Tag Archives: Blog

Versatile Blogger Award

The Versatile Blogger Award

The Versatile Blogger Award (Photo credit: nhighberg)

WOW!  Thanks  Rachel at Sunset Boulevard for nominating me for a Versatile Blogger Award! I really appreciate it!

The rules for the Versatile Blogger Award are as follows:
  1. Display the Award on your Blog. (There it is over on the right)
  2. Announce your win/nom/nod with a post and thank the Blogger who nominated you.
  3. Present 15 deserving Bloggers with the Award.
  4. Link your nominees in the post and let them know of their nomination with a comment.
  5. Post 7 interesting things about yourself.

I’d like to share the love by nominating the following blogs:

  1. emmanonymous
  2. Just Nice Stuff
  3. Books at Middlemay Farm
  4. clotildajamcracker
  5. transcendingbordersblog
  6. Texana’s Kitchen
  7. sethsnap
  8. Belle Grove Plantation Bed and Breakfast
  9. The Literary Workshop Blog
  10. Peter Galen Massey’s Book Blog
  11. Gunsmoke and Knitting
  12. The Daily Post
  13. Bucket List Publications
  14. Recipes and Raised Beds
  15. Viewfromtheside’s Blog

Seven “Interesting” things about me…

  1. I do a variety of fun stuff for my real job, including… designing book covers (paper and e-book) and teaching voice at a local performing arts studio.
  2. I really do NOT like mice — dead or scurrying — in my house. (A problem this time of  year when one lives in the country.)
  3. I have the sweetest little cockapoo dog… most of the time.
  4. I sing, play guitar, bass, and ukulele. (Just got the uke and I love it.)
  5. Fall is my favorite season of the year.
  6. I want to go to England and Ireland and do a Lit tour of all the places in my favorite books, and of all the houses where my favorite authors lived.
  7. I am having a difficult time finding seven things that are remotely interesting about myself. (At least things that wouldn’t give spammers or hackers vital secrets about me that might help them break decode my most illusive passwords and security questions.)

Congrats to the 15 bloggers I’ve nominated. I’ve tried to choose folks who I have nominated for other awards. It was hard to choose just 15 from all the awesome blogs I follow, because I really want to say GREAT JOB EVERYBODY!

 


6 Ways WordPress could make my life easier

writting 2

Writing two ways. Some days I write my blog post long hand in CURSIVE! in a notebook. Other days I go direct to the computer. This is a picture of my brand spanking new keyboard. Ain’t she a beauty?

Dearest WordPress,

Thank you for lovely blogging experience (most of the time.) I really do appreciate your hosting my little daily nothings. But I wonder if I might bend your ear a tick and request a few tiny adjustments that would make my life just a bit easier. Perhaps my fellow bloggers could chime in with their own suggestions.

1. Could you possibly put the Add Media, Text Controls, Link Buttons and  Spell Check along the side? Like, maybe add a Formatting menu under “Settings”. Would that be so hard? You could include all the stuff from the top. That way when we lowly bloggers write more than 4″ of text we wouldn’t have to constantly scroll up and down to add a link or put in an image.

Formatting bar

Duplicate the functionality found at the top of the blog in a pop out menu to the left. (Please.)

2. Give us options on the ADS you attach to our blogs. You know in Widgets how there are about 50 options to choose from so we can customize our sidebar? What if you gave us a poll and let us choose, say 10 (or more) out of 100 types of ads that would best speak to our audience. Wouldn’t that be a better selling tool for you when you approached a potential advertiser? See I’m looking out for you too.

3. Make it easier to open a new file through the Dashboard. Experience has taught me that opening a new file by going to the drop down menu under my blog name then clicking on Dashboard / Post / Add New produces the best results with the least amount of grief. However, clicking on Dashboard is a wonky proposal at best. Sometimes nothing happens and I’m left hovering over the Dashboard waiting (im)patiently, or, more often than not, I’m shuffled right back to the  main page.

4. How about a nice Character Style box for those of us who know what we’re doing with text? I wont abuse it, I promise. But it sure would be nice to have some choices on font and size.

I won't even use Comic Sans. I promise.

I won’t even use Comic Sans. I promise.

5. If a person does a weekly article on a certain subject (say… Muffin Monday) would it be possible to have those previous post come up FIRST in the Related Article suggestions? Or how about this… ONE panel for MY related articles …and ANOTHER pull down panel for related articles from other WordPress bloggers! So say some one was writing about, I don’t know, Colin Firth, then one could easily link to all the other articles about Colin Firth one has done in the past… as well as other germane Colin Firth blogs on WordPress.

Just another excuse use this picture of Colin Firth.

Just another excuse use this picture of Colin Firth. [Image courtesy:  hdwpapers.com]

6. What’s a girl gotta do to get selected for FRESHLY PRESSED? You’d think one of my 528 post in the last 14 months would have piqued your interest, but I guess not. Sigh. [And yes I’ve read the FAQ suggestions, thank you very much.]

Anyway… thanks again for hosting the blog.

Cheers, Your friend,

ritaLOVEStoWRITE