Snoskred on Blogging

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How to – Schedule Posts In Blogger & WordPress

5 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

It has been a while since I did a how to schedule posts in WordPress post, so long in fact, that the old post is pretty much useless now. WordPress looks nothing like it did back then. I thought it is high time for an updated post on this topic, but I thought I would make sure to include Blogger as well. :)

If you use Typepad, this post is for you – How To Change Post Date & Time.

Why Schedule?

There are a lot of reasons why bloggers might want to schedule posts ahead of time. Going on holidays is probably the number one reason people would use this feature.

I work on a Mon-Wed-Fri posting schedule here on the blog. The main reason I schedule posts is because when I am inspired to write, I am REALLY inspired to write, and I might write 5-10 posts in the space of an afternoon. Obviously I do not want to *post* 5-10 posts all at once. It would be overwhelming to my readers, and it would mean I have no posts available the next time I am not inspired to write.

Timing Is Important

It also means you can set your posts to publish at the time of day people will be around to see them. For example here on my blog, I presently post things at 7am AEST. I am fast asleep in bed at that time, guaranteed. But posting my posts early here in Australia means I also catch the evening web surfers in the USA and the late night web surfers in the UK.

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If I bumped it up to 5am, I might get the evening web surfers in the UK and super early morning surfers in Australia.. hmm, that is worth considering.

What Time Is Best?

You might get more eyes on your blog post if you change the time of day that you post it. It could be worth doing some experiments to see what times of day work best for your blog.

If you use a site counter or site stats program many of them will tell you what time of day people are visiting, of course taking into consideration they do not always show you every visit to your blog and can be unreliable. You can also consider what time people leave comments.

You could do a blog post and ask your regular readers to comment about what time of day they read your blog and whether they would prefer a different timing. Consider where your commentators live in the world and what time it is there when you post. Seasonal timing matters too – when we switch to daylight savings here, I will likely post at 6am AEST.

If you want to check what time it is in other places when you post, you can use the world clock meeting planner here.

Are you ready?

For the how to guides? :) It is quite a few screenshots, so I am using the read more feature today. Click through to see the how to guide! Continue reading →

Blogger, how to guides, wordpress

How To – Get Started With Inoreader

10 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

ino1

Mid-May, an ex-work colleague of mine sent me an email. She and I had talked once about blogs and I’d mentioned my feed reader and explained how it worked. She had no idea where to start looking for a feed reader and searching for one had just confused her more, could I recommend a good feed reader?

I was writing my reply to suggest Inoreader but I wanted to include a link to a quick how to get started guide. A lot of the get started guides talked about how to import feeds from another feed reader, which my friend would not need to do.

I figured it would be easier to create something simple which would not confuse her, so I sent screenshots and instructions. Then I thought, why not put a how to guide here on the blog as well? So without further ado..

How to – Get Started With Inoreader

If you do not have a feed reader yet, and you are looking for one.. Inoreader is brilliant and super quick. You can get started just by entering an email address and a password. So open this link – Inoreader – in a new window, click on “Create a free account” and then follow this quick tutorial below to get feed reading.

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Yes, all you will need is an email account and a password.

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You can also connect with Facebook or Google. If you choose those options you will have to allow Inoreader to get your email address and basic profile info. Me personally, I prefer the email address and password option, but this is your account, so whatevs. :)

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So once you have created your account you will arrive at the above screen. My advice – skip this first step. Chances are you know what blogs you want to subscribe to.

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You will then be offered a free tour. My advice – DO NOT skip this step. :) Take the tour. I’ll be right here waiting when you’re done.

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Ok, so the tour is over, and now you see the main Inoreader screen. Of course, you’ll want to add me right away! Just type in my name..

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and there you see me. Select me, and then this screen will pop up.

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Click on subscribe.

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And there you have it – you subscribed to your first blog. Now, add in others that you want to read. You can try typing in the name, though be aware sometimes that might be a hard way to find a blog if the name is not unique.

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What if you type in the blog name and nothing comes up? Then you can try entering the blog URL. Lets put in my rewatch breaking bad blog URL. Once you enter it, Inoreader will go off and try to find a feed, once the feed is found you can click on it and it will automatically subscribe to that feed.

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By now you have probably received an email welcoming you to Inoreader and asking you to confirm your email. Simply click on the link to confirm your email address.

So that gives you a quick overview of Inoreader and how to get started on setting it up. There is a really great support forum where questions are usually answered very quickly and the Inoreader blog has a lot of how to guides.

Best of all, there are mobile apps for iPhones and Android so you can read your subscriptions on the go. If you get stuck waiting out and about, you can catch up on your blog reading and it syncs up so you don’t read things more than once as a surprise to yourself.. :)

What Does Snoskred Use?

Me personally here at home, we have TinyRSS set up on our server because after Google Reader screwed their users over, I wasn’t going to use a third party feed reader again. I wanted complete control.

However for NaBloPoMo 2014, I tried out Inoreader and I found it to be excellent. They have a great support forum and when I asked a question there it was answered very quickly. Plus, you can create bundles to easily share your feeds with other people.

What Blogs Does Snoskred Read?

I have a process which I follow – when I find a new blog, I add it to the feed reader. On the last day of each month, I post a New Feeds post, which links to all the new blogs I am reading.

I test drive the new blogs for 6 months. At the end of 6 months I review each blog. If I have enjoyed reading the blog, I add it to the main blogroll.

What Makes Snoskred Unsubscribe?

The number one reason that I unsubscribe from new blogs is due to the blog providing a partial feed. I have written a couple of posts on other reasons I tend to unsubscribe – 10 New Reasons I Unsubscribed From Blogs – 14 Reasons Readers Unsubscribe From Blogs. I am not suggesting these reasons are always deal breakers for me

Do you feed read?

Over to you, tell me what you are using to read blogs. :) Would you like more how to guides for Inoreader?

If you have a blog, please leave me a comment wth link to your place, I’d love to check it out.. :)

feed readers, how to guides, Inoreader

How To – Add A WordPress.com Follow Button To Self Hosted WordPress.

10 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

steps

Why yes, that is a super long title but I have posted it in the hope that it will end up on the very first page of multiple search engines because I searched for a how-to do this for several hours the other day with zero luck..

Giving up on searching via Dogpile, Google, etc, I then searched wordpress.org support and also the support forum for the Jetpack plugin. I could find plenty of people asking how to do this, and zero answers. I ended up having to lodge a support ticket and I got an answer back which helped me work it out.

A lot of people when they receive the answer seem to keep it to themselves – not updating their support threads with the answer – which is probably why I could not find it, no matter how hard I searched. So here is the answer for anyone looking for it!

Important note – for this to work, you need to have the Jetpack plugin enabled on your self hosted wordpress blog.

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1. Go to Jetpack –> Settings.

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2. Activate JSON API within Jetpack – also take note, you will need to leave this activated for the button to continue to work.

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3. Visit the Follow Button Creation page.

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4. Scroll down to the area where you can enter in your blog URL. Enter it, then decide if you want to show how many followers you have, and whether you want to show your blog name. If you have a long blog name like mine, the button will be super long! Then, hit generate.

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5. Copy the code which has been generated.

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6. Go into your add widget area within appearance.

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7. Paste the code into a text widget on your self-hosted wordpress blog. Hit save, and you are done!

Happy moments! :) And Whew, thank the deities that is over.

But I’m on wordpress.com?

Well then, this is super easy. :)

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1. In Appearance –> Widgets – scroll down the page until you see Follow Button.

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2. Drag and drop the follow button over to your sidebar.

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3. Click on the little drop down arrow to see the options, adjust your options to suit and then click on save.

Done!

blogging tips, how to guides, wordpress, Wordpress Training Wheels

How To – Add Tickbox For Blogger Comment Emails

6 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

beach19

In setting your blogger blog to be full feed, you might accidentally cancel out the opportunity for your comments area to contain the all important “Notify Me” tick box – this tick box allows your commentators to choose to receive follow up emails when other commentators leave a comment.

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Go to Settings –> Other –> Site Feed –> From the drop down box, select custom.

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Then, leave site feed as full, but turn off blog comment feed and per post comment feeds by selecting none as the option.

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Click on Save Settings in the top right hand corner.

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When you go back to your comments form, you should now see the tick box in the bottom right hand corner which says “Notify Me”.

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When your commentators are logged into Gmail and they click on notify me, it will advise them which email address replies will be sent to, as you see above.

It might be worth letting your commentators know that you have enabled this feature via a quick post.. :)

And there you have it!

Over to you!

Do you like to receive follow up emails for blog comments?

blogging tips, how to guides

Introducing A New Blog Series

2 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

79beach3

I love it when bloggers I read and enjoy post about blogs *they* read and enjoy. It happens regularly and I often end up adding the blog(s) they wrote about to my feed reader..

I always mean to write a post about my favourite blogs but never quite manage to get around to it. So today I will like to thank Sammie from The Annoyed Thyroid for writing this post which has pushed me to finally start a new series here on the blog – it will be called –

Snoskred Faves

This will be a series of posts, not just one post. There are so many blogs I love and want to highlight, if I put them all into one post it would be incredibly long.

How Will This Series Work?

I’m not really sure yet. I might post about one blog at a time. I might do a post with 3-5 blogs. I might send a little interview request to some of my favourite bloggers and see who replies. It might be a once a week thing, or I might post one when the mood strikes me. We Will See. :)

How I (Blog) Roll.

I actually enjoy *all* the blogs listed on my blogroll.

There are 206 blogs presently listed on my blogroll. That is a lot of blogs! Within that 206, there are some blogs that stand out from the crowd.

These stand outs are blogs that I am super excited to read another post from, blogs and bloggers that I think about when not near my computer, bloggers who say things that stick in my head and pop up in my conversations away from the web, blogs that I look forward to reading and mentally know approximately when the next post should come to me as a surprise.. these blogs end up in..

Faves Folders

These blogs eventually get picked out of their folders and placed into what I like to call “Faves” folders – there are now multiple faves folders so I can break up their goodness into small and tasty snacks.

Sometimes new feeds blogs get moved to a Faves folder long before the 6 month test out new blogs time ends. They still get added to the blogroll at the usual time – that is, when I do the new feeds review at the end of 6 months.

Making Contact

Some of the blogs I love make contacting them a little bit difficult – please, bloggers, if you are reading this, make sure you have either a contact form or an email address somewhere that people can easily find it. :) If I can’t reach you via email or a contact form, I’ll leave a comment asking you to email me.

Not Listed On My Blogroll?

If you are not on my blogroll but I have left a comment on your blog, chances are you are one of the new feeds I am trying out.

If you are not on my blogroll or my new feeds list, but you would like to be, you can contact me with a link to your blog. Your blog will then go through my new feeds process.

Coming Up –

In just an hour, I will post the very first Snoskred Faves!

Over to you!

In the meantime, if you want to suggest blogs to me that I should be reading, please do. I value the opinions of my regular readers and commentators and some of your favourite blogs have become my faves, too.

blog housekeeping, blogrolls, Snoskred Faves

10 New Reasons I Unsubscribed From Blogs

27 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

but2

With a new blog, I like to test-drive it for 6 months before I declare the blog a keeper and add it to my blogroll. Once a month, I go through the process for blogs added to my feed reader 6 months beforehand – I visit each blog individually and revisit the posts over the past 6 months and then I decide – keep reading, or unsubscribe?

Here are some reasons that have helped me make this decision in recent months.

1. Blogs With A Partial Feed

I read a lot of blogs and 85% of them give me a full feed. When a blogger chooses to provide a partial feed, subscribers only see the title and the first 10-50 words of the post. I do not know why anyone would do this – to me it is like cutting off ones blogging nose in order to try and get traffic to their blog.

Bloggers work hard on their content – it is unwise to make their blog readers jump through hoops to read it. SRSLY, think again. Please, provide a full feed.

This is the number one reason I will unsubscribe from a blog. When I subscribe to a new blog and find it is a partial feed, I will still give it the 6 month trial but I already have a feeling what the outcome is most likely going to be. Sometimes people surprise me and end up in my favourites folder instead.

So if you are reading this, bloggers, do you know what kind of blog feed you provide? If not, best you subscribe to your own blog and find out. :)

2. They Never Commented On My Blog

So, I added a blogger to my feed reader, and I really liked their posts, so much so that I became a regular commentator over at their place, leaving a comment on 3-4 posts each week. After a while though, I noticed things were only going one way – theirs. They never once left a comment on my blog.

I don’t know if it was because they couldn’t be bothered clicking through, or whether they did not like my blog – either way, I’m not into one way only relationships. One tiny comment in return for my multitude of comments was all it would have taken to keep me as a reader, and they had a whole six months to do that in!

If I have only left one or two comments in the space of 6 months, then this is not a reason I take into consideration at all. Just in case you were wondering. :)

3. Too Many Photos All The Time

I don’t mind the occasional post with 10 or more images but when every single post is just pictures with a few lines of text, that can be a deal breaker. Especially if the blogger has not re-sized them – large images can take a long time to load, so I’ll get all the text without any images at all and then when I’ve moved on to the next post in that folder, *that* post will keep loading images and bumping what I am trying to read downwards. Annoying!

Please, bloggers, check the size of images before you post them. If you are pulling them right off your camera into your blog then chances are, your readers are getting way too many megapixels as a surprise. Use something like Fast Image Resizer to quickly and easily resize your images.

Not everyone is on a fast internet connection, so it is worth keeping your file size and your readers in mind. :)

4. Too Many GIFS All The Time

Bloggers, if you have more than one GIF in your post, chances are, you are annoying your readers. What is a GIF? It is like an animated image. Here is a GIF.

kitty

Gifs are all well and good when used sparingly and occasionally, but use too many and they slow right down and do not work as intended. Your funny GIF is not so funny in extra slow motion. It is also not so funny if it comes from a TV show and I have never seen the show it originated from.

I personally limit GIF images to one per post and very rarely at that. :) Of course, it is their blog and a blogger is welcome to post 20 gifs on one post if they want to – that isn’t something I’ll likely enjoy long term, unless their content is incredible.

5. A Lack Of Good Manners

It is fine to disagree with your blog readers politely. It is another thing to belittle, besmirch, or attack a commentator who disagrees with a post. My preference is to treat people who take the time to comment on your blog decently even when they disagree with you, otherwise you risk losing not just the commentator but readers who see the exchange, as well.

Even worse – on occasion I have seen bloggers totally misinterpret a comment someone left and then attack them for having left it!

One the positive side – I have sometimes found bloggers via their excellent manners and wonderful, thoughtful comments in the comments sections of other blogs.

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6. Deleted!

A blogger wrote a post people strongly disagreed with – when people disagreed – politely, mind you – with that blogger in the comments, they DELETED the whole post. Whoa! That is so not cool with me. If you write something, stand by it, even if the comments you receive oppose what you wrote.

Be open to the fact that maybe not everyone agrees. Be open minded enough to allow blog commentators to express their opinions. If people have taken the time to thoughtfully disagree with a blogger via a comment, it is NEVER COOL to delete the post in my opinion, and it will make me hit unsubscribe.

7. Deleting Recent Posts –

I had bookmarked several recent posts intending to link to them on my blog at a future time and when I went back to grab the title and link the post, those posts were gone. And these were not deeply personal subjects – these were recipes that the blogger had cooked and provided excellent photos for, or posts where they had travelled and done a lot of interesting commentary and photos. I’m not sure why these bloggers felt these posts had to be deleted but I was disappointed enough to hit unsubscribe.

It is totally normal for a blogger to go back in time and check to see that their blog content from years ago is still relevant and the links and videos still work, and if not and they can’t find new links or videos, it is normal – and good for your blog – to delete those old posts. But to me deleting recent posts feels slightly unusual and somewhat odd to delete stuff they recently wrote.

Maybe this happens all the time and I just don’t notice it, because I’m not trying to link to the deleted post months later. :)

8. I Left A Comment –

Which the blogger did not choose to publish, but they then used my comment to create their next blog post. There is absolutely nothing wrong with spring-boarding a post out of a comment someone left on your blog. If a blogger is going to do that, they could at least have the decency and good manners to publish the comment, reply to it and say something like “I have been thinking about writing a post on that subject for a while, and your comment has inspired me to write it. Look out for my upcoming post on this topic!”

Whenever I write a post here which was inspired by something I saw elsewhere or a comment someone left, I make sure to mention that and if that person has a blog or a specific blog post of theirs inspired me, I link to that in the post. That is just good manners, in my opinion.

9. They Spelled My Name Incorrectly!!

This one is a very specific example. I emailed a blogger once, they replied and spelled my name Snoksred. Oops, I thought! I am super careful not to accidentally spell peoples names wrong – I will copy and paste if there is any doubt at all. But I forgave it, because perhaps it was a mistake..

But I emailed that same blogger a second time, they replied, and spelled my name Snoksred *again* – and that was the moment I looked for that blog in my feedreader, and hit unsubscribe. Once is a mistake, twice is carelessness and to be honest, a little bit offensive. Especially when my sender name is Snoskred, so when they hit reply my name is right there in the body of the email.

10. They Became Brainwashed

They had a wonderful and very interesting blog. But then they got involved with some kind of multi-level marketing company, or perhaps a brand of skincare, or cleaning products, or something they wanted to sell to the world. And now every post they write is All About That Fascinating To Them But Very Boring To Me obsession. I wouldn’t have minded if they had posted about it once a week and still kept the regular amazing content. However that content went AWOL, and now I’ve gone AWOL too.

14 Reasons

I also have an older post on this subject – 14 Reasons Readers Unsubscribe From Your Blog.

Over To You –

Are there reasons you unsubscribe from blogs that I have not listed in my two articles? If yes, leave it in the comments.. :)

blogging tips, feed readers, what not to do

The Timer

1 Comment Posted on by Snoskred

path

I am a massive sucker for time management games, the kind you get on your iphone like Diner Dash and Hotel Dash and Wedding Dash. But when it comes to time management in real life, I’m not so good at that. So in 2014 I set myself the goal of becoming better at managing my time.

Last year I had a daily schedule which involved two focused 2 hour sessions – from 10am to midday, and 2pm to 4pm. In some ways this was great but in other ways I found it very limiting. I wanted to set myself a third session in the evening but there were always interruptions in my two hours which sometimes made focusing on a task really difficult..

Sometime in December I stumbled upon a site that mentioned using shorter timed focus sessions. This was actually a pretty revolutionary concept for me and getting annoyed with the limits of 2 x 2 hour sessions, I thought I would give it a try.

There are six basic steps to a short timed session:

1. Choose Your Task

What do you want to achieve today? It could be anything. I’ve set the timer for –

– editing photos
– writing blog posts
– feed reading
– surfing the web
– cleaning and/or decluttering
– household chores
– exercise
– organising the fridge
– cooking
– gaming – especially those addictive can’t walk away from games
– watching the chickens

The last two are especially important to set a timer for, because I can lose hours in a game or just watching the chickens be chickens out there in the yard.

2. Set the timer

I use my mobile phone timer but you can use any kind of timer you like.

I like to set a minimum of 25-55 minutes for most photo editing or writing tasks. You don’t seem to achieve very much in less than 25 minutes at those two tasks. For kitchen or chore tasks I might set 20 minutes with a seated 10 minute break to make a nice round half hour, and then I can catch up on my email in the break.

I am flexible with how long I set the timer for, too. If I have to leave for a appointment in 20 minutes, then a 15 minute timer with 5 minutes of getting ready time means I don’t waste 20 minutes waiting for it to be time to leave.

3. Focus on your task

And ONLY that task. Phones off. Email off. Internet off. TV off. If the doorbell rings, you don’t answer it. I find this freeing in so many ways, especially ignoring the doorbell. I know if it is the package guy because right after the doorbell rings, there is a beep from his scanning the package. That one I’ll get up for. Everyone else can come back another time. No interruptions.

4. Timer Goes Off! Take a short break

If this was a seated writing or computer related task, save what you were working on before you turn off the timer. I’ve lost 55 minutes of writing thanks to a lightning storm before.

This step is *absolutely critical* – I cannot express to you the importance of taking the break the moment that timer rings. . I also recommend getting out of the room you were working in. You are giving your mind a chance to fly free and getting the blood flowing to your limbs again if the task was a seated one.

5. Take a longer break

You’ll find focused timer tasks can be quite tiring mentally. If you kept going for 4-6 hours at a time, not only will you get tired mentally but you’ll find it harder to focus.

6. Plan a reward

You’ve put in the effort so you deserve a reward once you’ve done at least 2 rounds of timed sessions then your break in a row. Your reward could be anything. Mine tend to range from playing a game to a snack to watching a tv show..

Group associated tasks together –

If I gave you 3 tasks that involved three different rooms, and you had to spend some of your focus time moving from room to room to room and back again, you’d find quite a bit of your time spent in moving about.

If you moved those 3 tasks into the same room, you’d save yourself a lot of time.

But only do one task at a time

You’d save even more time if you focused on just one task at a time.

The same goes for almost any task – it is quicker to do one task over and over than to switch from task to task. I find this especially true with things like image editing, writing, taking screenshots for my Breaking Bad episodes.

You can break tasks apart

I might break some tasks down into two separate timed sessions – for example – with the photo editing –

First session = 55 minutes of going through the photo folders, picking out images I want to edit and saving them into one folder

When the buzzer goes for the break, I get up and make a drink or have a quick walk around – my mind by this time has probably already moved onto how I want to edit those photos I have picked,

Second session = 55 minutes focused on image editing.

And even within this session I may break this down further. EG cropping all the images *then* making all the images the size I want *then* using tools to enhance the focus or colour *then* saving them all.

Because I have broken the two tasks into separate sessions, I find I get a lot more done.

About Snoskred, blogging tips, life lessons, Snoskred hearts, time management

How To Add Contact Page on WordPress

1 Comment Posted on by Snoskred

contacta

If you own a WordPress blog, setting up a contact page is super easy. And yet there are a lot of WordPress blogs out there without a contact form.

Why do I want a contact page?

People might want to contact you for all kinds of reasons. I get emails from blog readers fairly regularly and 99% of them are *not* spam. Sometimes they are very interesting emails indeed. I do get a lot of emails about older posts where the comments are turned off – comments on this blog switch off after 90 days.

Can’t I just use an email address?

Of course you can! However, it is my advice to you not to put your email address out there in the usual format – eg mailme@email.com – you will get spammed hugely. Best to put it in this kind of format – mailme {at} email {dot} com – you can see my email address over in the sidebar and I have both a contact form and the address on my contact page..

Can I do this on Blogger?

Sure, but their built in version is a sidebar widget. Here are some instructions which might help – New Blogger widget contact form.

Here is The WordPress How To –

Click on add new page in your WordPress dashboard.

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This will take you to the add a new page form. It looks identical to add a new post. So add in your title – Contact is the obvious one, but you could use Contact Me or Contact Us, if there are more than one of you.

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You will see under the title area, a box titled Add Contact Form. Click on that.

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You will see this pop up preview box appear. Everything is there ready to go, and you could simply click on add this form to my post at the bottom, and it will all magically happen. In fact – lets do that, and see what happens next.

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This is how the contact form appears in the text box in your post –

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it does not look like much here, but once you hit publish page and then visit the page, it will look something like this –

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The form will be affected by your CSS in your theme, so it might look slightly different to the version you saw in the preview box.

So there you have it – a contact form.

What if I get some spam?

If you get some spam you might decide to add a check box to the post – regular humans will know to tick the box, but spam-bots cannot follow the instructions and cannot tick the box. How do we add one? See the section on the form creator which says Can I add more fields?

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Click on that, and you’ll be given a drop down box.

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Choose check box from the list, and add in text – you could put Tick box if you are human, tick this box to send your message, even just tick this box – but make sure you tick required before you hit save this field.. Changes are made live so you will see how your new field will look on the form.

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Over To You –

Have you ever wanted to contact a blogger privately but been unable to?

how to guides, wordpress

November New Reads

6 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

book-stack

There are 133 blogs listed below.. to those blogs I will like to say –

Welcome to my feedreader, bloggers!

During the past month I found your blog, and I liked your blog a lot. While there, I probably read back about 40+ posts or so. Then I added you to my feedreader.

Most of you will know what a feedreader is, but in case you do not, click here for info. The quick run down – it is an awesome program which collects new articles that bloggers post. So when you post something new, I get a copy, and if I have the time and something to say, I will click through and comment. If you want to get a feed reader, I highly recommend Inoreader, which I have been using a lot lately.

At the end of 6 months or so, if I am still loving your blog as much as I did when I added you to my feed reader, I will add you to my permanent blogroll. YAY!

Please Note –

WordPress has declared me a spammer due to my November commenting challenge, which really sucks. So I may have left you a comment but you cannot see it – it is in your spam bin. Here is how to check your spam bin, which you should do regularly in any case! :)

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In your wordpress dashboard, click on Comments – this will open the comments screen.

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See where it says spam – if there is a number there, you have comments waiting to be assessed by you, the blog author. You get to decide whether these comments are spam or not.

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If you click on the box, you can then choose to delete permanently or declare these comments as not spam. Pretty please remove mine from the spam bin – the more people who do that, the less likely I will end up in there again.

Now, onto the list of new blogs added to the feedreader since 31 October –

NaBloPoMo Keepers

(mis)adventures of spindlerose
100 Days Of Sunshine
20/20 Hines Sight
A Horse and a Half
a little bit brave
A Little Bit Salty
A Short A Day
A Yankee in Rebel Clothes
Adventures in all things food
An Avoidant Woman
Art My Cat Makes
Autumn Eyes
Average Jane
Banana Wheels
Based On A True Story….
Becoming Angela
Blessed
Burburchan
California Dreaming Squirrel
Carpool Goddess
Cluck Cluck Buzz
Collected Moments
could do worse
Cranium Crunches
CreatyveBooks
Enguhland
Food Huntress
Forbidden Books
francesd.com
From Tracie
Gentle Soul Arts
Good Strong Words
Green Lizard’s Blog
horticulturalhobbit
Innerworkings of the Female Mind
Introspections of an Idealist
ItsaBlog
Journey To Health
Knitting on the Green
Leaves & Stitches
Leila’s Mixtape
Life in the Electron Orbital
lolabits
Madges Hatbox
Making Love in Minnesota
Mandy Fish
Miss Wish
Monaresa Smiles
Monson Fonsons
Mostly True Stories of K. Renae P.
My Plus Size Year
Out and About in New York City
Preshus Me
ramblings from an insomniac
random truths
reverse ferret
Runes and Rhinestones
SeeSondraSlim.com
Sneakers & Sass
Sow, Sew, So
Sunny Corner Farm
Tabulous
Tea with the Cat
The Broken Spine
The Cheering Charm
The Fearless Scribe
The Foodie Army Wife
The Inbetween Is Mine
The Secret Diary of a Newly Diagnosed Diabetic
The Shape Of X
The Tomato Tart
The Variations Of Life And Lauren
The View from My Kayak
Through My Eyes
Twelve Two Two Fondue
Wandering Sheila
Wing and A Prayer Farm
You can’t make this sh*t up

Nano Poblano Crew –

Fish Of Gold
Nerd in the Brain
Not A Punk Rocker
Knocked over by a feather
markbialczak
Me – Who am I?
Silver Threading
Mindful Digressions
silentlyheardonce
one life, recorded
Eclectic odds n sods
The Chatter Blog
the EXCESSIVE GARDENER
Parenting a Teenage Tornado
Idiot Writing
BOOKING IT
Chasing Destino
The Year(s) of Living Non-Judgmentally
Notes Tied On The Sagebrush
We Admitted We Were Powerless
willowdot21
Life In Progress
Love Marriage Worms
Wine and Beer Travels
Odds & Ends from Ermigal
mihran Kalaydjian
A Teenage (Poet’s) Life
RosieSmrtiePants
Not Just Sassy on the Inside
Scribblings from the Bluegrass
Muddy Business
calliopes lyre
Breathing Space
Amusing Nonsense
that cynking feeling
Mental in the Midwest
On the Edge of Enlightenment
Drunk on Life
Blog Apocalypse
To Breathe is to Write
could do worse
Martha Keim-St. Louis’ blog
Apple Pie and Napalm
Crawford’s Creative Corner
The Cranky Giraffe
A Map of California
galesmind
Just something I was thinking about . . .

Other November Finds –

About a Bugg
from the sticks to the bricks and back again
I Try: The Additive Property of Happiness
mychordomajourney
Styling My Curves
Floating Kitchen
Write Dorne – Putting life into words.

See previous new reads for October – September – August – July –

Plus view my Blogroll here!

NaBloPoMo, NaBloPoMo 2014, New Feeds

NaBloPoMo Is Done.

6 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

ss5

Sunset as seen from the Mauna Kea Summit, HI.

We can call NaBloPoMo a success here at Life in the Country, with a blog post published for every day in November.

How did you go? Did you take part?

The Links Roundup –

Here are some brilliant links I saved – there were a few more but when I went back to the blogs I was going to link to, they had not approved my comment, so a big wet raspberry to you, instead of a link. :)

Crock Pot Pumpkin Butter with Vanilla Bean and Port – I can’t imagine how excellent the house would smell after slow cooking this. :)

Day 14: My Love Hate Relationship With Facebook – I am having my own love hate relationship with it – I’m within millimeters of hitting delete account.. I am so over FB resetting how I see my stories. I do not want top stories, I want most recent. STOP CHANGING IT BACK FFS FB.

knitting litterature – If you love knitting you will love this post. :)

Six Word Fortune Cookies – Pick a number between 1-20, then go to this post to get your fortune cookie. :)

Giving Thanks to the Goose – The turkey was once a goose.

12 Fab Christmas Tree Crafts From Pinterest – This is a super fun post.

The Mother of Mom-Themed Links Post – Some more excellent links.

Favorite Cookboks Written By Bloggers – I already read one of these blogs so I found four more awesome reads here. :)

Leopards of Bera, Rajasthan – Some gorgeous pics and a great story as well.

Saturday Suppers: Corn Chowder – I am so making this. :)

Orange Marinated Chicken with Potatoes and Asparagus – And this – I am always looking for new ways to prepare chicken and this one will be a hit with the other half who loves orange.

Myki for visitors – If you are going to Melbourne, you want to read this post.

The NaBloPoMo Bundles –

You can browse the first bundle of blogs here –

NaBloPoMo 2014

You can browse the second bundle of blogs here –

NaBloPoMo2 2014

There is also my “keepers” – blogs that I connected with right away and know I want to be reading long after November is a distant memory. If your blog is not on this list, do not worry – I just need a little more time to get to know you. :) All the blogs I have added thus far will be staying in my feed reader for now.

You can browse the keepers list here –

NaBloPoMo Keepers 2014 – Updated 23/11/14

If your blog is on the first list or the second list but is not in the first or second bundle, it means I could not access your blog, or that there was no feed associated with your blog.

I have kept a record of each missing blog and why it is missing, so you can contact me and I can let you know why yours is missing.

The Nano Poblano Bundle –

The 2014 Nano Poblano Blogs.

If you did take part but you have not yet linked up, you still have some time to add your link below.

Unlike a regular link up – Please link to your BLOG URL, not to a post. :)


get the InLinkz code

Linkage, NaBloPoMo, NaBloPoMo 2014