Last Friday, their black and white words came alive when I heard each voice read her own creation aloud. With the sound of her voice, her message took on the full color of life. There was no losing her meaning with those inflections, those choked back tears. At Allume, I hugged women who’d been only…
originally written in 2004 When asked how long I was homeschooled, I answer: “Forever.” I truly can’t remember a time before homeschooling, because for us, homeschooling was a way of life. My dad graduated from the public school in the small town where we still live; my mom was a charter member of a Christian…
Creating pinnable graphics, composing the perfect Tweets to promote our posts, and then sharing them at the optimum times on Facebook take time . . . It’s easy to get so bogged down in blogging that we lose the joy in writing. If you don’t have time to find the perfect image, don’t worry—spend your…
I don’t know about you, but left to itself, my blog sidebar quickly resembles my kitchen counter: it becomes a catch-all. Every button, link, and feed I don’t know where to put ends up there. And before you know it, the sidebar is so cluttered you can’t see anything! I like clean and simple sidebars…
When you login to Facebook, it asks, “What’s on your mind?” But does everyone need to know what’s on your mind? When you visit Twitter, it asks, “What’s happening?” But Twitter isn’t just about what’s happening to you. “We were never created to live ‘publicly,’” says Sarah Markley. No one really needs a play-by-play Twitter…
No Thumbnail? No problem. Ever go to share a link on Facebook and the URL is the only thing that shows up? No picture or summary? Run the link through the debugger and Facebook will update its image: https://developers.facebook.com/tools/debug. (You can do this whether it’s your link or someone else’s.) Wrong Thumbnail? Get a WordPress…
Dear Children of Mine, For your future entertainment, I continue to collect and compile some of the funny and random things you say and do. Some quotes are from Facebook, some memories are jotted down here as I remember them. My oh my, you come up with some creative uses of the English language! Two…
I look down and I see my wrinkles and rolls, stretch marks and blemishes. I see legs that are anything but tanned and an outfit devoid of style. I look up and I see their bright eyes and a beautiful smile. I see shoulders that hug and arms that hold. I see hairs that He…
It’s a race. We’re to run with perseverance. And that might mean throwing off everything that hinders us. We’re to run in such a way as to finish the race. And that might mean strict training. We’re to run a good race. And that means not letting anyone cut in and get us off course….
Social media is not about you—it’s about the people you are following and the people following you. There is no “currency” in social media: it’s all about relationships. Don’t forget the Golden Rule, but don’t promote just to be promoted, either. Having an others-first mentality is the only way to use social media. Reply, Retweet,…
Social media is not about numbers. It’s not about how many followers you have or how many likes you get. Social media is about the relationships you’re building. And if you’re looking to go deep, not wide, in your social media relationships, it’s essential to find your tribe. Your tribe is made up of more…
They talk on the radio of “domestic tranquility” and I laugh. There’s not much tranquil around here unless the children are in bed. I try to pick up, spruce up, do the dishes up, but often, despite my best race-around-as-soon-as-naptime-is-over efforts, I welcome him home to a very messy, crazy, noisy house. I hand him…
The End.
The End.
