Look! We are a two laptop family now.

When SuperGuy’s PC died…a slow and painful death, I may add…I had us all converted over to Macs…or so I thought. Well, it turns out that one of the programs that he needs for work…that is WEB BASED mind you….needs to run on a PC. Only. I was not amused. So we went out and bought him an inexpensive laptop…’cause he only needs it for this one program a couple times a week. But now he’s decided he likes this mobility. He checks email, plays games, orders up netflix movies, surfs the net, reads my blog

As an aside, because I’m so good at those asides…I asked him to step away from the table so I could get this shot…notice he’s deliberately standing in the background so he shows up in the mirror. 

You know the stereotype of the old married couple sitting at the dinner table, not talking, and reading their own separate parts of the newspaper?? I hope we don’t turn into this old couple that sits at the dinner table, not talking,  and browsing the web on our separate laptops…

Nah, that wouldn’t happen to us! 

• Expert Packing
• Apple Pie
• Mama’s Got a Brand New…
• Simple Chores
• One Way Ticket

Look!! I got to meet Annie! I told you we were going to meet up. She was exactly who I thought she would be. Funny, warm, empathetic, energetic…just a lovely woman.

Just a quick capture of her by the window in The Love Nest.  (to prove I actually met her!)  Yes, Annie is the only one of you who has ever actually seen The Love Nest!

Now I know why Mental Mama calls her “my Annie.” Well, I think Mental Mama should share Annie with more people. I did my best to convince Annie to move back to the midwest. She should, shouldn’t she?? (Mental Mama, you don’t get to answer that!) Annie talked about the Blog Fest she’s going to next week. Color me jealous. I’m sure we’ll read all about it and see lots of pictures on the various blogs. Oh, and she gave me the names of some new cool blogs to check out! Yay!

It’s really funny, this blogging world. I would never have met Annie if she didn’t blog, and I didn’t blog. It’s just strange how this blogging world can throw people together. It is so much fun to meet an internet friend in real life. To see what they are like. If they are different or the same as their “blogging” personality. Annie is just what I expected.

We met for coffee and breakfast and talked for a couple of hours. Next time she comes to town, I’m thinking we need to meet in the evening and do some drinking of beverages a bit stronger than coffee…

Anyway, I had to head back to The Love Nest and meet up with SuperGuy. We needed to head back home. SuperGuy has a chore list for the weekend. Last week when all the boys were in town? These things broke…

1) The downstairs toilet. Leak from some gasket. Flooded floor. Ruined floor. Special.

2) Garbage disposal. Leak under sink. Solved by placing bowl there for the time being.

3) Garage door. Will. Not. Open.

4) Two big stains on the front passenger seat of my car. “I didn’t do it.” …repeated by each son…

So, anyway, SuperGuy was anxious to get back home and mow the yard (what is UP with his addiction to lawn mowing??) and get started on his to-do list.

Me? I just headed for a Corona and cheered him on!

Enjoy your weekend! Hope you have time to kick back, relax and just enjoy. I’ll see you on Monday…with the saga of the hunt for the perfect photo…

• 6 Things about Kacey
• Fun Coincidence
• YouYou Meme part two
• Open Your Blog to Comments
• Why Do You Blog

Things were just bit prickly yesterday…

Not all my plugins wanted to behave.

Things got really sticky when I could NOT upload images!

What would my blog be without photos??

Finally, late last night I figure out the image problem. After copious amounts of wine. I had to use a different smilie plugin too.        (like are you seeing words, not smilies there??) Don’t have that all sorted out for ME to use in the posts, but I think it will work in the comments? Maybe? Make sure to try out the smilies in your comments. Let me know if you find anything broken.

Note to self: never, ever wait this many releases to update your blog. Not fun. (Though now Wordpress has some kind of automatic update thingie. Hope that works for future updates!) Everything looks different now in my dashboard too. I don’t deal well with change… I’m slowly figuring it out. I probably need just one more glass of wine…

• males
• I Love Wordpress
• Think Good Thoughts
• I’ll probably regret this
• Smilies

I’m updating my Wordpress version today. Think good thoughts. I’m sure things will break. Like smilies. And various other things. Be patient. I’ll hopefully have it all sorted out by the end of the day. If you try coming here and I’m gone…well…I’ll be back!

Besides I have to stay home today and wait for my FREE macro lens rental from Ziplens that I won! Yay. I have to sign for the package, so here I sit at home with a perfectly nice blog in need of an updated version. Once I get the version updated, I’m going to move on to switching to a new theme. But, you know, I can only take so much stress in one day. So I think I’ll stick with just updating to the current version of Wordpress.

If it doesn’t go well, I might need a lot of this…

Man, I love reflections…

Wish me luck.

• Do you RSS? How to set up a feed reader
• I Love Wordpress
• just a note
• I might have been wrong.
• Trying to get up the nerve

Ah, we’ve had some great moments this year, haven’t we? Lots of laughs, lots of memories, tons of photos. I thought to close out this year, I’d share links to a few of my favorite posts of the year.

My High Heels to Crocs post where I wonder when THAT happened to me? When did I become the comfortable shoe woman?

There was my ode to SuperGuy for valentine’s day.

There was the melancholy that set in as my youngest prepared for college and I wondered who was that woman in the mirror?

There was my own rendition of Sunrise, Sunset…still makes me tear up to read it.

Oh! How can I forget this one? How real men celebrate spring. Complete with a nice shot of SuperGuy’s butt.

And last, but not least, my own thoughts on what a woman needs to learn by the time a woman turns 50.

Tomorrow I’m going to share a few of my favorite photos of 2008. I so enjoyed learning more about photography this year and sharing my photos, and my life with you, my blogging friends.

Just a preview:

• Favorite Wine on the Keyboard Photos of 2008
• Thanksgiving
• Cardinals by SuperGuy
• March Photo of the Month
• Unusual Holiday Traditions

Are you one of those “what the heck is Twitter, anyway?” people? I was too. I signed up. Logged in. Got overwhelmed and didn’t go back for months. I didn’t get the whole mircoblogging thing.

So, for you, those who like me who just kind of scratch your head and ask “what IS Twitter?”, I’ll try to explain a bit. I might even get you to check it out. To realize the potential. To get in on the fun.

(this is a long post, so I split it into two sections. Click on the more key if you need to to see the second half of the post.)

Easy Guide to Twitter:

Twitter is a microblogging platform. You have 140 characters to say what you want to say. No more, but you can use less. Twitter isn’t only about letting people know what you’re doing, what you’re eating, what the weather is…though people do filter in those brief comments about their lives. Twitter is about finding other like minded individuals and following them. It’s about instant access to information. It’s another building block in your online community.

Go to Twitter.com and sign up for an account. It’s quick, it’s easy. Use your real name, your pseudonym, your business name, or a name you’re know as online, depending on what/who you’re trying to connect to. A lot of people use their blog name.

Okay, all signed up? Go to your settings page and upload a photo for your avatar. No, you don’t have to, but it sure makes it easier to keep track of people on twitter when they have a unique avatar.

Go to some of your favorite blogs and see if they have a follow me on twitter link. Click on it and follow them. You’ll now see their updates. Easy, right?

Go to Twitter and type your first update into the box. Just type away. 140 characters. Go for it. Everyone following you will see what you said.

This is what you’ll see. A list of updates from people you follow. (sorry for the blurry screen capture)

What’s this whole @ thing about?

You’ll see updates like this:

mentalmama @kaceyskeyboard How was your walk today?

This means Mental Mama has commented to me, but anyone following me will see the update.

What’s with Direct Messages?

Our same beloved Mental Mama could have sent the message to me directly:

d kaceyskeyboard You slacker I know you haven’t walked today. Wuss.

With a direct message, only the person it was sent to will see it. So I don’t have to hurt Mental Mama for yelling at me publicly. :wink:

I also have the Twitterific app installed on my iPhone and I can keep up with Twitter when I’m on the road. You don’t know how entertaining that can be on long road trips!

Now Some Really Cool Ways to Use Twitter.

Politics and Twitter.

Want to keep up what’s going on in the political arena? Go to the Twitter Election Coverage page. It’s a live feed of election topics people are tweeting about. This was an amazing way to follow the presidential candidates debates! I’m so going to be there for the vice presidential candidates debates too.

What’s happening Right Now.
What to know something that’s happening right now? Use the Twitter Search Page.

I’ve used it for topics such as:

Hurricane Ike (I put in the name of the town we used to live in in Louisiana to see how it handled the storm)
Mizzou (for football game scores)
BlogHer08 (info on the conference I went to in San Francisco)
Palin
iPhone

How do I use Twitter?

I use Twitter to keep up with my blogging friends. I’ve also discovered a lot of other interesting, like minded people that I follow now. I follow the hometown paper in the town where my boys go to college. I follow software companies of applications I’ve gotten for my iPhone like Evernote. When I find a blog post I really like, I link to it on Twitter if I think my followers might be interested in it too. I sometimes link to my own blog posts. I ask questions that I need an answer to. People have a lot of answers for you!

I’ll mention TwitterMoms here too. It’s an active community on Ning where moms who tweet hang out. Their site says it’s the “online version of the three martini playdate.” It was the brainchild of Megan Calhoun (her twitter profile) and it was a brilliant idea. Over 1000 people have joined in just a few weeks. The marketing major in me really admires a creative idea like TwitterMoms! There are groups, discussions, and a great resource if you’re looking for more information. It hopefully won’t get too spammy with people trying to promote their sites or products. Right now they are doing a great job of keeping the spammy stuff out. So if you sign up for Twitter, go give TwitterMoms a try too. I’ve signed up to have a Boomer Blogger Group over there, so those of us with a bit more age on us :wink: can have a place to hang out. Friend me on TwitterMoms. Go check it out!

There is so much more I could tell you about Twitter, but let’s keep it to the basics right now. I’ll do a follow up post on more ways to use Twitter, more options, and some other programs you can use to access Twitter instead of just using the website.

Okay, hope that helps anyone in the “what the heck IS Twitter” camp. Check it out. Ask any questions you may have. Anyone with a twitter account leave a link in your comment below so I can follow you. Oh, and follow me on Twitter.

• YouYou Meme part two
• He’s So Proud Of Me!
• Increase Blog Traffic
• Random Thoughts on Independence
• 6 Things about Kacey

Most popular boomer blogger. That’d be me.

Well, okay, I lied. It appears I’m the 6th most popular boomer blogger according to Google. See?? Exciting!! :wink:

Remember when I was the happiest person on the internet? Then I was the 4th or the 10th happiest person on the internet depending upon what Google decided to serve up?

Well, now I’m the 6th most popular boomer blogger.

Just little ‘ol me, my blog, and my camera. I wasn’t even in the popular crowd in high school!! Who knew??

Really do you guys sometimes check in your stats programs to see where readers are coming from? I was amused to see I had traffic from people searching for the most popular boomer blogger. I also get a lot of traffic from search engines for Corona Separation Anxiety. I also get a lot for “hate nicknames”… not liking that one too much. I also get hits from searches on bare feet reading glasses black and white photographs, softest sheets and a bunch of other terms.

What’s the weirdest thing people have searched on to find your blog? Do you know?

Now that I’m the happiest and most popular boomer blogger…what’s next??? So what search terms do YOU think people should be using to find my blog??

• google power
• Really Happy Person
• Really Happy Person-Recheck
• A New Theme-A New Direction
• Speaking of Signs of the Times

I’m going to let you in on a little secret. A new find.

Artful Blogging Magazine.

Oh. My.

It’s like an eye candy festival of blogs. Blogs of people who do art and crafts. All photographed so cleverly as to make you drool. Honest. Or photography blogs where the bloggers use photography to tell a story. Or blogs just like ours. Real live bloggers who share themselves and their art. Whatever their art might be.

Page after page of lust worthy photos and brilliantly written words. Their tag line on their magazine? Visually Inspiring Online Journals.

There are just so many creative people out there with very creative blogs!

I browse the magazine, then go browse the actual website.

I linger over the articles…and find some wonderful new sites.

The magazine is big and has wonderful thick pages. It’s glossy and colorful. The words the bloggers write are inspiring.

The art ranges from photography to papercrafts to drawings to cards to quilts to embellished clothes and back to photography. And everything in between. Really. Go pick up this magazine and see if you can walk away without buying it. They include partial posts from the bloggers, many of them writing about what blogging has meant to them and changed their lives. In the back they have a column where they show blog banners they love. Some really creative banners/headers are shown there.

The magazine is published quarterly by Somerset Studios. It’s $14.99 and worth every darn penny. I’ve found mine at Borders or Barnes and Noble. Or you can order it online here. No, I didn’t get paid to write this review. I just wanted to share my wonderful find with you, my blogging buddies. Pick one up. Sit back immerse yourself in a gloriously inspiring journey spotlighting some talented bloggers. And I thought decorating magazines were addictive… Have any of you seen this magazine?

• Why Do You Blog
• A weird thing happened
• What is a Blog Carnival
• Tips for New Bloggers…
• YouYou Meme part two

It fascinates me when I look at the names that people choose for their blogs. I often wonder what the story is behind the name and click on the “about” link to see if people tell the story behind the name of their blog.

The name of my blog?

Well, I have this problelm. With wine. With my keyboard. My wine glass has this tendency to spill and kill my keyboard. Now I use those natural keyboards…the ones that are shaped funny to help your wrists, and are not cheap. I’ve killed two of them with spilled wine. My boys actually got me a waterproof keyboard for Christmas one year. Jerks.

So I considered giving up the occasional glass of wine when I write in the evenings…but nah…there has to be a better way…

So how about you? How did you come up with your blog name? Leave a comment here, or post about it on your blog and link back here. I’d love to hear the stories behind how you chose the name for your blog.

• why wine on the keyboard
• Photo of the Year Prize
• YouYou Meme part two
• 6 Things about Kacey
• Cow Tree

Once again I want to link out to some fabulous bloggers I’ve met either IRL (in real life) or online. So it’s time for another youyou meme. When it’s all about you, not me. (I know, amazing, huh?) My last youyou meme if you want to check out some other cool sites.

Morningside Mom. I found her when I was out looking for people going to BlogHer. Never did get to meet her in person though. Check out her post on Blogging Karma. Excellent.
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Gwen Bell. She was on a panel at a workshop at BlogHer. I have her to thank…I think :wink: …for my current twitter addiction. I had a Twitter account before, but I couldn’t seem to jump in and “get it.” Now I do. Twitter on my desktop, my laptop, my iPhone. Twitter R Us. Anyway, Gwen was very encouraging about hopping right in on Twitter.

Her blog is filled with information and links to very interesting people. She’s a Kirtsy editor too. I don’t know what else to say, except she is very giving woman. Of her time and her talent. Funny too!

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Mental Pause Mama from the Mental Pause Chronicles. Yes, I’m sure most of you know her already, but just in case. Go visit her! She’s funny, honest, great photos…and has a way of sometimes stating the obvious in words that makes me spit my wine on my keyboard. We are so on the same wave length!

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Velma from A Smeddling Kiss. I met her at BlogHer. Yes, in person. She has a funny, poignant blog about life. From living with her oncologist husband and her clever comments about her kids…to general thoughts on life. If you’re on twitter? Follow her. Velma. She cracks me up.

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So hop over and visit these bloggers. If you’re inspired to do a youyou meme of your own, drop back by here and leave a link to your youyou meme post. Or leave a link to a blog you want to share here in the comments.

I’m pretty sure I could actually make myself do a post without a photo. Probably. When we went on our side trip to Carmel before BlogHer, we found the town covered in these beautiful flowers.

• YouYou MeMe
• What is Twitter
• Increase Blog Traffic
• 6 Things about Kacey
• This and That Stuff