You would expect better from a 30 (something) year old woman wouldn’t you? But I’m ashamed. Ashamed to admit this woman has an online addiction. No, not poker, WoW, or anything else worth being addicted to. Yes, I put my hand up and I stand up with my head hung low.
My kids got me into it last year when they started raving about ‘this great game’ and that I really need to play it because they needed more neighbours. So wanting to ‘help’ my children and being a good mum and all, I decided that being a ‘neighbour’ wouldn’t hurt. I’ve never been in to on-line games and I’m never going to go on it anyway so, what’s the worse that can happen?
It started with ‘Mom, can you send me a tree please!’ OK, no problem, I’ll send you a tree.
‘Mom can you send me a sheep!’ OK but that say it’s locked until I’m on level ‘blah’.
‘Well, just play a little so you can get to level ‘blah’ and send me the sheep.’
You see it started that way, and then I found myself really getting in to the planting and harvesting. Oh look! I have 5 neighbours… hmm I need more so I can get that ribbon I’ve always wanted! I really want that olive tree… need to play more!…and more…. and more…. and more.
Then it became a competition. So and so friend was only a level 5 yesterday, now she’s level 6. Plant, harvest, fertilize. Must beat the biatch!
So there you go, that’s how my addiction started. After 5 months of sneaking a few minutes/hours in between house work/kids/husband, I knew I had a problem. I final straw was when I began seeing the farm fields as ‘My Farmville’ and when I started to say to the kids, ‘I’ll find your P.E kit later, my melons need harvesting first!’
It took a lot from me to give up Farmville, I was clean for 6 months. I stopped logging on, friends and gift request were deleted. Until now… apparently they have ‘new things’ and it’s a lot better than last time. I’m on level 15.
DAMN YOU FARMVILLE!!!
There’s nothing worse than going to a blog/website and finding a ‘cluttered’ layout. Personally speaking, the whole point of a website is to engage your readers on your content, not over sized banners, flashy adverts and the most annoying of all animated gifs that is enough to blind any unexpecting reader.
I admit it, I have fallen for the curse of the animated blinkies, if you have followed me from the very beginning you probably would have noticed a dancing banana here and there and a ‘I’m a proud mom’ banner on my sidebar.
But over the years I have been learning design and psychological aspect of web design. What content goes with what, colour schemes, images, layout and most of all content. A personal blog, should be just that ‘Personal’, I don’t agree with sponsored posts on a blog that you use to share thoughts with like minded readers. Over the years a handful of companies have offered me to place a ‘sponsored ad’ on my blog for a fee, but I’ve always refused. Apart from a couple which I thought was relevant to my content and my lifestyle. This site is about ME, MY THOUGHTS, DILEMMAS and other things that I wish to share with my readers.
I don’t want to talk about funeral insurance, property investment or How to earn money from blogging in 5 easy steps. Don’t get me wrong, if you are one of these people who are willing to earn a little bit of money through the [www], then it’s obviously a personal choice, but I would do it on a separate site, away from your personal blog. But hey, that’s just me.
If you wish to start a blog and get your thoughts and ideas in the blogging world, my advice is to keep it simple and to the point. Start with a clean and uncluttered template. It’s also advisable to learn basic HTML, so that you can edit your blog to your taste. Here are some basic tips that I have learnt over the years on how to improve your blogging:-
- Try to keep your post between 400 to 1000 words.
- Highlight the important points. This way your reader can easily grasp the topic and have a better understanding of your post.
- Make sure that you link to any sites that you mention and also don’t forget to credit image sources on the bottom of your post.
- Write blog posts in advance, having 3 kids it’s not always easy to write a daily blog post. So when I get the time, I tend to write a few, maybe 2-3 and schedule it to publish at a certain date and time.This way, your blog is always up to date and will keep your readers coming back.
- Promote- use blogging promotion like Blog Catalog, Blog Explosion, Blog Linker and Network Blogs and Facebook Notes.
A few friends have asked me in the past on how to make a site/blog, and I’ve always told them to start with Blogger. Blogger is a blog publishing tool with an easy UI, you can customise templates as well as get a blogger.com domain name and most of all it’s FREE! If you don’t know anything about web development or just want an easy straight forward site then Blogger is a great platform to start your blog.
So being as nice as I am, I have compiled 10 Blogger Themes (that don’t suck) to get you started. Enjoy!
Next Kids Competition
From 4th November 2009, NEXT is opening a modelling competition for kids aged 4-7 years old. If you think you have a child who has what it takes to appear in their NEXT Directory Catalogue, then you must submit your entry by filling in the official entry from featured on Facebook NEXT Online page. You can upload photographs of entrants and friends and family can vote for them
Voting will begin on the 5th of November 2009 and closes on the 25th of November 2009.
THE PRIZE:
- The chance to star in a photoshoot for the NEXT Directory
- Representation by the highly respected childrens modelling agency Urban Angels
- A shopping spree at NEXT
The daily humdrum of life can be a drag, and if you are one of many of London commuters you would know how unattractive a winters morning trip to work could be. But this was changed when the ground floor was converted to a dance floor, when over 350 appeared to be travelers burst into dance and performed a mix of dance moves which left commuters feeling confused but also most importantly bringing a smile to their normally dismal faces.
Forget any cynicism, yes its an advertisment but considering what our world is going through at the moment, this kind of thing is just what we need, I just wished that I was there to join in the fun.
