Month: April 2012

Sad days; spring break is over…

Aynaria 4 Comments

Wake up

I awoke my daughter up earlier than normal; 6:30…

Today, was her first day back at school. She was off for an entire week.

I was greeted with the most pitiful expression. Hilarious! She didn’t want to go back. Then she told me why… “Mommy, I’m going to miss you!” Awww…

I’m going to miss her too. We did have a great time while she was off, although we stayed local, we did go on short trips and have a lot of mommy/daughter hang time.

Gaming, was even in that equation — although in tiny doses. She got on the desktop computer, and I logged onto my 17″ MacBook Pro, and we explored the awesome world of FreeRealms, too bad we didn’t run into Kaozz. The MMO diva, during out travels, we’d have invited her to join our little party.

To add to the awesomeness of her spring break, she had two play dates with her best friend from school.

First was at her friend’s house, and yesterday she came to our house. While she was over, we visited the neighbors, who just happen to have a white Macaw bird. The bird, is very friendly.  They were able to pet him, and they got to see our neighbors two gila monsters. Pigs ducks, and chickens. We even showed her friend our woods, we live on about four acres of land — almost three acres is woods.

I crocheted another doll outfit for her, and crocheted  a necklace to compliment her Easter dress (which I’ll share on Finished object Friday) and we explored the outdoors.

All too soon that week was over, so no… she wasn’t the only one sad; I’ll miss her too.

But, there will be other days out of school, and as I told her summer break will be here before she knows it, which means more time to hang together.

Apple: Help, my Mac is stuck at the Apple log on screen, what do I do?

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Apple logo

Being greeted by a spinning circle (or the spinning circle of death as it’s often called) is not something you want to see when you’re attempting to log onto your Apple Mac.

A few days ago, that’s what welcomed me, when I attempted to log onto my 17″ MacBook Pro. Uh, yippee?

Fortunately, all I had to do was reset my MacBook Pro’s PRAM and NVRAM, and I was able to log onto my MacBook Pro computer

How do I  reset PRAM and NVRAM on a Mac

  1. Shut down your computer
  2. Find the keys Command — which is the  symbol, Option, P, and R
  3. Turn on your computer
  4. Immediately hold down the keys; Command, Option, P, and R
  5. Keep holding the keys down until the computer restarts, and you hear the startup chime
  6. That’s it, release the keys

Although my geek cred is Microsoft related. Over the years, I’ve received several Microsoft certifications.

However thanks to numerous Mac related books, and online research, my technical understanding of Macs has increased dramatically.

College memories: Ramen noodles; vegetable pasta

Aynaria 12 Comments

Top Ramen Noodles

Ramen noodles…

Cheap, filling, and ready in minutes. During college, ramen noodles, were a welcome addition, when I didn’t want to spend a lot of money on food.

My parents sent me care package throughout the years, and noodles were something they thoughtfully included.

Getting creative with Ramen noodles

Even as a college kid, I was interested in delicious, healthy, and filling meals, and so a variety of vegetables were added to my noodles. If I had the money to make it healthier, if not the plain noodles would suffice, it just wasn’t as tasty.

These days, I don’t eat a lot of ramen noodles or your traditional pasta…

The majority of the pasta I make is made from vegetables; I use a vegetable pasta maker. Its much healthier than the traditional noodles, and during harvest time I have more than enough vegetables to satisfy my noodle craving.

Stir fry vegetables ramen noodle 1

Vegetable pasta maker

I first learned about vegetable pasta when I became interested in raw foods, I’d eaten raw foods throughout my life, and was fascinated that some ate this exclusively. Naturally, I was even more intrigued, when I saw vegetables  like made from vegetables! I’ve tried a few vegetable pasta noodle machines, but my favorite is the plastic spiral vegetable slicer. I’ve had mine for five years.

 

The above photo was taken last evening, the main ingredient is ramen noodles, to which I added broccoli, tomato, egg, and garlic. My daughter helped prepare this dish, and thought it was delicious.

Happy Easter; doves

Aynaria 4 Comments

Dove 1 04 08 12

Say hello to this friendly dove, actually there was another one close by, but because of the branches — I couldn’t get them both in the picture. This pair has been here for a few years, and have set up their home near our home.

This morning, while walking Mr. Bentley — our Shih Tzu,  the doves made an appearance. They usually ‘come to say hello, if I’m outside. Today, they curiously watched me snapping photos of them. I’ve never done that before.

Funny, since I love taking pictures with my Nikon… but for some reason when they’re out, I don’t have my camera. So it made Easter more special. The doves are no longer afraid of us. They watch us while we walk close to them.  Only flying away, when bored, or have other things to do?

Happy Easter

I always enjoy the services at my Lutheran church, and it was made special today by the reenactment of the resurrection scene. Our church has an amazing drama ministry; professional group of folks doing sharing God’s message through acting.

Over the years, I’ve been to many plays and I can honestly say the drama ministry, at my Lutheran church, is just as good as any ‘regular acting group’.

 

Matthew 28

1 After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb.

2 There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it. 3 His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow. 4The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men.

5 The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified.6 He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. 7 Then go quickly and tell his disciples: ‘He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him.’ Now I have told you.”

8 So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples. 9 Suddenly Jesus met them. “Greetings,” he said. They came to him, clasped his feet and worshiped him. 10 Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”

The Guards’ Report

11 While the women were on their way, some of the guards went into the city and reported to the chief priests everything that had happened. 12 When the chief priests had met with the elders and devised a plan, they gave the soldiers a large sum of money, 13 telling them, “You are to say, ‘His disciples came during the night and stole him away while we were asleep.’ 14 If this report gets to the governor, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble.” 15 So the soldiers took the money and did as they were instructed. And this story has been widely circulated among the Jews to this very day.

The Great Commission

16 Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. 17 When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. 18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.

Wishing everyone a Happy Easter, Jesus has risen.

Celebrate Life: Site updates; Dofollow, CommentLuv, & KeywordLuv installed

Aynaria 10 Comments

Do follow badge redheart

Celebrate Life, like many of my sites have been do follow since they were created. A simple way to know which sites are dofollow is by installing and addon. To make the process a bit easier, for those hunting for dofollow blogs, I’ve added a badge to my right-hand sidebar. Clicking the icon links to the post I wrote about dofollow…

Comment Luv

CommentLuv

CommentLuv is another wordpress plugin that’s been on all my sites since they were created. To increase the awareness, I also added a CommentLuv badge; CommentLuv enabled blogs allow users to link back to one of their posts when they leave a comment.

Here at Celebrate Life, you have the option of linking to one of your last ten posts. It’s an excellent plugin; my only wish is that more bloggers would use it on their sites. It doesn’t stop me from commenting on those who don’t use it, I feel CommentLuv is another way to reward your readers, and if they linked posts has an interesting title — perhaps encourage others that visit your site to stop by theirs site also — pure win!

Keyword comic

Keyword Luv

Earlier today, I installed keyword luv on Celebrate Life. I’ve been using this plugin since it was released in 2008, Stephen Cronin is the creator of the keywordluv WordPress Plugin. When it was released, I used it on several of my old sites. I’m not thrilled with people simply using keywords on my sites. Personal identity goes a long way in social networking, because of that, I normally won’t approve a comment that’s just keywords.

What’s great about Keyword Luv? It allows a person to leave their name and keyword; the only thing that will be linked is the keyword. Keyword Luv makes this possible by linking anything you add after the @ sign.

If I left a comment and signed my name as…

Opal @ Healthy Eating

The only words that would be linked are Healthy Eating.

Using appropriate keywords, is something I practiced even before I knew what ‘keywords’ were. In my mind, It looked more attractive when I used an accurate description when linking to a post or page.

Fast forward a few years later, and I learned the way I had been linking was the ‘correct way’… well if you want to try to bring more traffic to your site via search engines.

Will Keyword Luv increase website spam?

One of the arguments I’ve seen against Keyword Luv, and other WordPress addons that rewards its readers, is that you’ll receive in increase in spam. While this is true…  a knowledgeable website owner will have anti-spam plugins installed so this is a non issue. How much spam have you seen on this site? None, my anti-spam plug ins does a great job of blocking spam. Although Celebrate Life is small, I do receive a lot of spam because of what’s available here; Dofollow, CommentLuv, and now KeywordLuv.

Moving forward…

I don’t write too much about technology, but I’ll try to inject some of it here on Celebrate Life (now and again). There will be a few more changes to Celebrate Life, in the upcoming weeks, one of those changes will be a new WordPress theme.

I’d love to write more about keywords, but I’ll have to wrap up this post.

My daughter’s will awaken soon, and I really need to prepare breakfast; strawberry pancakes, hyperborean, and pineapple, blueberry, peach smoothie (we love delicious and healthy smoothies) is on the menu, and yes it’s all made from scratch.

For those itching to use keywords, by all means do so… just remember to include a name, and the keywords desired after the @ symbol.

Of course… the comment can’t be spam.  😉 There are sites that don’t monitor their comments. And it’s apparent, by the amount of spam that some of those sites receive. Well guess what, Celebrate Life isn’t one of them, I read all comments. As I posted before, spam never gets published — and on the off chance that it bypasses those filters, I will delete spam comments.

Finished object Friday: Crochet; Sophie poses with guinea pig

Aynaria 21 Comments

Liv Girl Guinea pig Sophie 3

“Mommy, will you make Sophie an outfit? She’s naked!” That’s one of the questions my daughter asked me last evening…

Let’s ignore that the only reason she’s naked is because my daughter stripped her of all her clothes. My daughter gave me her best,  how can you resist this face look. And it worked… this time. Once the crocheted items were complete we set up a photo shoot, starring Sophie, and Angel, my daughters guinea pig. I’m happy to say Ms. Angel is doing well, even though she recently lost her guinea pig sister, Daizy.

Liv Girl Guinea pig Sophie 2

Sophie is a Liv Doll; I purchased this doll for my eight-year old daughter early last year. My daughter loves the doll, because like the Monster High dolls, these dolls have moveable joints; Sophie has 14 moveable joints. Perfect for my daughter, since she uses her jointed dolls as mannequins. She designs clothing for them, and It’s the only time she plays with dolls.

Back to Sophie’s crocheted outfit…

I used a size D crochet hook, so the stitches are small. I’m not sure of the brand/exact color name of the pink crochet thread I used. It was given to me by someone who no longer crochets or knits.

I didn’t use a pattern, just played around with different stitches. I started this crochet project (skirt, tube top, and a hat) last evening, and finished it this morning. In total, it took about two hours. Stitches used; Single, double, and triple crochet, and I added a crocheted scalloped edging. I’m not sure what the stitch is called.

Liv Girl Guinea pig Sophie 1

My daughter is thrilled with the ensemble, and now Sophie isn’t prancing around naked. Sophie and Angel made a dynamite modeling team, perhaps there will be more photo opportunities in their future?

Finished object Friday blog hop

  1. Tami’s Ami’s Finished object Fridays
  2. Fibers on Friday
  3. Natural Suburbia
  4. Wisdom Begins in Wonder

Celebrate Life: Do follow; site statistics

Aynaria 13 Comments

Spam

If your site is dofollow, one of side effects you might encounter, is the increase in spam.

Here at Celebrate Life several comments, never get published.  I use a few anti-spam Word Press plugins on my sites.

The chance of a spammers comments actually slipping through my anti-spam trap is very slim, and since I actually read each comment, I’d delete those that were published.

What is dofollow?

 

<a href="http://www.imcelebratinglife.com/" target="_blank" rel="dofollow">Celebrate Life</a>

 

Above, I’ve included the code that makes a link ‘dofollow‘ .

Making links dofollow enables search engines to follow whatever link your site has linked to, which can be helpful since the special markup language used tells search engines they can follow a link.

Not as important for those who aren’t looking for traffic, or ways to increase their page rank, but dofollow links are (normally) welcome by those who are trying to achieve that, as long it’s the right type of links…

That’s the main reason you’ll see dofollow on my sites, I like to reward my readers and do it in a few ways; Dofollow, Top commentators plug in, and CommentLuv.

If you’re a WordPress user, there are numerous plugins available to make this automated. I use NoFollow free on this site.

Normal link – No follow

<a href="http://www.imcelebratinglife.com/" target="_blank">Celebrate Life</a>

Since Nofollow is the default code, it’ll be found on the majority of sites a person visits. With nofollow sites, search engines won’t follow places you’ve linked to on your site, and why would they? You haven’t given them the ‘ok’ to follow the links you’ve linked too. Remember a special code is needed if you want search engines bots to follow them.

Do follow badge redheart

Do follow or nofollow, which one should I use?

Both types of links are good. However, dofollow links give the most benefits since it brings human traffic and SEO (search engine optimization) traffic to your site, SEO improves your sites online presence in search engines (Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc.,). Nofollow links only bring human traffic.

People linking to your site within their posts are one way to bring traffic to your site, another way is to leave thoughtful comments with a link back to your site, so people know where to visit.

On commenting…

It takes time to comment, and so you don’t see me doing too much of that. However when I do, I stay on topic, and add to the conversation.  If you’re the copy/paste commentator, sorry that doesn’t fly here at Celebrate Life, and I’ll delete your comment. What I’m interested in is real conversation. It doesn’t bother me if people are commenting just to get a link back to their site; leave a real message, be part of the conversation.

Celebrate Life Bounce Rate 04 05 12

Site Performance

Although I haven’t been active on Celebrate Life, the basic principles that I use elsewhere were applied here. Why? I didn’t want too much of a headache to deal with, once I came out of hibernation.

Web stats at Celebrate Life are continuing to improve, my bounce rate is still low, 12.75%, and the amount of new visitors is increasing. I’ve had Google Analytics installed on this site since its creation, but it’s something I haven’t actively tracked until now.

Online success isn’t foreign to me, and it’s something I’ve been successful with on my business sites. Granted, the type of ‘success’ I’m striving for here, will be different, but the way I’ll achieve it, will be similar.

Photo Source: Vince Lamb