you, those free links are hard to come by!
  11. It can improve your search engine ranking. Pick a good phrase in your title and you can really see some traffic. The free links from me (and others!) can help.
  12. It improves your Technorati authority and ranking. Every link from a new blog moves you up the totem pole. One little a href at a time.
  13. There’s a prize. Nominal, yes, but fun, too. And no pressure—the prize winner is chosen totally at random, so everyone has an equal chance of winning!

Hope to see your entry next week!

Categories
Random

I’ve been memed (again)!

I’ve been memed again! Wesley Jeanne of Mountain Mama tagged me for a “one word” meme.

One word meme
1. Where is your cell phone? floor
2. Relationship? check
3. Your hair? messy
4. Work? rewriting
5. Your sister? three!
6. Your favorite thing? family
7. Your dream last night? none
8. Your favorite drink? tough…
9. Your dream car? Volvo?
10. The room you’re in? living
11. Your shoes? barefoot
12. Your fears? imperfection
13. What do you want to be in 10 years? home
14. Who did you hang out with this weekend? SMX
15. What are you not good at? outgoing-ness
16. Muffin? Please!
17. One of your wish list items? time
18. Where you grew up? Durham
19. Last thing you did? ‘nuggle
20. What are you wearing? blue
21. What aren’t you wearing? shoes
22. Your pet? outside?
23. Your computer? desktop
24. Your life? awing.
25. Your mood? good
26. Missing? many
27. What are you thinking about right now? TV
28. Your car? new!
29. Your kitchen? brown
30. Your summer? travel
31. Your favorite color? blue
32. Last time you laughed? afternoon
33. Last time you cried? Tuesday
34. School? heart
35. Love? forever

How about this for tags: if you’d rather do this meme than the last one, feel free!

Categories
Random

I’ve been memed!

I’ve been tagged for a meme by Shawn at Letters to My Daughters. In this meme, I’m told to share four things that were new to you in the past four years. Four things you learned or experienced or explored for the first time in the past four years. New house, new school, new hobby, new spouse, new baby, whatever. Then you have to say four things you want to try new in the next four years.

Four New Things

  1. Marriage: almost three years now. I’m always surprised to remember something from my life before Ryan and be reminded that we haven’t always been together.
  2. Motherhood: sixteen months and I still don’t have it all worked out. More on that Monday.
  3. Marketing: just under two years in Internet marketing. It’s weird to get into an industry that you’d never even heard of and get to be the assistant editor of one of the top search marketing blogs in so short a time.
  4. Mortgage: just under two years (actually about two weeks before I got my first job in search marketing). Sometimes I say I own a house; if you catch me on a quick day I’ll say I own a mortgage.

Four Things to Come

  1. MBA: No, not for me. I want an advanced degree, but not in that. This has been Ryan’s goal and if it still is, I want our family to work together for that goal.
  2. More kids. Again, more on that on Monday.
  3. Maybe move? Depends on our job and family situation.
  4. More conferences? Right now I want to, but of course that also depends on our family. I’d love it if Ryan and Hayden could come with me to conferences, but I’d feel bad for ditching them all day while I’m in meetings, and I don’t know how Hayden would do with the late night parties. He’s a bed-by-eight kinda kid.

Tag? I have to tag people? Hm… Let’s find someone I’ve never tagged before… I’ll tag Kasie (~the art of life~), Zabs (MommyZabs), MamaZen (The Zen of Motherhood) and CamiKaos.  (Note: if you’d rather participate in the one word meme, feel free!)

Categories
MetaBlogging

Finding fun websites: StumbleUpon from start to finish

Google is so passé. (Not really; Google, don’t hate me!)

Ahem, anyway, as I was saying, Google isn’t the only way to find fun websites anymore. In fact, I dare say it’s not the best or even a good way to find a fun website. StumbleUpon is better (much better!). So, here’s StumbleUpon from start to finish!

Using StumbleUpon
Using StumbleUpon is very easy. You do have to go to their site, StumbleUpon.com to join and download their toolbar. They have toolbars for IE and Firefox browsers.

Once you’ve entered your identification info, you get to choose your topics to browse. These include everything from blogs to marketing to parenting to religion to writing to politics and back. Choose well; this will impact how satisfied you are with the results.

Using the Toolbar

su tool bar

Now you’re all ready to go. Click the “Stumble!” button to be taken to a random website recommended in one of your topic areas. If you like the site that comes up, click the thumbs up “I like it!” If you don’t like it, click the thumbs down. If you’re indifferent, feel free to click “Stumble!” again.

The “Send to” button lets you e-mail your favorite pages to StumbleUpon friends (I’ll be your StumbleUpon friend) or other friends. The talk bubble lets you see comments on the current page and make your own.

The Channel options are: (globe) see a page from any of your topics (like the “Stumble!” button), (people) see a page from my friends, (newspaper) show a news item, (pictures) show an image, (movie reel) show a movie (there’s also StumbleVideo for this). The All option at the end lets you choose a single topic of yours to stumble in (ie, if I clicked “All” and chose “Knitting” when I hit “Stumble!” it will show me only knitting pages). You can also search, or visit other stumblers or wikis from the All menu.

Favorites takes you to a “blog” with all of the pages you’ve ‘thumbed’ or rated. Friends shows you your SU friends. Tools lets you sign in or out, change your password, update your options or topics, etc.

Getting onto StumbleUpon
There are two ways to get into SU: natural and paid. You can sign up for the StumbleUpon Paid Inclusion program, buying a certain number of visitors for $0.05 a piece, or you can get added by a StumbleUpon user. Yes, you can add yourself, and as far as I can tell, it’s not shunned as it is on sites like Digg.

To submit a page, click the thumbs up button. If the page has already been submitted, your vote will count as a thumbs up vote. If it hasn’t already been submitted, you get this popup:

SU popup

Fill in the data and voilá . You are on StumbleUpon.

Doing Well on StumbleUpon
Doing well personally: To “succeed” on StumbleUpon, one of the most important things you can do is to Stumble. A lot. Whenever you come across a site you like, “thumb.” The more sites you rate and submit, the more power and influence you wield. I’ve rated 186 sites, about half of which were original “discoveries” (I accidentally submitted the first 30 something posts from my blog at one point, that’s included in those numbers.) Because I”ve submitted and thumbed plenty of stories, I also have 8 “fans” now, or Stumblers who like the same things as I do. Having a bigger network of friends and fans on StumbleUpon ensures that your sites are seen by more people.

Getting your site to do well: A page’s success depends on several factors. It must be labeled in the best topic and tagged well. My most successful pages on StumbleUpon have brought hundreds of visitors in a day because the people visiting my site gave it a thumbs up. The more thumbs up a page gets, the more people get to see it.

I’ve also written about StumbleUpon at work: Is Your Site StumbleUponAble? and Should You Use Paid Inclusion for StumbleUpon?

Enjoy!

This post is a part of the eMoms To Do Wishlist Group Research Project and Works-for-Me Wednesday.Don’t forget: Monday will open the Group Writing Project!!