#91 — Blog stalk a blog COMPLETELY unrelated to photography for ONE MONTH

The bucket list returns!

Up today: 91. Blog stalk a blog COMPLETELY unrelated to photography for ONE MONTH.

This might seem like a bit of a strange one, but in my world, it's really easy to develop tunnel vision. To think who I am, what I do ... that it's the only thing that matters, which I know isn't true. Besides, when all I look at is photo blogs, it's easy to turn to the comparison game. Such-and-so is doing better/more/cooler things than I am, so I suck. I don't like that game and in an effort to avoid it, finding non-photo related blogs has been a good thing. :)

In all honesty, I think when I started, I thought I'd read something political or maybe a cooking blog or something ... but here's what I've been into lately (and I am not sure it's been an entire month, but I read both of these regularly - 3x weekly - so I'm counting this).

1. Jen has a Pen

I "found" Jen through my own blog. She is a blog follower, and so I clicked through to her blog (I've "met" a few friends this way). After a post or two, I was completely hooked! She is a witty writer (think: Helen Fielding) who has a lot to say. I especially connect with her "I want a baby and don't have one, but can't bring myself to snatch one from a passing carriage." She's far more open with life and health issues than I am comfortable being (HELLO! My mother in law + my sister's mother in law read this ...)

THIS is one of my most favorite posts. Absolutely had me laughing until I was in tears.

2. Style By Emily Henderson

I watched all last season as Emily plowed through Design Star on HGTV. I cheered her on and was jazzed when she won.

Recently, I discovered she has a blog. Let me tell you why I'm insanely excited about this. BECAUSE when I see something I like on TV, you don't always know WHERE it came from. I want to know where it's from and how many Franklins it will cost. Emily's Blog provides just such info ... WITH LINKS! Oh when I found this site, I thought I had died and gone to heaven. Forever.

I really connected with yesterday's post ... I love that even though she's a TV personality, Em shares when things get fugly.

Testing, testing

Ok, so things might be a bit jacked up w/ our blog header today or so ....

I'm trying to figure out how to get a rotating header to go on here. So, when you pull up the blog, or hit the refresh button, a new photo/image appears at the top of the blog. I'll let you know when I *think* I've got it right, so you can comment and tell me if it's working. :)

Oh, and I'm just using dummy photos ... I'll put real ones of us up there once I get it working. And yes, you smarties out there, eventually this will work its way over to the Heartland blog. I just want to get it right here first.

Wedding book ....

My friend, Anne, put together this awesome project .... photographing Vegas wedding chapels on Valentine's Day.

CLICK HERE to read her awesome blog post about it. :)

YAY! On Heather's Blog!!!!!

FINALLY! At long last, there is ONE photo from oru wedding on Heather's Blog (scroll all the way down to the bottom)! Granted, it's on why it takes so long to get photos turned around .... yikes!

Mike and I have a way shorter process, but as Heather said, every photographer is different. I have the luxury of having Mike to help me do all of the heavy lifting. :-)

1,800 and 2,500

I'm becoming a numbers geek ... check out our number of total visitors:

And this is the number of pages viewed:


have a lovely Tuesday. :-)

A little help?

Ok friends, I need some assistance with an item on my 101 in 1001 list.

91. Blog stalk a blog COMPLETELY unrelated to photography for ONE MONTH.

The trouble is MOST of the blogs I stalk are photo-related. I'm looking for something that is in no way, shape or form related to the photo world.

Here's more or less what I'm looking for:
• A blog that has regular posts (about 3-5/week).
• It'd probably be good if it were not politically focused either, because I don't need to increase my blood pressure! ;-)
• If I had an interest in the content, it would be a bonus (cooking, home remodeling .... reading ... anything like that).

But seriously .... hit me with your suggestions! Leave comments and help me choose a blog to stalk! (wait, does that sound psychotic???? IT'S NOT ... IT'S COMPLETELY INNOCENT! I SWEAR!!!!)

:-)

#85 — Get a stinkin' blog counter figured out on this blog

.... CHECK!

I actually figured out the blog counter awhile ago, but didn't realize it was on my 101 in 1001 list

The original post is HERE

It's SO COOL because I can see who is visiting, when, from where, how many times and even what time of day!

Blog peeves....

This is random, but bear with me.

I have some SERIOUS blog peeves. But wait, what is a blog peeve???? It's basically a pet peeve about blogs. So I simply smooshed the terms together.

1) Absentee bloggers. I have some photo colleagues who blog MAYBE once a quarter and it drives me NUTS. Yeah, life is busy, but the blog is something clients I talk with LOVE. I'm amazed at what they'll mention from a previous blog post.

2) Comments that take you to a new page ..... i.e. the comment box does not pop up in a brand new window, while leaving the current page alone. Does this make sense???

Here are the steps for Blogger users to remedy this:
- log into blogger
- select "settings"
- select "comments"
- under "comment form placement" select "pop-up window"
- click "save settings" at the bottom of the page.

3) (This is similar to the post above) Links that do not pop up in a new window like THIS ONE does. Here's another option, but notice how when you click on HEARTLAND PHOTOGRAPHY it takes you to the site, but in this same window.

Here's how to remedy it:
< a href="http://www.heartlandphotography.org" target="_blank">Heartland Photography

You'll have to add: < / a > after the end and BE SURE to delete the space after the first < and between everything in < / a >. I had to add the space so the code would show up on the blog

the secret is the "target="_blank" in the code.

If you have any questions, or think I"m nuts, feel free to drop me an e-mail.