This post has been long overdue. Thanks you soooo much to StickyFingers and Clinically Fed Up for chosing my photography as one of the 12 runners up on The Gallery – Theme: Nature (JULY 28, 2010).
What a great way to start the day than to recieve a box of Green & Black goodies through the post? 
Which brighten up my usually dry Friday. So thank you Tara and thanks to the team at Green & Blacks for sending me my choccies at lightning speed! 
The pleasures of blogging
Just as well as I’m a HUGE Green & Blacks fan, I have the recipe book to prove it.
Even the cover looks tasty
Something I'd like to try one day
And to top the great day I was having, here is a ‘bunch’ of flowers that my two year old picked for me this afternoon. He came running in from the garden with something crumpled in his hand, then showing me and saying in the most adorable way…
“Wub you mummy!” You know, moments like these makes you realise how great it is being a Mom Have a great weekend everyone!
Flowers from Sam
Yuhoo! Im back! After a ‘mini’ hiatus, I’ve decided to finally make time for my poor blog and post an entry.
I initially wanted to be ‘off’ only for a week or so until my family has gotten over the summer cold, but with work and other commitments I seemed to have over looked my blog and concentrated on the more ‘important’ stuff instead.
Lots to tell, lots to write about, but first things first. Just some of the things I’ve been doing since the last post:-
- Web Design projects. Recently, I have been inundated with clients so obviously that’s my first priority. A few projects are finished and a couple I’ve decided to start on.
- Keeping the kids occupied – it’s the summer holidays, and yes, we have not made any plans again this year. So I’ve been stuck at home with 3 kids trying to prevent them to say ‘I’m bored’ 100 times a day! For the past few weeks they have driving me crazy. I also spent the weekend at my brothers, which was cut short due to unexpected illness (again!).
We ended up driving home a day early with the kids throwing up at the back of the car for added effect! Does anyone know how to take that vomit smell out of your car? It’s been quite pungent for the last two weeks. 
- Helping my husband develop an Android FarmVille Crop Timer App - well, as you know, I’m FarmVille‘s number one bitch, so begged hubby to develop an app to time my crops. Talk about obsession… yeah, yeah, I know I’m sad. But might as well make the use of our geeky knowledge to share with the world.
The app has been released. Will follow on with more details on here very soon!
- Reviews! – I know I should be grateful to be given the opportunity and getting paid for it, but I’ve been asked to do a few reviews which I’m pondering about, I don’t really want to my blog to be mostly reviews (even though they’re the things I like). I don’t know… something to think about. How do you feel about writing reviews? Does it shadow the main content of your blog and prevents you from talking about the things that you really want to talk about?
So the’re you go folks. That’s my month in a nutshell, nothing exciting as usual. But, one thing for sure… it’s nice to be back!
Ok, I know I haven’t blogged for a few days. Sickness has got us for the second time this year. So tending to my poorly family (once again) and hopefully will get back to writing in a day or so.
But for now, well wishes our way please and will be visiting my dailies as usual. Mwahh! xx and if you really miss me you can always follow me on Twitter 
You know what, many people ask me this question. When I first started I was a little embarrassed to find out that friends and family had been reading my blog. But I guess that’s a contradiction in my part, my blog is open for all and even though back then I had a slight reservation on who actually read my rants, there was also a slight feeling of gratification that my views and thoughts were shared amongst people I know. The same goes for my other readers who can probably relate to my posts.
So why do I blog? I saw this post on ‘It’s a Mummys Life’ and I thought what a great idea! An entry to explain to all my readers why the heck do I choose to air my views out there for all to see. I guess it’s no different than social networking, but a more detailed insight to my personal life.
Firstly, blogging keeps me sane! I have so much thoughts, ideas, stories to share that it frustrates the hell out of me. As a little girl, I’ve always loved writing a diary and when I got older, my thoughts made more sense and it’s been a great outlet to be able to ‘write’ it down and to find people who shared the same experiences and stories that I have.
I have children! I’m married! They drive me insane! This is the only way I can rant and rave without interruptions.
I enjoy reading back what I’ve posted during the years, some entries make me cringe and some make me smile. They also make me appreciate the people I have in my life and memories that I have experienced during the years.
So for the FIVE words that sums up my blogging philosophy and what motivates me to do what I do : HUMOUR, FAMILY, INSPIRATION, SARCASM and SANITY.
I’m going to leave this open to anyone who wants to do it and of course here are the important rules:
1. Thank the blogger who awarded it to you.
2. Sum up your blogging philosophy, motivation, and experience using five words.
3. Pass it on to some other blogs which you feel have real substance
I would like to pass it on to the following bloggers with substance:
(don’t forget to add this little badge next to your post!)
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!
