Posts Tagged ‘blogging’

While I was sleeping . . . .

Wow!  Has it really been since May 2010 that I have given this poor, neglected bloggy some love?  Yup, and…guess what?  Google noticed, and Google BOLTED leaving not so much as a “Dear Crystal” letter where Adsense once lived. 

Call me naïve, folks, but one of my original motives for starting this blog/website combo was to earn a few pennies the easy way by getting people to click on my Google and Amazon ads.  Theoretically, I would blog my little heart out, providing useful and witty content for my adoring public, and the clickers would come in droves and click until their clicking fingers were swollen and bruised causing Google to reward me with a generous monthly Adsense stipend.  Ok, ok, so I never really expected to get rich–I’m not greedy–but I had thought I might earn the requisite $100 to get a check cut at least once a year. 

Unfortunately, I can be fickle and inconsistent at times with my hobbies, and one day I fell asleep at the blogging wheel—just could not churn out another post though I tried with half my might—leaving my poor bloggy to fend for itself for a time.  My bloggy, it would appear, survived my absence tolerably, but Google, on the other hand, took it hard.  Evidently, the mighty Google is not as thick-skinned as one might think and, at the first sign of rejection, took its toys and went home.  Or, maybe Adsense has read too many relationship books and is showing me tough love.  After all, I clearly have not done my part in keeping our relationship healthy.

Here I sit, brokenhearted and abandoned, getting a dose of my own medicine, and it hurts!  It really hurts!  Will ya take me back if I clean up my act, Google?  Will ya?

Enjoying my new size

My good friend, Philip, has prompted me, now that I am completely downsized and settled, that I should get my creative juices flowing and dust off this old bloggy.  So, while sitting on my patio and enjoying the sunshine (but not the wind), I’ve decided to do just that. 

One good aspect of my new apartment, the porch is covered.  The balcony of my previous apartment was open-air so I would certainly not have been sitting out on the patio with pieces of tree falling on my head writing in my bloggy.  Here, the wind is whipping my hair but no debris is falling and the sun is not beating down on me.  I can enjoy it’s warmth without actually getting burned by it.  Bubbles, my ever faithful pet bunny, is also enjoying some freedom on the patio, sniffing and tickling my toes occasionally when I least expect it.  Currently, he has his nose glued to the ground, sniffing away at who knows what.  Oops, he’s decided it’s time for a nap.  What a great idea!  The pool looks inviting but I think I’ll abstain for now due to the wind and the fact that I haven’t shaved my legs for a couple of days.  Don’t want to scare off my new neighbors. 

And sooooo . . . what to write about on such a beautiful day with such peaceful surroundings.  Maybe I’ll just share some photos. 

Did curiosity really kill the cat?

Every once in awhile, prior to hitting the “delete all” button on my spam, those evil comments filled with mostly Viagra ads that the nifty Akismet plugin vigilantly protects me from, I scroll through it searching for legitimate comments that might have somehow gotten pinched in the roundup.  Today was one of those days.  I have been ill in one way or another for the past several weeks, topping the mix with a nasty case of the flu that today finally seems to be subsiding, and have not had the energy or the desire to post.  Needless to say, visitors and comments have been less than few and stats we won’t discuss.

And so this afternoon, out of loneliness and desperation, I plucked a single comment out of the trash bin (one that appeared to be legitimate).  Not only that, but I e-mailed a response to the question of whether or not the commenter might tear a quote from my bloggy and return a link.  Will this cat’s curiosity and kindness net her a bunch more spam as a lesson to be learned or will she be glad she took a few moments out of her afternoon to challenge Akismet?  I’ll let you know.

Has anyone else ever gone dumpster diving for comments?