Winter 2015 Mini-Bloggiesta Wrap-Up

I'm a little late with my Bloggiesta wrap-up, partly because I lost a whole day on Sunday.  I went to the theater to see On The Town.  This is an old musical comedy about three sailors with a 24 hour leave in New York City.  It was fun, the dancing was wonderful as was the singing, and I loved the sets:

Of course, now I am going to have to watch the 1949 movie version of On The Town with Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly.

I did spend a lot of time yesterday finishing up the Bloggiesta tasks and challenges I set for myself.

1- I did backup this blog and my other blog, Randomly Reading.  I'm always afraid I'm going to do something and lose both blogs, so I like to have up-to-date backups and I've been neglecting that lately.

2- My pages are all up-to-date now, but I am thinking about adding an author index.

3- I made a new banner for my Randomly Reading twitter page (@randomlyreading) using PicMonkey, but I don't think I like it, so for now, I'll keep the one I have.

4- I still need to work on the blog folders on my hard drive.  I have one for each blog, and though it sounds like I'm organized, they are still a mess with lots of photos, ideas and stuff.  I have a gazillion comic strips that need to be ordered.  I am a minimalist in my real time life, but something close to a hoarder in my virtual life (easy enough to understand, I have 128 GB available, not to mention 1 TB on my backup drive.  If I have that much space in real time, I would be my own small country).

5- I spent time learning how to make an inforgraphic, thanks to Valeria at A Touch of Book Madness and using Piktochart.  Good to know for future use.

6- I checked the loading time of my blog using Pingdom Tools (thank you again, Joy at Joy's Book Blog, for sharing this tool).  This blog was faster than 64% of blogs tested and there is an analysis for making your blog load faster, but I will have to spend some time with that to figure it all out.

I feel pretty good about getting all this done.  Now, back to reading….

Winter 2015 Mini Bloggiesta

I haven't done a #Bloggiesta in a while and there are some things on this blog that could use some tuning-up and straightening up, and in the spirit of Spring Cleaning (because spring is only 61 days away as of today!)  And, while I may be a little late to the sign-up Linky, it isn't too late to participate.

Here is what I plan on doing:
1- Backup blogs, this one and Randomly Reading
2- Update all my Pages
3- Make new banners for Twitter
4- Clean up labels (again)
5- Organize my blog folders on my hard drive where I keep ideas, information, photos, etc for future use.
5- Learn how to make an infographic with Valeria at A Touch of Book Madness, which is something I've been meaning to do.
6- Joy at Joy's Book Blog has a really good idea on her #Bloggiesta To-Do List to check the loading time of her blog using Pingdom Tools recommended by The Redhead Riter.  Thank you, Joy, for that great idea and the links.

This is a busy reading time of the year for me, so I thought I would keep things manageable.

Here goes...

Bloggiesta 2013: At the Finish Line

Well, Bloggiesta 2013 is over.  I hope everyone had a great weekend and accomplished all their goals.  I accomplished almost all of mind, but the weekend was cut short by a Sunday afternoon at the theater and then dinner.  But I am at the finish line so let's see what's what.

This is my original list and my finished tasks are crossed off.

1- Write reviews for the books I have already read and the pile is getting higher. 

I did all but one review.

2- Back up my blog.

Now I need to remember to back up both my blogs more frequently.

3- Do some work on my other blog, Randomly Reading

I did lots of work on this blog - made drop down menus for labels and blog archive, created an archives page, and changed the whole look because the background I was using wouldn't always let me respond to comments, among other things.

4- Participate in the following challenges:

Organizing Reviews hosted by Lauren at Lose Time Reading using Excel, something I need a lot.  I don't have Excel, so I am going to try to do it on Google Docs.  
I did manage to make this work in Google Docs, so I was very pleased.  I even used a color coding system the way Lauren shows on here mini-challenge.

Declutter Your Sidebar hosted by Debz at Debz Bookshelf

I didn't get far enough with this to say I completed it, so it is still a work in progress.

Google Reader Replacement Options hosted by Jenn from The Picky Girl.  I have already tried Bloglovin', Feedly and The Old Reader, but still haven't made up my mind about which I like best.

For the moment, I am sticking with Bloglovin'  Feedly was OK, but there were almost 38,000 subscriptions ahead of me and after a few hours, very few of those were done.  There was also a note saying that in the future there would be a charge.  The Old Reader was also OK, but in the end I preferred Bloglovin'

Thank you again to all the hosts of the mini-challenges and especially to Suey from It's All About Books and Danielle fromThere's A Book for organizing and hosting Bloggiesta.

Ole! Bloggiesta is Here!

Yes, it is that time of the year!  A time when you can take a weekend and work on your blog.  This year Bloggiesta is once again being hosted by Suey from It's All About Books and Danielle from There's A Book   Here is a great big Muchas Gracias to both of you for organizing and hosting this year's Bloggiesta.

Bloggiesta runs from Friday, March 22 to Sunday, March 24th so break out the chips and salsa and get yourself up to the Starting Line:

I have been waiting for Bloggiesta to do some work on The Children's War, so here is my To-Do List:

1- Write reviews for the books I have already read and the pile is getting higher.

2- Back up my blog.

3- Do some work on my other blog, Randomly Reading

4- Participate in the following challenges:

Organizing Reviews hosted by Lauren at Lose Time Reading using Excel, something I need a lot.  I don't have Excel, so I am going to try to do it on Google Docs.  

I did manage to make this work in Google Docs, so I was very pleased.

Declutter Your Sidebar hosted by Debz at Debz Bookshelf

Google Reader Replacement Options hosted by Jenn from The Picky Girl.  I have already tried Bloglovin', Feedly and The Old Reader, but still haven't made up my mind about which I like best.

Happy Bloggiesta and see you Sunday!

Bloggiesta Wrap Up - A Day Late and A Dollar Short

So Bloggiesta 2012 ended yesterday and when I go over my list of goals to see how I have done - well, not too bad, I think.

1- I made a favicon, and it show up once and disappeared again and who knows if it will ever show up again.

2- I did fix my grab button, which had one line of HTML too many.

3- I revisited my About My Blog page and did some work on that, but not my About Me information.

4- Cleaned up Google Reader, but did nothing with my RSS feed.

5- I did learn all about Pinterest, thanks to Joy at Joy’s Book Blog.

6- I really cleaned up my labels, thanks to the mini challenge hosted by Candace at BethFishReads

7- Thanks for the mini-challenge hosted by The Bluestocking Society, I did create a rating system, using the Kilroy was here picture instead of stars, which seemed appropriate given my blog’s focus.  But I am still waffling about using it.  Using a five-Kilroy scale, this is how a three star rating might appear: 

Maybe stars would be better.

8- Charlotte at Charlotte’s Library hosted a mini-challenge to create some pages, which I did, but I am still working on them.

9- I did nothing at all with my Facebook page, but thank you for hosting it Sockets and Lightbulbs.

And yes, I did make new friends and kept the old.

And again, thank you Suey at It’s All About Books and Danielle at There’s A Book for hosting this event and keep an eye out for the next installment of Bloggiesta on September 28, 29 and 30.

Ole! Bloggiesta is Here!

I am so glad Bloggiesta has come round again.  I kept putting off some needed housekeeping tasks, telling myself I would do it during Bloggiesta.  Well, now it is here so here are my 2012 goals:

1- Add a Favicon This may or may not show up one of these days.
2- Fix my grab button

3- Revisit Polices and About Me page

4- Clean up Google Reader and RSS feed
5- Learn how to use Pinterest more effectively with a Mini-Challenge hosted by Joy’s Book Blog 

6- Clean up labels with a Mini-Challenge hosted by BethFishReads 

7- Set up a rating system with the how-to as part of the Mini-Challenge hosted by The Bluestocking Society 

8- Make some pages with a Mini-Challenge hosted by Charlotte’s Library

9- Fix up my Facebook page as part of a Mini-Challenge hosted by Sockets and Lightbulbs

And last but not least, remember to

    Make new friends,

    Keep the old,

    One is silver,

    The other is gold.
A big Thank You to all the kind people hosting the various new Bloggiesta Mini-Challenges, all of which you can find at It's All About Books 
and, of course, flashback Bloggiesta challenges can be found at There's a Book

Bloggiesta 2012 - It's Coming Soon

This years Bloggiesta will be taking place March 30, 31 and April 1, so if you have been thinking about a little blog spring cleaning, or just a little blog sprucing up - this is the blogathon weekend to set aside for just this kind of thing.


If you do decide to participate, here are some of the things you can expect:

• to spend time that weekend (as much or as little as your schedule allows) working on your blog
• to create a to-do list to share on your blog and link up with other participants
• to hopefully participate in several mini challenges and learn something new
• to connect with other participants through blog hopping or twitter
• to make new blogging friends!
• to come away at the end of the three days with a spiffed up blog!

This year Bloggiesta is being hosted by Suey at It's All About Books, so head on over there and sign up to participate.

Bloggiesta - What I Did

Today is the last day of this fun 3 day marathon called Bloggiesta.

What a great idea it is to take time to re-evaluate your blog and do those tasks that always get put off to the tomorrow that never seems to come.  It has been a lot of fun and my muse and I would like to give our main challenge host Natasha at Maw Books and the mini-challenge hosts Amy at My Friend Amy, Callista at SMS Book Reviews, Tasha at Truth, Beauty, Freedom and Books and Hannah at Hannah a rousing

So far, I have met almost all of my goals.  Today I plan on publishing my revised About Me, About My Blog statements, as well as my newly revised review policy and my new disclosure policy.

I have made a very nice banner for

I have added Meta Tags, cleaned up my labels, created a Blogs I Like to Read page, learned how to center my blog name and put a border around the header using CSS, which I will be happy to explain to anyone who wants to know how to do this.

Blogger does not easily let you put pictures side by side, but there is a way to do it.  It isn't ideal, but if you are careful, it works and can look something like this


I will be publishing an in-depth post on how to do this very soon.

I also did a free copyright, a free disclosure policy and got a free license.  Here are the addresses if you want them too:

Free Copyright My Free Copyright
Free Disclosure Policy Disclosure Policy
Free License Creative Commons

I don't know how necessary these really are, but it doesn't hurt to look into them.

Today I plan on finishing up.  I have three reviews to write, and I still need to clean up my flash drive and work on my challenges.  I may scrape the Facebook idea, it was iffy anyway. 

I am hoping my avacodas are nice and ripe today.  Yesterday I have hot sauce and chips, today would like a little guacamole with my chips. 

I hope everyone had a fun, productive weekend.  We will have to do this again next year!

Ole! Bloggiesta Is Here!

This is my first Bloggiesta and I am very excited about participating.  I have given a lot of thought to what I would like to accomplish and these are my goals:

1- Write reviews of the books I have read and not written anything about. 

2- Clean up my tags.  Added meta tags successfully despite sweating hands when I was adding them to my blogs html.  I expected the whole blog to just disappear, but it didn't. 

3- My about me and about this blog need some major work, and policies need to be added, such as review, disclosure and privacy,

4- Clean up and update challenges

5- I need to back up my blog and organize the flash drive I keep all blog related information on

6- Deal with copyright and licensing issues

7- Maybe create a Facebook page for my blog

Mini-Challenges I am going to do include

1- Setting Goals - Amy from My Friend Amy

2- Designing your own Buttons/Banners Callista from SMS Book Reviews

3- Help a Blogger Out Tasha from Truth, Beauty, Freedom and Books

4- 10 Things Bloggers Should Not Do Hannah from Word Lily

Maybe I will do other things, but I think for now these are the most important. 

So, it's time to party with Bloggiesta!!

Thanks for Natasha at Maw Books for hosting this party.