Monthly Archives: August 2009

Get To Work

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You’d think with only one thing I’m supposed to do every day, to stop by and say “Hi”, I could handle it! But no!

I had a hard time even getting in front of a computer all last week. We went out last Friday night to see District 9 (go see it!!!) with my brother, then downtown with some great friends. MK played volleyball Saturday AM and went to get his Mom at the airport. I furiously cleaned the whole house, cleaned myself, and made it look like we were even remotely ready to host company (minus the totally empty refrigerator). MIL fell in love with Temecula when we drove through on the way to LA, so we took her back.

I have to tell you, spending two whole days of my life that I can’t get back made me realize this:  I can’t live there. At least not until I feel old. Well, some days i do feel old, so that’s not it. I guess I’d need 3 kids, and a minivan. And a desire to farm avocados and citrus. And I might never have any of those things! The place is beautiful and cheap, but it’s just not for me. It’s too far from San Diego, we’d still have to rent here. There are some days I’m so over the fast paced life we’re racing trough in San Diego, but Temecula would be a change for the worse, not a fun alternative. I banned it.

We also took MIL sailing, which she seemed to really enjoy, and for many walks around the bay. It is nice to host quieter company over here, they really like just relaxing by the water.

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World’s Best Meatballs

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Dude, I can cook something new. I haven’t been cooking much this summer – it’s too hot to turn the stove on! But last week MIL was in town and I grabbed a recipe off the internet that was so simple but delicious I wanted to share it with you. It got rave reviews!

Simply Delicious Meatballs:

  • 2lbs. lean ground beef
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 cup of seasoned bread crumbs
  • 1/4 cup of shredded fresh Parmesan cheese
  • 1 package of Lipton’s Onion Soup Mix (the secret ingredient)
  • salt and pepper and/or a dash of your favorite garlic/onion/Italian blend herbs-
  • ( I use Costco Garlic Mix)

Mix, Roll, Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.

Drool over the deliciousness.

No Crying

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It’s still August, but you can feel it in the air here, I swear.

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Five Reasons Not To Cry About The End Of Summer:

  1. Football. Finally.
  2. End of Padres = finding parking = more trips downtown!
  3. 90 days (or so) until ski season!
  4. All my TV shows are back.
  5. Kids go back to school!

SomeGoSoftly Stories Chapter Four: Direction, Success

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  • This week I’m going to share some things I’ve learned about blogging. I’m not an expert, but I think that so many of you that visit here don’t have a blog, read many other blogs (at least not cheapo personal ones, but of course maybe you read news etc. similarly) or know some of the funny and interesting things that go into writing and publishing online. Like I said, there are ten thousand “How to write a Blog” experts out there and I’m not one of them. I just thought it’d be fun to share some stories with you.

Another situation you would have to consider if you were a nerd blogger would be honing your direction. In case you haven’t noticed, there is So. Much. Crap. All. Over. The. Internet. Your proper direction, as far as I’m concerned, is to write and make yourself and a few others happy. Some people’s direction is the blog stat page. Some sites tell you your blog is successful depending on how many sites link to yours. For a while I went that way and spent hours poring over other blogs, commenting, and sharing in contests and forums that were there to get me more readers. I would be on stumble upon, digg, and a ton of other sites. But what I realized is other bloggers use those sites, not readers. At least not my readers. So I was begging bloggers to take time away from their content to be on my site.

How many of them stayed? Not many. But yes, a few. The realization I came to, however, is that since I told you in Chapter One that I’m not making money here or going to get famous here, this space is for me. And whoever listens. And so I’d rather ask for your feedback in the comments and ask what you like best and target that. Not fill out questionnaires and comment all over the internet looking for someone to notice me. Trust me, it’s fun when it happens, and I do hope to gain new readers. But those readers should be my friends, and yours. Tell your friends, send a link to a post they might like, and as always, please keep commenting! It means a lot to me.

My direction will be as scattered as ever, but I’ll be calling myself a success, and that’s what counts!

Thanks for sharing this week of a few posts about my site – I promise not to bore you again soon.

I’m just really trying to sharpen my skills with a forced exercise. And I enjoyed it! 🙂

  • Read Chapter Two: Relevance
  • Read Chapter Three: Rants

    • SomeGoSoftly Stories Chapter Three: Rants

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    • This week I’m going to share some things I’ve learned about blogging. I’m not an expert, but I think that so many of you that visit here don’t have a blog, read many other blogs (at least not cheapo personal ones, but of course maybe you read news etc. similarly) or know some of the funny and interesting things that go into writing and publishing online. Like I said, there are ten thousand “How to write a Blog” experts out there and I’m not one of them. I just thought it’d be fun to share some stories with you.

    I’ve been called out a couple of times by people in times zones that should be doing anything but reading my blog at the time last week I posted and then took down a rant. No one had commented on it, which as far as I can tell is the only reason to rant – to have people tell you you were in the right. I was – and still am – furious at the amount of trouble MK and I – two very nice people – have gotten living in this retirement resort. But I got over it.

    Blog topics can be hard to come up with from time to time. In fact, the timing for me is never good. MK is downstairs playing volleyball right now and I’m not entertaining because I had a minute and finally clarified my train of thought. I try my best to throw things on my phone’s memo pad so I don’t forget to blog about them – but usually the message to myself is totally indecipherable.

    Other times, you can’t wait to sit at the all powerful computer and either name names or rant about a bad experience at a restaurant or whatever. But I just can’t do it. I have a 24 hour rule. If I write the post, save it, reread it, and think it’s okay, then I’ll share it. If not, it gets deleted. I mean crap – READ THIS STORY – and tell me you’re not worried for my safety. The last thing I need is a lawsuit over some frivolous thing I felt fleetingly.

  • Read Chapter Two: Relevance
  • Read Chapter Three: Rants
  • Read Chapter Four: Direction, Success

    • SomeGoSoftly Stories Chapter Two: Relevance

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    • This week I’m going to share some things I’ve learned about blogging. I’m not an expert, but I think that so many of you that visit here don’t have a blog, read many other blogs (at least not cheapo personal ones, but of course maybe you read news etc. similarly) or know some of the funny and interesting things that go into writing and publishing online. Like I said, there are ten thousand “How to write a Blog” experts out there and I’m not one of them. I just thought it’d be fun to share some stories with you.

    One of the hardest things to deal with on a blog is time. You can throw on a lame outfit and I might tell you it’s “so last year”, but in this whole wide world of social media, things can be “so five seconds ago”. Especially with everyone wanting to be a world famous Twit (person on Twitter). To avoid that, I’m not a super huge “guess what just happened in the news” writer.

    The concept I struggle with is how my audience uses my blog. Ironically today some friends of mine were using my blog to remember what we did or didn’t see at ACL in 2006. I was thrilled. I know that not everyone even looks at anything other than the first page. When I first started blogging I was told to keep a very few (5 or so) posts on the front page for you to peruse. I at the time had 10 or more, since I thought I could make you scroll down and maybe realize something that you’d missed. Or throw a comment my way, even if it was jsut because you were bored (I’d take it!).

    I also assume you know that the sidebar on the right has a search option, with only-within-this-blog parameters. You can type “buttface” to see if I ever called anyone that here (I checked, I haven’t). I’ve been reading a great blog called Soapbox Included that is telling me to do a better job of pointing you in the right direction, but I am limited by using a free site (see previous post). If you want to see snow, you should know I have a category called “Photos” and one called “Park City” and by using that bar on the right you should be able to find me skiing down a mountain.

    However, it did give me the great idea to include on my main “Who’s Going Softly” page -that’s a typical About Me if you didn’t check it out- some of my all time favorite or even most popular posts (coming soon). For the record, things about zombies, and the ones I did on Joe Rogan, tattoos, and pumpkin carving have the most hits of all time. Don’t say random doesn’t work.

    I’ve been here for three years recapping events and telling you about places and things I’ve seen. I’ve stayed away for the most part from the “what I think about what just happened” kind of blog. There’s plenty of that out there.

    SomeGoSoftly Stories Chapter One: Spam

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    • This week I’m going to share some things I’ve learned about blogging. I’m not an expert, but I think that so many of you that visit here don’t have a blog, read many other blogs (at least not cheapo personal ones, but of course maybe you read news etc. similarly) or know some of the funny and interesting things that go into writing and publishing online. Like I said, there are ten thousand “How to write a Blog” experts out there and I’m not one of them. I just thought it’d be fun to share some stories with you.

    So one of the things you may have noticed about somegosoftly is that it is free. I’m not going to make any ad revenue over here, and I’m not a niche blog, I’m a girl sharing stories and thoughts with her friends and family. WordPress has a free .com program, and also a .org paid and customizeable option. If I ever graduate, that would be my dream. I could make my own theme- with better fonts and colors and graphics (what you see here allows me the header (the big orange thing at the top) and to put whatever I want however I want on the right column, that’s about it). So free means I have to deal with a few things like that.

    Free also means that they take care of a ton of things I’m sure I couldn’t handle on my own. With a .org site, you have to install plugins to make the behind the scenes things run smoothly. With a .com site, they do it for you. For example, there is a spam filter. Believe it or not as of today:

    Akismet has protected your site from 34,436 spam comments already,
and there are 4 comments in your spam queue right now.

    There have been some pretty funny things in my spam filter from time to time. Here’s two I wanted to share with you.

    In this screen shot (click to enlarge), you can see I get a ton of junk, all just trying to throw their own links in the comments so you guys click on them. Imagine if I had to go looking all over my blog to find these things on old blog posts? I love the spam filter…

    spam

    And this one (on top) made me laugh today – most of the time it’s not even words but sometimes it’s a coherent, albeit moronic, thought:

    two

    So, let me know if you need a pink chocolate cell phone.

  • Read Chapter Two: Relevance
  • Read Chapter Three: Rants
  • Read Chapter Four: Direction, Success