blog stuff

I was tagged by The Gaspards. I added the 5 of my most recent commenters at the bottom. Check ’em out.

You will have to tag 5 other bloggers and just keep adding on to the list. (Do not replace, just keep on adding! Yes we hope it will be a long list!)
It’s real easy!
Tag others and see your Technorati Authority increase exponentially!
The benefits of Viral Linking:

1.One of the fastest ways to see your technorati authority explode!
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Linky Love Tag

The Strategist Notebook
Link Addiction
Ardor of the Heart
When Life Becomes a Book
The Malaysian Life
Yogatta.com
What goes under the sun
Roshidan’s Cyber Station
Sasha says
Arts of Physics
And the legend lives
My View, My Life
A Simple Life
Juliana RW
Mom Knows Everything
Beth & Cory’s Mom
A Mind Forever Voyaging
enjoying the ride
Jennifer’s thoughts
Mom of 3 Girls
Amanda
Don’t Make Me Get The Flying Monkeys
ExPat Mom
Just Jessie
Wilson Six
Kristin
Nuttier Than You
Shonnte
Summer’s Nook
Laura Williams Musings
Melissa’s Idea Garden
Eve at Confessions of an Everyday Housewife
ChristiS of the Blah Blah Blog
Stephanie at Stop the Ride!
Diane at Soap, Blings & Girly Things
Amanda at Amanda:Mama’s Musings
Kristin at An Ordinary Life
Mama Zen at The Zen of Motherhood
Atomik Kitten
The Sassy Southerner
A Room of Mama’s Own
Exploring Autumn
Immoral Matriarch: Catechizer
Real Life
Boogiemum
Living and loving every minute of it
Huckdoll
The Daily Rhythm
The Rocky Mountain Retreat
Peace is Every Step
Life According to Lizzy
Following Forward
Boys Rule My Life
A Quest for Relevance
Not Trying for a Boy
The Gaspards
Orryally’s journal
My Life with Boys
The Truest Thing
The Potter’s Hand
Permission to Peruse
Live Laugh Blog
Pianomomsicle

Heather’s Hot Mess
Kevin and Paula
Smatterday
Guidance for Victory
Sports Momma

Well, shoot!  I completely missed my official blogging anniversary on February 8.  I kept waiting to post on it and then completely missed it.  Guess how long it’s been?  SIX YEARS.  I’m no spring chicken to blogging but sometimes I feel that way.  I never really told anyone about my site, online or elsewhere for a long time.  It wasn’t until last year that I “came out” if I may.  Sure I had a few readers along the way and some like Jaynee that have been with me the whole way but I know there are so many I’ve met since then.

I can’t tell you how much blogging has meant for me.  As my mom’s coworker says, it’s my therapy.  And it is.  When I’m working from home and all I have is two people 4 feet and shorter running around and I’ve cleaned up 15 messes all within 15 minutes, changed the laundry all while on a conference call with work, sometimes I have to let it out!  Sometimes I do that by finding something funny.   Sometimes it’s something spiritual.  Sometimes it’s something from tv.  Sometimes it’s just something boring.  But all of this blog is me.  It’s barebones Amy.  Whatever you may find it…boring, funny, exciting, monotonous…well, it’s me.

I literally don’t know what I would have done if I hadn’t been able to journal about these life-changing last 6 years and I think I will be forever grateful when I look back and have so many special moments on paper.

If you happen to read this, I would love for you to comment and let me know you read here whether you’re new or not.

Since I had everything redesigned a few weeks back, I get to participate! You can too if you’ve just started, recently moved sites or totally redesigned. (Heather, get your link over there!)

And just for the sake of a shameless plug, if you’re ready to make the move to your own host, check out BlueHost for awesome prices and customer service.

Lately I have felt blogged down.  That’s hopefully a phrase that someone else hasn’t come up with.  It’s definition is closely related to the definition of bog as used in bogged down..getting slowed down or stuck.  Except in this case, it means specifically by blogs.

I have definitely been blogged down lately.  This morning, I think I had almost 90 blogs in my reader and I simply can not handle it saying I have more than 1 post to read.  I HAVE to at least look at it and check it off my list.  I have never blindly clicked Mark All Read just because my curiosity would kill me not knowing what someone posted.

So where does that put me?  A lot of reading to do and little time to do it.  And I do get stuck in a rut of reading.  And as much as I love everyone I read, I simply had to pare it down.  With my personal sites and some entertainment feeds I subscribe to for my OTH site’s purposes, I now only have a total of 50 feeds in my reader.  I kept all the ones where I knew I’d read every single post and be excited about every single post.  

So far it feels very freeing except I don’t think it will be long before I miss my reader not having tons of bolded (1)’s beside them.

Anyone catch that title? Ha.

I thought I might give an update on my OTHer site – One Tree Hill Blog. I try not to talk about it too much but really, it takes a good bit of my time so it deserves a little attention on my personal blog.

A few stats for you

1. The site opened on December 10, 2007. That’s somewhere around 7 weeks in. I can’t find a calendar right now…doing the math…that’s 51 days.
2. I post at least once day and probably average 5 a day through the week.
3. In the last two weeks we’ve averaged
   1. 2500 Page Loads
   2. 1000 Unique Visitors
   3. 186 Returning Visitors
4. Our best day is Wednesday, the day after the show. Today we’ll probably hit 6,000 page loads and have over 2,000 unique visitors.

We are involved in the following ad programs:

1. Adsense (get paid when people click on ads)
2. Linkshare (get paid when people buy from iTunes)
3. Kontera (get paid when people click on in-text links)
4. BlogHerAds (get paid per impression – sort of) – we’ve only been with them for 2 weeks

To-date income for each are:

1. Adsense: $55
2. Linkshare: $9.40
3. Kontera: $15
4. BlogHerAds: $87

Here are a few thoughts on that:

1. I’m a little disappointed in Adsense. While my stats have increased, I think they’re still pretty low.
2. Considering we only get 2% of purchases of .99 songs and $1.99 episodes I’m happy with this.
3. Since a lot of our content is video and pictures, it’s hard to get quality links from Kontera, but I’d rather have $15 than not.
4. BlogHerAds and I have a love/hate relationship. While I’m happy that I’m getting recognized for all the page views, somewhere along the way my page views in my statcounter and their page impressions in their reports don’t match up. Not sure why. And while I’m all for helping people out, we get A LOT of their Public Service Announcement ads…sometimes 25% in a day. Just doesn’t seem right. I’ve emailed their folks and they say it’s because of a lull in ads.

So if I had all that up, I’m thinking I’d average about $200/month which is great for a hobby, but as a part-time job, $50/wk is pretty paltry. I’m certainly not in it totally for the money, it does help to have your time rewarded.

So here’s the thing, I love OTH but it takes A LOT of time. I spend hours and hours a week working on it and I have really been thinking of selling it.

Part of me wants to sell. Part of me is scared what will happen to it if I do. Part of me doesn’t care. Part of me doesn’t want the rejection if it never sells. Part of me doesn’t want to sell something I built from the ground up. Part of me wants released from the pressure of keeping it updated. Part of me likes being in the loop.

So you see, I’m quite torn about it. For now I think I’m hanging in there but that could change in oh about a minute.

If you’ve read this far, congratulations, I’m not sure I would have done the same. If you want to chat about web site stuff or have any suggestions for me, leave a comment or send me an email. As you can see, I could go on forever about it.

Anne has asked us to post specific ways we like to have fun.  I know it’s supposed to be for Mondays, but I’m a little behind.

Coloring is one of the few things my kids do that I thoroughly enjoy as well.  But to “kick it up a notch”, why not make up really funny titles for the pictures you color?  Let me give you a few examples.  Here are all the pages I colored last night.  Clockwise starting at the top left:

1. Whale crowd surfing demonstration
2. Cheese!
3. If you only knew what I just stepped in
4. I know I’m smiling but this really hurts
5. Giraffe necking
6. Crayon Bus (credit to Scott)

I know it’s not Monday, but if you come up with one of these, post an alternate title in the comments and visit Anne for more ways to brighten your day.

I saw this meme over here and seeing my (lack of) luck with the band lately, I thought it was kind of funny the title that came up.

Want to be a rockstar, too? Follow these steps:

1. Click this link. The first title on this page is the name of your band.
2. Now click this link. The last four words of the very last quote is the name of your album. If it doesn’t work at all, click the "New Random Quotations" button for more.
3. And finally, click this link. The third picture on this page will be your album cover. Add your band name and album title, and you’re done! (Please remember to give credit for the original picture.)

Consider yourself tagged if you want to play along.

original source of picture

It’s here! My new theme is up and looking so very cute!  I have a few things to tweak but my new design is in!! Much thanks to Jess at Cuppycake Designs. She was so incredibly easy to work with.  She took my ideas and ran with them.  And so quickly!  She just started this weekend and I already have it on my site!  Unreal!