Blogger Meetup!

Seems so formal to call it a "Blogger Meetup", because it was really a friend meetup! Susan and her husband (who I met 2 summers ago) were down last week and we met up with them and Richie (who I knew already) for dinner! It was a great time to chat and enjoy a great meal!

Have any cool meetup stories to share? I love meeting online friends!

2 Blogs = 1 Blog

I spent a bit of time this afternoon making something a reality I have been thinking about for a while. I combined my photography blog and my personal blog into one. The next change will likely be plopping this whole blog onto Wordpress, but that will be a while down the road!

Blogger has a great exporting and importing feature that helped immensely. The feeds should be the same, please let me know if you encounter problems! I kept the photography feed separate for those who are not interested in my personal life. Those who are, can subscribe to the improved feed to get all the posts. If you are reading this post from my personal life feed, you are all set!

I hope this doesn't confuse you all too much! I was getting tired of updating two blogs, and was devoting much more time to my personal one than the photography one. I think I have managed to fix many of the links, but it may be a process to do them all. Looks like I lost all of my scheduled posts for both blogs, unfortunately.

Everyone "following" me on Blogger on the personal blog should click over and follow this one!

I apologize for the influx of posts that may have shown up in the feed. I don't know how to not let that happen :(

Thanks for your understanding everyone!

Blogging Connections

I'm not even sure now where I came across this blog. But I have been following this family for months, and I was there when they announced they were expecting. If I recall correctly, it was quite an ordeal to get to the point (I could be wrong). I have followed them on this journey these past 9 months, though I don't know them at all. Today, Ava was born. Reading her post from today, I had tears in my eyes, at their excitement, at their love and happiness over their daughter.

When Missy gave birth to Pip, I think I had the same reaction. I've been praying for Stellan and MckMama like I know them personally. I smiled widely learning that Jenna was starting a photography business. And learning that Kathy was engaged filled me with glee. What is it about blogging that connects us to other people? And for that matter, Twittering. I feel like I know the exchange student that I've only met once really well. It amazes me that we can have these connections. I don't know any of these people in real life, and yet, I feel like I do, that they are friends. (Well, some of them anyway, at least the ones I receive comments from in return!)

I guess my point is to note how these connections over the internet really do matter. I'd encourage anyone to sign onto Blogger and start a blog. It's simple. All you have to do is post your thoughts or your photos, or links to something you found interesting. Anything really. But it is amazing to connect with people this way and connect with your family. So, to all my readers, thanks so much for taking this journey with me. I love you all!

Command Hooks Rock!

This weekend, C and I will be hanging out at his parents' house, "babysitting" the 3 youngest...though it's only the 9 year old that really needs watching. We're heading over there tonight and then coming back Sunday night.

Tonight I'm going to a girls only event. Dannah Gresh is speaking at the theater, and so everyone I know practically is going. My mom and I are making a date of it. It should be really interesting.

I have started to adore Command hooks. So much so that the last time I bought some from C's work, I wiped out their supply of my favorite ones. C didn't know when they would get some more, so I decided to look online. It turned out that Amazon had a great deal on them, so I bought 9 hooks to start off with. I combined it with something else and got free shipping. And they came today! So I set to work. I'm still waiting for the hour to be up so I can put my frames up. Soon I think I will start a series of posts on what our apartment looks like. Or at least our decor. It took a while before we actually had any, but now I'm proud of it.

I've gotten quite a bit of homework done this week so far, which I am proud of. However, in this schedule for the semester, there isn't really a day that I can just play, unless it's Friday. And unfortunately, it's not happening today! I'm trying to get a bit more studying done before our babysitting starts. It's impossible to concentrate over there sometimes.

Now it's time for me to get moving and start packing things up! Have a good weekend everyone!

Blog updates: I updated the Links page and also added in a "Currently" sidebar, to show what I'm reading at the moment and such. Just FYI!

Large amount of traffic..

As part of my daily routine, I check my blog stats, on Google Analytics and Feed burner. Google Analytics said I had 70 visitors yesterday and Feed burner said that I had 120. After I got over my shock, I investigated. It appears that on the blogger toolbar at the top of the page, where it has the "next blog" link, my blog was the next one. So I had a ton of visitors. I had a couple of funky comments that I deleted but didn't think anything of.

Anyway, just had to throw that out there. Also, check out those two sites I mentioned. They are great if you want to see where your traffic is coming from :)

As a side note to that, combined with the post I just posted about the blog experiment and this sudden burst in traffic, I think I will be working to make my blog a bit more anonymous. Start looking for more initials rather than full names, etc. Just a heads up!