My Love of Reading Recap

Welcome back!

This week I”ve been blogging about books. I wonder sometimes if I don’t read less because of blogging and blog reading. Anyone else feel that way? Oh well, there are some amazing bloggers out there who are a joy to read as well. Some of my all time favorites include:

Simple Mom
Adventures in Babywearing
The Organizing Junkie

Some of my new found loves are:

Pleasing to You
Like a Warm Cup of Coffee
Women Living Well

What are your favorite blogs?

Remember to read and comment on all of this week’s blog posts.

What Books Would You Recommend
Some Favorites on My Shelf
I’m Currently Reading

It Is No Secret

I’m not going to say that the fact that I’m a “blogger” was a secret before now, but it was a hidden thing, at least among those in my every day “face to face” life.  I had never really told many of my friends much about my “blog”.  I told them I was an “internet junkie”, I’ve told them that I’m a “nerd”, that they knew anyway. However, about my “blog” or its location, I had not totally revealed…until last night.

You see I was teaching facilitating a Bible Study lesson for our once a month Tomgirls (Together on Mission with the Girls) meeting, and I thought of how a person I know “in real life” just recently revealed to me that she read my blog.  I was at first embarrassed, until she told me that it was encouraging to her and that she thought God could use it.

So, even though I am a bit uneasy about letting out my “little secret not so secret” place on the web, I did so to illustrate a point that I was making in the lesson, about how you never know when you’re influencing or being an influence on someone else.   And, in a way I’m glad I did, after all it made a good illustration and  maybe the people in my life will only get to know me better and hopefully, GOD will use it for His glory.

So, girls, if you’re out there reading, I love ya’ll and I hope that you won’t think I’m an even bigger “nerd” now that you’ve read my blog.  Besides that I thought I”d share with you a few things you should know about this thing I call “blogging”, it will not only help you to understand the concept, but maybe it’ll even inspire you, or you’ll get a good laugh, either way enjoy.

Some Secrets / Must Knows about Blogging for the Non- Blogger / New Blog Reader

1.  Comment and comment often. My online friend, Kelly McCausey says that comments are like giving “warm hugs’. So, if you like hugs be a commenter.  By the way, those who do not comment are called “lurkers”, which would you rather be a “hugger” or a “lurker”?  I’ll let you decide.

2.  Blogging is not JUST for fun. I blog for fun, but I also blog for profit.  And as another of my online friends, LaTara Ham Ying puts it

“blogging is a way to get your message, whatever it may be— out to the masses.”

I know preachers who blog, attorneys, children’s boutique owners, just to name a few and yes moms, millions of them who blog.  I myself blog as a “mom blogger”, but also as a “blog manager” for 6 other business blogs of clients on 6 totally different topics.

I also blog for my ministry, and for Proverbs 31 Ministries’ Rad Revolution blog, a blog for teen / tween girls.

3. A few terms to know:  RSS feed, Feedreader, and Tags.  I’ll try to explain all three to the best of my ability.  An RSS feed or (really simple syndication) feed is basically a way to receive my feed (or the feed of other blogs) or my updates automatically.  You can subscribe to get those by email, or you can subscribe to get them in your “feedreader” which is a really simple way to read blogs.  It feeds in your blogs that you are subscribed to and keeps them all in one place.  You simply log on and read.

Some popular feedreaders include:

Google Reader – my favorite and what I use.  You can access Google from anywhere and you can file and organize your blogs.

Netvibes - much like Google reader, Netvibes allows you to subscribe to blogs and more.

Tags are keywords or terms that a blogger can use to “tag” a blog post.  If you look to the right in my sidebar you can see a list of my most often used tags.  These are topics I blog about most often.

4.  Blogging creates community. As I said in a previous point there are many bloggers online these days and whether they are blogging for business or personal, to succeed at and get the most out of blogging you must (in my opinion) become a part of the “blogging community”.

This is one of the reasons I love blogging.  I am a “Work at home mom”, therefore I may not see ya’ll (other moms in real life) for days on end.  Blogging allows me to connect with other moms that are “in my shoes” (the mom blog community) and through this I have remained sane through a many a week of children’s illness, and I have made some amazing friends.  Some of which I have finally met “face to face” as well, or I will soon.

5.  Blogging is “cheap therapy”. Let’s face it sometimes as a mom you just want to scream it to the masses, whatever it is, and blogging lets you.  I have struggled for years with “anxiety disorder” and I probably needed to go to a counselor more often than not, but really it was so I could “get it all out there.” Blogging allows me to do so, the only problem is, now “somebody” is actually reading.  Ha ha!

So, seriously, if you want to read my blog, I’m ok with that, and if you don’t, you’re not going to hurt my feelings.  But if you do decide you want to subscribe click below to subscribe via email, that’s probably the easiest for you.

Subscribe to Life From My Laptop by Email

And if you stick around, please comment, I’d love to know you’ve been here.  Simply click, 0 Readers have commented on this post , or whatever number is there  in the little link below and fill out the form to leave a comment, not only will I no longer have to look at that pitiful 0 comments, but I’ll also get to feel your “warm hug”.

Photo Credit: Wheat in your hair

Feeling Like a Lucky Duck

Today seems to be this WAHM’s lucky day. I am feeling like a lucky duck, discovering all kinds of cool things and amazing myself with my HTML capabilities, teaching myself FrontPage and actually created a few graphics with Paint Shop Pro 8 (my trial version that will run out in a few days). Oh how i want to buy it maybe I can swing it if my Stimulus check from the Government comes in. What do you think that would be an “investment in my business” right?? How many of your are with me??

So, want to see what I created today? I know my weekly tips list is suppose to be for those of you who are actually on my list or in the Organized Life by Design Network which I hope all of you are and if you’re not you will be after reading the weekly tips. I am just ecstatic that I created this template and then input my weekly tips email into it! See the Organized Life by Design Weekly Tips in HTML, I did that!!

Now, for all my other cool finds. This morning I received an email about a great new service to us WAHMs who have service based businesses such as Virtual Assistants, graphic designers, and ghostwriters, (that’s me) and the offer was to join this great resource called Shelancers which just launched. I was soo excited reading the opt-in page that I signed up immediately and ladies, if you are in the VA biz, or want to start Working from Home I think this place is a steal of a deal and you should join too. Because honestly, I’m Already Proud to be a Shelancer!

Next, I was Twittering and Stephanie of “Adventures in BabyWearing” mentioned her new blog post and so I hopped over and read it and got excited because I so love being a Mommy Blogger and I would love for more companies to target us as mommy bloggers, but I live in a rural community so just as I asked her how do I even start? How do I get involved with all the fancy smancy stuff like she did, she even got to go to Disney!!! So she and the blog post itself pointed me to Mom Select that will help me to do just that. So if you’re a mom blogger who wants to get involved in product reviews, etc. You should check out Mom Select.

Ok for now, I think that’s all of my excitement and cool finds! Oh wait, I am speaking at Mommyfest today too but the audio has yet to be released so keep a check on that and learn the “Advantages to an Organized Life”.

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