Category - Blogging Away

This just in from Everyday Mommy:

“Your response to the Hidden Treasure Blog Awards
has been overwhelming! Nominations are pouring in and I’m trying to
keep up in order to have everything ready for voting. It’s been
wonderful to see so many of you nominate well-written posts around the
blogosphere.

A few of you have even begun campaigning for nominations. While certainly enthusiastic, this isn’t exactly in the spirit of finding hidden treasure. The idea behind the Hidden Treasure Blog Awards is to find those well-written posts which may have otherwise been
overlooked. It is a writing contest, not a popularity contest.“

Oh. Scrambled eggs all over my face. Nominate me if you like my writing. Don’t nominate me if you feel I think a bit too much of myself. And that’s all I’ll say about that.

The nominations are now open for the Hidden Treasure Blog Contest.  Here’s the details:

PLEASE READ THESE INSTRUCTIONS.

Submit your nominations to EverydayMommy (at) gmail (dot) com.

1.  Your nomination(s) MUST INCLUDE a working link to the individual post(s) you are nominating.

2.  Your nominated post(s) MUST INCLUDE the category in which you are nominating them.

You need not nominate in every category.  Nominations are officially open as of February 1, 2007.  The three posts with the most nominations will advance to voting. 

Nominations will close on February 7, 2007.  Voting will open on February 8, 2007.  .

Eligible Categories

Children & Family         

Faith 

Marriage         

Motherhood

Homemaking         

Humor

Current Events         

Life

Please note that you do not have to have a blog of your own to nominate someone else. 

To find a working link to the individual post you want to nominate, look for something like "permalink" or "permanent link" at the bottom of the post in question.  Go ahead and scroll down on this post to see what I mean.  Do you it there under the gray dotted line?  If you click it, it’ll send you to page that has only that post on it.  Look up at your toolbar, do you see the web address up there?  It’ll now have a longer address, one that will direct someone right to that post.  Highlight it with your mouse, right click it, click copy, then go compose an email.  Indicate the category you want to nominate the post in, then right click in the body of your email, click "paste."  The link to the post is now there and ready to be sent.  This is important because you cannot just send a link the blog in general.  You must give a link to the individual post.  If you are still at a loss, but really, really want to nominate me, please leave me a comment and I will help you.  Aren’t I nice?

And speaking of nice –

"The more nominations, the more likely your post will move to final voting. Encourage your readers to nominate you."

-feel free to nominate me!  Some of my more memorable posts are over there on my sidebar –> 

• How about Do NOT Call Me FlyLady for Humor.
• Or Where Rebecca Is From for Motherhood. 
• Or Lessons From Coconut Syrup for Children & Family.
• Or Firefighter Robert Parro for Life (that’s one of my personal favorites.) 

You might like others I’ve written, feel free to delve into my archives.  Look for one about Rebecca in September and one about a Woman on the Edge in June.  And PLEASE! nominate your favorite posts from other’s as well.  It would be a bit embarressing to win in every category!
            

My blogging well of creativity is running dry.  Perhaps it is from the
Sudafed I’m taking for this cold that has me run down.  In any case, in
the absence of anything important/funny/noteworthy to say, I give you
this:

Which Classic Heroine Are You?

I am Maid Marian

Beautiful and strong-willed, Lady Marian Fitzwalter is the lady love of the dashing outlaw, Robin Hood. She is skilled with a bow, but can match the manners of any lady of the Queen. She waits earnestly for the day when King Richard will return and wed her to Robin.
Which Classic Heroine are You?

I have no idea how these quizzes manage to so accurately describe me!  So who are you?

Take the 100 Acre Personality Quiz!I’m not surprised, especially because Kangas are known as one of the fiercer animals. She also carries her family around in her pouch and likes to do motherly things. Yep, I must be a Kanga. Have fun with the quiz above, then check here – Winnie The Pooh Characters – for more descriptions of your character. And be sure to leave me a comment and tell me which character you are!

Is there a blog you love to read that doesn’t have a huge following?  One that deserves recognition?  Well,there is a new award, just for these undiscovered gems.  Here’s the deal:

Announcing the First Annual Hidden Treasure Blog Awards .  The idea is simple; to recognize blog authors of excellence, with deserving posts which may go unnoticed. 

All
of us have our favorite blogs, the ones we read faithfully.  They are
dear friends, like a comfortable pair of shoes, perfectly broken in. 
But, we can also find ourselves in a rut, reading the same blogs week
after week, and overlooking those hidden gems which may require a
little more digging.  But, as my mom taught me, anything worth having
is worth working for.

So, if you’re up for an adventure I invite you to join me in a treasure hunt.

The Rules

Step 1:  The Treasure Hunt

Your
mission is to scour the mommy blogosphere for hidden treasure.  Read
through archives, visit new blogs and find that well-written gem.  This
can come from a favorite blog which you already read or a blog you’ve
discovered during the treasure hunt.  But, the idea is to find
well-written posts which are off the beaten path. 

The categories are:  Children & Family, Faith, Marriage, Motherhood, Homemaking, Humor, Current Events and Life.
No profanity, questionable or offensive material is permitted.  Keep a
list of the hidden treasures you find for submission in the next step.

Step 2: Nominations

Nominations
will open on February 1, 2007.  Everyone may nominate a single post in
each category.  The three posts with the most nominations will advance
to voting.  So, if you find a great post feel free to pass the word.
Nominations will close on February 7, 2007.

Step 3:  Voting

Voting
will open on February 8, 2007.  One vote per category.  Voting will
close on February 13, 2007.  Winners will be announced on February 14,
2007  The nominated post with the most votes overall will be awarded Best In Show.

I believe Jules at Everyday Mommy will be taking the nominations on her site.  From now until February 1st, just bookmark your favorite posts so you can find them easily when nominations open.  Now, I’m not saying you all need to nominate me or anything.  But look! I just happened to add a list of my more memorable posts right there in my sidebar.  How handy.  Actually, nominate any post, mine or someone elses, that you feel is noteworthy.

…I Love About the Letter T

1. Tamales!  With homemade Spanish rice and beans on Christmas Eve, with eggs on Christmas morning.  Oh who am I kidding, I love them any time of the year! There’s a dozen in my freezer right now!
2. Tatting.  I am a self taught tatter.  I have a baby bonnet as a perpetual work in progress and my favorite finished projects are my snowflakes.  Tatting is rythmic and soothing and highly portable.  Often you can keep a whole project in a makeup case.  And if you pack baby nail clippers instead of scissors, you can bring your project right on to an airplane.
3. (Chai) Tea.  I get Vanilla Spice by the case from Mocafe.  You get free shipping when you buy in bulk.  My day just can’t get a proper start without my chai.
4. Keeping Track of Time on my cuckoo clock. (follow the link, then click on the picture for a good view).
5. a Tanker.  My husband started off his Army career as a Tank Platoon Leader in the Gulf War.
6. Thomas Kinkade– I absolutely love to see how his paintings change as the lights are lowered or raised.  Absolutely amazing.
7. The Tiki Room– After a hot day of standing in line at Disneyland, sitting in the shade of the courtyard, eating a pineapple spear and watching the tikis come to life is just what your poor aching feet need.  Then you can sit in the air conditioned Tiki Room and enjoy the show.  I bet you can even sing along…
8. Tradition, when it is meaningful, not done just for the sake of tradition.  Traditions connect us to both our past and our future. 
9. Tasha the Cat (Fluffy, not Fat), our beloved animal companion of 18 years. I had her for over half my life.  I’m hoping that the Good Lord who cares for the lilies of field will see fit to bring our faithful little kitty to heaven for us.
10. Taking a walk along the Potomac with my family.  Just a block and a half from our house, we can stroll along this amazing river.  We can see the Washington Monument, the US Capitol and the Jefferson Memorial on our treks.

Thanks, Dawn!

If you would like to participate in this meme, leave me a comment, and I’ll assign you a letter!

Typepad (my blog host), is going to be doing some sort of system maintenance mumbo jumbo on Friday night, 9pm Pacific time.  My blog will be inaccessable during that time.  I’m telling you now, so don’t be emailing me wondering where I am.  If all goes well, my blog will be back where you left it on Saturday morning.

In anticipation of my blog becoming widely popular any day now, I bought my own domain name.  My blog isn’t moving, just it now has 2 addresses.  Do you want the particulars?  Probably not.  You IT types probably already know what I’m talking about, the rest of you have already  started glazing over as soon as I said "domain name." Bottom line…You can now access my blog with either the address you’re looking at right now or…drum roll please…

www.themacandcheesechronicles.com

Learn it, live it, love it.  Make sure you’ve got the "the" in there.  You can change your bookmarks if you want.  Or not.

In conclusion, don’t look for my blog on Friday night and you can now find me at www.themacandcheesechronicles.com.

(By the way, there is a far more interesting post from earlier today.  scroll down and enjoy the cuteness that is Nicky B.)

Here’s a message specifically for all my friends over at HomeschoolBlogger (but for other bloggers, too). Please turn on your RSS feed! You do this by accessing your Control Panel, then settings. Look for where it says “Publish RSS feed” and click “yes.” This allows other people, like me, to subscribe to your blog. If you don’t, then I have to make an actual visit to your blog every day to see if you’ve updated it And while I love you all dearly, I just don’t have that kind of time.

So what does it mean, “subscribe to a blog.” Well, think of blogs like
magazines. You find one you like, you want to subscribe. No problem, but you need a place for your subscription to be sent to, sort of like your mailbox. That is called a “news aggregate”, but don’t worry about the term. There are many out there, I personally like Bloglines because it is free, easy and there is nothing to install on to your computer. Register with them and then you will have a “mailbox” for your blog subscriptions to be sent to.

There are many ways to subscribe to a blog. The best way is to add a “Sub with Bloglines” (if that’s who you’re using) button to your brower’s toolbar. Then when you’re reading a blog you want to subscribe to, you click the button on your browser and all the work is done for
you.

Another way is to look for a “subscribe to this blogs feed” graphic on the blog’s sidebar. Click that and again, all the work is done for you.

That’s it. It looks way more complicated than it is.

In a nutshell: you need a place to have your blog subscriptions sent to, think of it like a “blog mailbox.” Once you do this, the rest of the process makes sense and is as simple as clicking on links. Then, once your “blog mailbox” is set up and you’ve subscribed to any
number of blogs, you can check your mailbox as much as you want and read what your friends have been up to.

Give it a try. If you’re using HSB, it’s a lot easier to manage than the “friends” page on
your blog, . Plus, you can subscribe to anyone’s blog, even those not on hsblogger.

Well, it looks like this is my new blog home.  I’ll be testing it out during the free trial period and seeing how I like it.  If all goes well, I’ll move in completely in January.