Showing posts with label blogging. Show all posts
Showing posts with label blogging. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 4, 2017

Blogging Vlogging Maid

Don't expect the title to have some serious or deep significance. I was trying to think of a title, said "blogging vlogging" out loud and segued to "She's just a woman!" :D

I haven't been blogging lately and I will point the finger at the baby (He's two! But as you know, the youngest will always be referred to as the baby until he raises a fuss about it.) and rightly so because the main reason it was so hard to blog is that he had finally succeeded in his wicked attempt to pick off all the keys of my laptop keyboard. It was a losing battle. As soon as I'd replaced the keys, off they went again. I finally just asked Mark to let me use his old USB keyboard.

I blogged about corn dip on Our Lemonade Days and there was supposed to be a follow-up post, but it occurred to me that nobody's that interested in corn dip - not even me, so, yeah, that second post's not happening. I did make a second batch following a more common recipe, but I soon realized that the only difference was in the fact that I used diced tomatoes and not tomato sauce. There was no noticeable difference in flavor. Here's a pic of the second batch and then I'm done talking about corn dip for now. Honestly, it's tasty, but I'd probably order good ol' salsa con queso y carne if I had to choose.



We've been back to Palaya, btw, and we plan to return on the next market day. Last time, Mark and Midge lost a flipflop each in the river. The day started off rainy so it was pretty foggy in Tanay, but it fortunately cleared up in the afternoon. I bought a few herbs and pepper plants. The only one that failed to survive was the cilantro. I've never been able to make that plant live. Any tips?

We also participated in a multi-family "garage" sale held by the Antipolo Homeschool Group to help raise funds for a fellow homeschooler who recently fell gravely ill with meningoencephalitis. Praise God that the little boy is now on the mend.

Midge attended a pottery workshop, which I thought she'd enjoy, considering her penchant for salt dough. She has been working a lot with it, making tiny toys for her collection of LPS, Shopkins, etc. We don't have the saucer and whatnots she made in class as they are still to be fired, painted, and glazed by the teacher, but we're excited to see what they'll all look like when they're finished.

I actually managed to capture a few videos from these events, and Midge was able to put them together to create a vlog episode. I'm afraid the video clips are grainy since I used my phone to take them. I swear I'll get around to using a better camera. In the meantime, please watch this video and like it if you're so inclined. While you're at it, please subscribe to our channel as well. :)

Thursday, March 21, 2013

Painful Lymph Nodes, Mullet Babies, and New Website


I'm making some blogging changes around here. This, Spinning Lovely Days, is going to be my personal blog, so you'll probably find inane musings and random news about me and my family here, which is why I'm going to tell you about the painful lymph node behind my right ear. It was extra painful Saturday and Sunday (the pain becoming more intense as the day progressed), but considerably dulled Monday onwards. It's still there though. I've prayed for it to go away and I expect it to just disappear without me even noticing it. I did have the beginnings of a cold twice last week and it never fully developed both times; I'm thinking that's related to this lymph node episode (rhymed!).

If you've been following this blog for years, you probably know that we didn't give Marguerite her first haircut until she was 3.5 years old. Now, with a boy, lurking in the back of my mind is this notion that we'll be opting to grow his hair long, about shoulder length (just like Jesus'!!! - is what we'll point out to naysayers). The thing is we didn't factor in that he'll find those wayward wisps of hair irritating, but we wouldn't want to tie or clip them back lest people mistake him for a girl. We're also now considering the climate here which is muggy 97% of the year. Mark said that he could cut the long strands hanging over the baby's ear (we still refer to Cameron as THE baby even if he's 1.5 and about to start slow potty training - my dear husband found out what that meant and quickly announced that he's going to stay completely out of it. So much for support!) unwittingly offering to give the baby a mullet. Shudder!

Anyway, here are some recent pictures, a few of them with good friends. The other little boy is Asher who's about a week younger than Cameron. The boys were so adorable playing on the grass. Precious moments! I, on the other hand, look fat in that black and white blouse. While clearly overweight, I am nowhere as heavy as I seem in it - just wanted to say.


Btw, I've started a new website: Our Lemonade Days. It still needs lots of work, but I'd like it if you could visit it and check out what's already there.

Sunday, March 11, 2012

Still a Post (and with Pics Too!)

Listen. I clearly don't have the time to blog, but when I do, there'll be a post about stargazing and Marguerite's return to ballet and introduction to taekwondo (speaking of which, congratulations to my cousin Jaymee for winning a silver medal at the recent college level tournament... Woot, Aunt Jaymee!). I could post about going to the Logos Hope as well, but there are no pics of us there since somebody who shall remain nameless (but whose name rhymes with Schmark Schmoze) conveniently left his camera bag after he had spent time getting it ready for that trip... But, hey, would you like pictures? I could post a few pics...

now don't get anything in an uproar... he's big, but he wasn't very mobile yet at that time and there was an adult at the foot of the bed...


somebody's obviously not really sleeping and just wanted to join the "sleeping" shot

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

So Long and Thanks to Adgitize

I'm really sad about Adgitize closing. I do feel guilty about not being more active in the past months. With the baby and everything else going on, I just couldn't hack blogging in general. I was planning on being active again come January, take a month-long ad as usual, but obviously I was too late. The same thing happened with CMF a few months back. I was inactive for a really long time because of being pregnant sick and pregnant lazy, and then one day, there was an announcement that it was soon closing. I know it couldn't have been just me, but these were programs I really appreciated for making the blogging experience a little bit more lucrative, and through them I met so many wonderful bloggers and got to know of so many fine blogs; I wish I had been more zealous in supporting them. I just thought one inactive member wouldn't do much damage, but of course, collectively, members who thought that way could. Anyway, I just wanted to give a shoutout of "thanks" to these two programs. I guess I'll be concentrating on Entrecard, memes, blog hops, etc. for more visits. Does anybody know if there's a similar program for bloggers? What would you recommend?

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Not about Casey Anthony

How about that verdict, eh? I'm not going to blog about it. I'm tired of discussing the topic with the people here in my house, especially since it's hard for me to talk with a stuffy nose and an itchy throat, and I actually have to do most of the talking at that explaining stuff since I'm the only one who has followed the case since it caught media attention 3 years ago.

So, I'm just going to talk about blogging. Let's start with Adgitize. I haven't been active in the last few months. It's mostly because of my work. It doesn't really give me time to do anything else on the computer. Well, that's not accurate. It's mostly really that I don't feel like spending any more time on the computer after I'm done with it. Essentially, I haven't been doing my clicks; I've stopped participating in the forum; and I've stopped purchasing ads. Hopefully, I can resume my Adgitize activity soon. It's just that I said I wouldn't purchase ads if they're not going to pay for themselves (meaning the money used to buy them would come from my Adgitize earnings). If I don't do my clicks, there's a chance that I wouldn't raise the $14 I used to buy the month-long ad. Anyway, I do regret not being able to buy ads since they do help in boosting my traffic. For the time being, I'm concentrating -- well, not even really concentrating, on CMF spikes. I tried the Firework thing once and I'm not sure that it did much for my traffic, and it just got more expensive too. I think I paid $2 last time for 200 unique clicks and it took quite a while before I got all 200. Now, they're asking $4 for 200 clicks, I believe. Maybe I'm missing the whole point. Oh well, you can explain in the comments section if  you get it and want to enlighten me.

Essentially, blogging just doesn't figure much in the current scheme of things around here. Hopefully, I can get my momentum back soon.

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

La Fleur Plus Belle

A couple of things first...
: Does anybody know how the comment opp from LoudLaunch works? I keep on getting opps, but I just can't figure out how it works. I try going to the sites and there aren't sections for comments...
: Has anybody else tried going for the Firework Ad thing on CMF? I purchased one 3-4 days ago and I was supposed to get 200 unique visits, since then I still have about 196 clicks to go. That's 4 hits care of it for 3-4 days (I can't remember if it's been 3 or 4 days, but still...). I think I'm going back to simple spikes.

Now to more important matters - pictures of my beautiful daughter as a flower girl:

Sunday, January 23, 2011

Update

Hi. Other than bad "morning" sickness, I'm fine (meaning, everything's pretty much in order pregnancy-wise). However, I'm in an almost perpetual state of dizziness and nausea, so blogging activity here will be quite sporadic for the next couple of months. Let me just get through the first trimester and I'll resume the posts, clicks, drops, comments, etc. with bells on. I'll try to visit some of my usual blogging haunts from time to time so I won't miss out on so much, but the writing and publishing of this post is about as long as I can stay in front of the computer without getting sick.

Blessings,
Ivy

Thursday, January 6, 2011

So Blessed, I Can't Contain It

I should always feel this way:



I was going to highlight the lines I love, but it turns out I love all the lines. :)

More than I could hope or dream of
You have poured Your favour on me
One day in the house of God is
Better than a thousand days in the world

So blessed, I can't contain it...
So much, I've got to give it away,
Your love taught me to live now...
You are more than enough for me.

ONE DAY - Reuben Morgan

I'm sorry for not really blogging... It's a mood thing. Don't worry, it's not dark or negative. I'm very happy, but the interest is really just elsewhere. I expect to regain blogging momentum one of these days. :)

Thursday, December 23, 2010

Updating My Accounts

I received an offer from LinkfromBlog this morning and when I checked it out, my account is still affiliated with my old blogspot address. I had to ditch the opp - which is a bummer - since I needed to fix my account info. It occurred to me that I needed to update my account with several other similar paid blogging programs as well.  Some of them still have my blogspot address, while others that are more recent lack the www bit (which I've already mentioned here spells a huge difference when it comes to Page Rank).  That's like starting over. I have to "claim" my blog all over again for one, but if it means getting the paid opps, then no worries.With LinkfromBlog, I have to post a counter. With other programs, it meant posting key phrases like "Men love to play with kitchen utensils"or "Don't you wanna dance".
Here's to more blogging opps in the future...

Thursday, December 16, 2010

Clickbooth CPC

You can’t blame me for getting excited over Clickbooth. After being banned from Adsense for reasons I had no control over (clickers could either intentionally sabotage you or could be ignorant enough to think they’re helping when they’re effectively causing you to lose your account - I just wish there had been some warning from Google, a sort of heads-up that suspicious activity was going on, so I could have informed or made an appeal to whoever it was or tried to investigate the IP address. And now, even worse, they wouldn’t let my sister get an account with them either since she’s connected to me… h-anyway…), I haven’t made earnings from a CPC network. Even better, Clickbooth has sort of forged a battle of Google AdWords vs. Clickbooth and you know how I love cheering for the underdog. I really like the cockiness, the fearless challenge, since after all, to quote my husband after I’d told him about it, “Google owns the Internet. And maybe Facebook,” (which, if you know how my brain works, leads me to musings about the antichrist, hee). Maybe Google will always remain top dog, but that doesn’t mean that there could only be a monopoly. Let others be just as successful (and help me and the others whom they’ve declared personae non gratae). Anyway, Clickbooth gives me hope. Maybe it’ll help me get over my bitterness over the Adsense thing, lol.
Essentially, Clickbooth has been around for some years now. The CPC part is a fairly new division and is really geared toward competing with Adwords. With the following benefits: access to thousands of big name advertizers (they are promised new market with undervalued click costs, access to billions of exclusive Clickbooth impressions, advanced targeting by keyword, category, or location, etc.), yield optimized ad delivery, real-time reporting to track earnings, etc. their promise of the best payouts in the business is quite feasible. You could become an affiliate and earn more. Their working theory in optimizing CPC for publishers is that targeting the most efficient keywords guarantees minimal cost per click in comparison to the sales generated. This way, the publishers’ ad inventory continuously expands, generating incremental revenue and better web traffic earnings.

Friday, December 10, 2010

Book Bliss

I review for BookSneeze

I found out about Booksneeze from Vera and eagerly signed up. It's a great program for bloggers who love to read and collect books. In exchange for an honest review, a blogger gets a brand new copy of a book. I just received my first and am excitedly checking it out. I won't say anymore lest I end up giving parts of the actual review here. Anyway, Marguerite and I had to make another trip to the post office to claim the book. The guy at Customs remembered us, "Weren't you just here the other day?" It had actually already been a whole week, but why nitpick? From the post office, we went next door to the City Hall where there was a Scholastic Book Sale going on. I went a little crazy with the book shopping, but hopefully, it would turn out to be a good investment.

Friday, October 1, 2010

As Lazarus

How many times have I testified here before that prayer works? That I'm online and blogging is an answered prayer. This computer pretty much went kaput on me yesterday afternoon. It had to go berserk just when the lone techie around here (Mark) was spending the night at the office (he has mounds of work to do, which meant staying at the office late and then Fridays his car has coding - Filipino phrasing for being banned on the road from 7am to 7pm because of the last digit on its plate number - so it meant leaving the house at 6am). I was panicking because I was waiting to hear from a prospective client and the computer wouldn't even get to the Windows part. It kept on saying stuff like Disk Boot Failure and Primary Slave Hard Disk Failed and Kumquats and Rutabagas... I got Mark on the phone and he tried to guide me through fixing the thing until he gave up and said, it's not anything he could fix over the phone (good thing he doesn't work as tech support in a call center). It meant no computer until he got home Friday night or even Saturday morning, depending on the volume of his work (in the background, Marguerite is singing "Cat's in the Cradle", jk :D), and there was the possibility that I might have lost some files because you know me and my thick skull, I never back up. I was pretty much resigned to just waiting until Mark got home, but Marguerite and I did ask God last night to fix the computer. I woke up earlier at 4am as what is my routine, and with the computer dead, had nothing to do. I could continue hemming the playsilks, but that meant turning on the light. Just for kicks, I turned on the computer to see if it was over its tantrum. It wasn't. I just lay there listening to Reuben Morgan and the rain, meditating. I thought I'd give turning on the PC one last try before I considered sewing in the bathroom. Well, this time it got me to that part that asks if I want to start Windows normally and I chose the other option, which was the recommended one anyway, something to do with launching repair and restoring the PC to an earlier time wha? So it was a longish process, but the computer started to repair itself... and here I am now. Sheesh. I wish I didn't panic so much at the thought of not being able to go online. :( But thanks to God for answering our prayer.

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Back to Normal on Thursday

Hi! I'm still here, just really, really busy with stuff for Marguerite's birthday, and we're not even having a real party! I don't know if I'll get done everything that I need to do, but I'm praying for things to go well. So far, I need to stitch on the ribbons for the cape, crochet one more puppet, build the theater, cut and hem the playsilks (I can hem these after her birthday, I guess), make a pop-up birthday card (not to mention compose her birthday poem - I make one every year, remember?), bake her birthday cake... I must be nuts! I actually already edited my to-do list. The original one was way more ambitious. In the meantime, my husband will buy that one bought present and take time off work to spend Marguerite's day with us. Is that fair? Oh, I know I heap it all on me myself with my handmade pledge, so I shouldn't complain, but I grew up whiny, so... Anyway, I'll return to my usual dropping, clicking, commenting... on Thursday.

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Homeschooling Widget

I've decided to add a button/widget that links to all my homeschooling posts on my sidebar. I've met a few people lately who visit my blog for homeschooling thoughts and I want them to have easy access to the homeschool-related posts here since, as you know, sometimes I talk about stuff like rhinoplasty and motorcycle dating besides other non-homeschooling matters. :D



 

The posts aren't just about activities that we partake in as a homeschooling family. They can be about news, articles, videos... but all have something to do directly or indirectly with homeschooling.

Friday, August 27, 2010

Knitting Bunting and the Prolific Blogger Award

It's knitting time once again. I'm making triangles for bunting as you know we have a couple of birthdays coming up. It's a simple pattern, but a counter would still be necessary since I do it in front of the TV while I get my daily dose of Criminal Minds and NCIS reruns (Mark Harmon is a stone cold fox).


Also, I'd like to thank Maggie and Sharkbytes over at My Quality Day for sharing the Prolific Blogger Award with me. It's now my turn to share it with other bloggers I deem worthy of it. :)

Dave at Lizard Poop
Vera at Verabear
Mhel at Marikenya
Chip at Swirly Ageless Mind

Go ahead and grab it:

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Of Cough, Art and My Sister's Giveaway

Marguerite has a cough, something that's quite common of late, thanks to the season. She's barking and sniffling with the best of them. Her spirits yesterday were quite high (I think she'll show undiminished energy again later - still early), but when bedtime came... forget it. Suffice it to say, I've had next to no sleep. I think the phlegm was bothering her. As usual, I've been doing water therapy, although I might give in to my mom's nagging and let the little one take lagundi syrup (at least, it's herb-based).
Anyway, we did this art project some time back, but well... I forgot all about it. I let her color with crayons, cover it with black acrylic, and then etch stuff (I did most of the etching - using a pick-up-stick)


Btw, my sister is hosting a giveaway. It's only for Marikina residents though. So if you're from Marikina, pop on over to her blog to see what it's all about. The prize is a 50g Marks & Spencer White Peach and Almond Talcum Powder.

Monday, May 31, 2010

I Was Going to Call This Post "Resurrection", BUT...

...that's just being a windbag. And also maybe a little sacrilegious, hee hee. Hi! I think I'm back! We've finally moved, but not where we thought we would, but it's all good. I'm finally back in my beloved Marikina. Anyway, so many things have happened and there are plenty of pictures I could share, but that will just have to be for another time. The drive to blog isn't completely back yet. Plus I want to change my header, but I need to get properly cranked to get back in the swing of blogging things. This blogging catatonia really isn't good. I missed posting about that Glee episode with some of my most favorite things ever in it (I'm a Les Miz nut; "Dream a Little Dream/Les Yeux Ouverts" was in my wedding playlist; love tap dance - shufflehopstepbuffalo1buffalo2...; Artie finally got to dance!)... More about my recent travails soon. :)

Monday, April 19, 2010

How Do I Get Rid of Those Pop-up Ads?

First things first... I noticed a few days ago that opening Spinning Lovely Days garnered me a message from my pop-up blocker that it had just blocked a pop-up. I mean, from my own blog. How did that happen? I then remembered receiving a message from Bidvertiser saying that they were enabling pop-under ads, which supposedly were much less intrusive than regular pop-ups. Anyway, certain that that was the culprit, I disabled the pop-under ad option in my account. Imagine my dismay when I realized this morning that the pop-ups are still there. I think the last widget I added was the carbon neutral one, but I don't think it's causing the pop-ups. Let me know if you can figure this out; I'd appreciate any advice regarding this.

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Of Keyboard Killers and Ant Thugs

You may be going, what on earth is that a picture of? Nothing so mysterious, just a new keyboard that I haven't taken out of its plastic case just yet. This would make our third keyboard in six months and I'm not taking any chances. Remember the episode with the oatmeal and the gazillion rubber cups that almost made me pop a vein? That happened in October. Husband immediately got me a replacement and it lasted until a couple of days ago when Marguerite spilled some cranberry juice on it. As you know, we're held hostage by several colonies of ants who are such thugs, they've dragooned us into meek submission to their presence here (I kid you not. The wretched creatures are INDESTRUCTIBLE! And the tiny ones are the worst! They're scrappy, but completely not in an endearing manner... Effectively, they'll completely drive us away in May, a mutual "good riddance" issuing from both camps). Anyway, with the current heat and the allure of cranberry sticky sweetness, they've set up residence under the keys of the keyboard, which led to said keyboard's retirement, which then leads us to the plastic covered third keyboard. I know it's silly, like one of those nouveau riche caricatures with expensive gaudy furniture that are forever to remain wrapped in plastic. Chances are, things will get spilled again and the tacky plastic case will be the new keyboard's savior. Anyway, I can type fine. I do end up accidentally pressing two keys every so often, but it's not like it's a typewriter with no "backspace" and "delete" keys. Don't get me wrong. I love typewriters. As convenient as computers are, my imagination still clings to that childhood daydream of my grown-up self, an eccentric writer in Greenwich Village, pounding away at a typewriter in the wee hours of the morning. Here's my grown-up reality: I live in Metro Manila, I'm dependent on the computer, and working in the wee hours of the morning has lost all its romance.
Okay, I'm off to be perky for the rest of the day. Starting now!  !!! :D

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Spinninglovelydays[dot]com

Hi, everyone. If something is a little (or a lot) off over here at the moment, it's because I'd just gone done gotten my blog its own domain. I didn't study the steps I had to take afterward to get everything in shipshape order, so, yeah, I'm a little (or a lot) freaking out. And then my old URL (blogspot) was supposed to automatically redirect to my new one, but that doesn't seem to be happening, or maybe it is and I'm just too freaked out to realize what is going on. And then my husband tells me that I might be starting my ranking again from zero, which would totally suck. Plus, I have to update the gazillion blog-related accounts I have, so, yeah, basically I wouldn't know where to start. Is the moral of the story "look before you leap"? That would be so totally funny since the one I was learning right before that was to, you know... carpe diem? Except that maybe I prefaced it with "throw caution to the wind and just..." which in hindsight may not have been prudent. Seriously, if you know anything about this business, HiiiiyELP! I'd really appreciate any advice. If you have time to offer step-by-step instructions, go right ahead.
*more freaking out*