Randomness Right Now

Blog Education

A few things I have learned recently. 

1. In Blogger, if you would like to follow a non-Blogger blog, you can. Now this may not be news to some people, but I was getting frustrated with blogs that did not have a "follow-me" button or running across blogs on different platforms that I wanted to follow. When you are on the Blogger home screen, all you have to do is click on the "ADD" button above the "All blogs" link, paste the url from the blog you want to follow, click on "+ Add" next to where you have pasted the url and click the "Follow" button at the bottom. Easy Peasy!

2. Not everyone has an e-mail connected to their blog account.  So when I try to reply to a comment via e-mail sometimes it goes to a noreply-comment@blogger.com address. I have sent many e-mails to this address before I realized I should check first. So if you would like to add an e-mail to your account here is what you need to do.

1. Go to Dashboard
2. Go to Edit Profile
3. Look in Privacy section
4. Check the box that says "show my email address"
5. Go to Identity section, and enter an email address
6. Click Save Profile

I got this information from Julie Musil's blog. If you would like to see that info first hand, see her post here.

Blog Awards

A few blog awards have come my way in the past month.

1. The Liebster Blog Award was given to me by Andrea Teagan at The Enchanted Writer. Head on over to her blog to see her current series on writing a Book in a Month! The German translation of liebster is favorite or dearest, so thanks so much Andrea!

The 'rules' of the award are the following:

1. Thank your Liebster Blog Award presenter on your blog.
2. Link back to the blogger who presented the award to you.
3. Copy and paste the blog award on your blog.
4. Present the Liebster Blog Award to 5 blogs of 200 followers or less.
5. Let them know they have been chosen by leaving a comment at their blog.

And here are the blogs I feel deserve this award!

1. Barbara Ann Watson - Barbara has great MMGM (Marvelous Middle Grade Monday) posts and has just launched a Professional Editing Service business. And the fact that we share the same middle name has nothing to do with her being #1 on my list! :-)
2. Middle Grade Mafioso - Another frequent MMGM poster, Michael just passed 100 followers and had a week-long celebration on his blog. The best thing about Michael's blog is his "godfather-themed" humor. Fun stuff!
3. The Art of Infiltration - Kimberly has great posts on "The Contest Circuit" and has a contest underway herself with a giveaway for SIGNED copies of NYT best selling author Veronica Roth's INSURGENT and Elizabeth Norris's UNRAVELING.
4. S.P. Bowers - Another blog that just passed 100 followers - YAY! And anyone who celebrates with ice cream and Oreos is okay by me!
5. Scribbles From Jenn - Jenn is participating in JuNoWriMo so head on over an offer your encouragement as she pushes through the final two weeks! Jenn also writes MG... do you see a pattern here? I love MG! :-)

2. Laura at My Baffling Brain gave me the One Lovely Blogger Award, about a month ago! Thank you Laura! The award calls for answering some questions. I am going to opt out of passing the award on to more bloggers today as I have already listed some of my favorite blogs above.

1. What is your favorite song? I enjoy most songs by Nickleback, and you just can't beat James Taylor. Yes, my taste is all over the place!
2. What is your favorite dessert? Ice cream with home made chocolate sauce is a frequent dessert in our house, but I love a creamy piece of cheesecake!
3. When you are upset, what do you do? I cry. Luckily I don't get upset too often.
4. What is your favorite pet? Our only pet is a cat, who stays hidden all day and then comes out at night (after the kids are in bed) and wants attention. She doesn't always get it. Last night I heard her cough up a hairball but still haven't found it, so she is not on my favorite list right now!
5. What do you prefer to wear: black or white? I would have to say black.
6. What is your biggest fear? That something will prevent me from taking care of my kids properly.
7. What is your attitude mostly? I am a pretty low-key person. My attitude is usually a good one, but it would probably be hard to tell.
8. What is perfection to you? My definition of perfection has changed since having kids. I am a perfectionist for sure, but I have had to loosen my expectations a bit with chores and projects that I do with the kids. The goal/end result has to be within their age-appropriate abilities.
9. What is your guilty pleasure? Eating a couple bites of ice cream when the kids aren't looking!

Have a great day!