Tricia's Musings

Random Thoughts about life in general, living in the big city of Toronto



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Finding my writing focus

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I’ve spent a few of the last posts discussing my husband and I’s various blogs. I’m going to be re-designing a few of their themes and re-organizing all of the sites topics/categories and sidebars in order to make them much more user friendly.

Now I’m trying to decide what to do with this blog.

In the past this site has been a general catch all. If I decide to write about a television show that I just watched I write about it here. If Chris and I are busy working on home renovations I write about it here. I think that’s confused the focus of this site.

I mean I could write about DIY, home renovation and home decor on my gardening blog, or simply create a new blog altogether to talk about those topics. I do talk about them often enough on this site and my gardening site that I could justify creating a new blog just for those topics.

Also, now that I have my celebrity blog I think I could get away with writing about television show episodes or documentaries that have caught my attention on that site rather than on this one.

My other two blogs, the newest of all are web design and internet technology related. Posts about cool internet related stuff will probably get posted over there more often now. Although if I find something really cool that I think you guys will like I’ll be sure to let you know about it here too. Or at least point you over to The Web Files for a read.

If I take away the Home renovation, decor, gardening, technology and entertainment related posts from this blog what does that leave? Self, health, lifestyle, home life, relationship, shopping and general stuff. I believe that for the most part those are the kinds of things I talk about most often on this blog anyway.

Does that sound like a plan? Would you still keep coming back to read this blog and perhaps visit my our other sites more often to read some of the topics that I’ve diverted to the newer blogs on their own sites?

I’d really like your input before I start making major changes to this blog or any of the others that I write on. I don’t want to lose readers. I want you to continue to return and hopefully build a larger readership as a result of each of my blogs being more focused.

Feedback please?





What do you think this blog is about?

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As I was saying in an earlier post “Time to take stalk and work on our blogs” I’m going to be giving a number of Chris and I’s sites a makeover.

This site might get a makeover too. This is where my readers and visitors come in.

What do you think? Should I stick with this theme? Just tidy it up a bit, and get it a little more organized so it’s easier to find anything that you’d like to find on this blog?

I know that many of my visitors really like the look and feel of this site and I’d hate to change it if a little tidying and organization would be enough.

When I started this, my first blog, a little more than a year ago I did it with the intention of talking about my illness (Crohn’s disease), but I quickly decided that I didn’t want to talk about how sick I feel or how much pain I’m in as that just brings me down and if it brings me down … well I’d probably have few readers other than those that felt as bad as I do.

So I began talking about everything and anything that interested me. As time went on I discovered that I talked about gardening and photography quite a bit. So I decided to create blogs where I could post about those two subjects. Well, my photoblog is just photos. It would probably be a good thing if I made yet another blog where I also spoke about my passion for photography as well.

I think it was a good idea to create new blogs so I could focus my other interests better. This blog would be even more cluttered if I hadn’t done that.

Along the way I think I’ve found this blogs voice, but I’d like to get your opinion on that as well. Yes it’s a general blog. There’s no hiding that. However, which topics or genres stand out as being main topics when you read this blog? Please don’t count the last two months or so, because I’ve been feeling awful and haven’t been writing from the heart as much as I used to. Go back a couple of months and decide what you think this blog is about.

I know I discuss Toronto, my neighbors and neighborhood quite often – and interactions with my crazy neighbors too! I also talk about life here at home, life with Chris, shopping adventures and home renovations, and cool web related finds. My feeling is that this blog would fall into the Home and Living, Shopping and perhaps entertainment genres with a side of web technology.

What do you think?

I want to be clearer in my topics on this site. More focused. Which direction do think this blog is heading?

Time to take stalk and work on our blogs

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I’ve been going over all of the sites that my husband and I work on and I think I’m going to re-organize and revamp some of the sites.

I think we’re going to work on a new theme for Odd Planet since the current theme is a little bit messed up. The sidebar scrolls into the bottom bars in the footer, and the comment area is messed up for first time commenter’s. I think that’s the site that needs the most immediate attention because I’m sure that with the comment area being a little screwy that some people who’d like to leave a comment have probably ended up leaving without giving the feedback that they’d intended to leave.

Celebrity Scoop and Guitar Licks are both using the same theme. I like the theme, but I haven’t done a thing to customize it. All of my long time readers know I re-work themes or make my own for our sites. I’m embarrassed that I haven’t had the time to work on the themes for those sites and give them the personality that they desperately need.

Speaking of needing more time. I have two more blogs that I’ve started! I created The Web Files on this feverishthoughts.com domain. It was meant to be a technology blog – talking about different things that website owners and bloggers could use on their sites, or news from the world of the Internet. I had also started creating a number of “How – To” files. You know – tips like how to put a blogroll in your sidebar, or how to make a drop down menu. I have about 50 posts in draft on that site.

What I think I’m going to do instead … well what I’ve already done is put the posts from the original Web Files site onto a new domain called thewebfiles.com . This new site, on a new domain will continue where I left off, and the old “Web files” will become a true web design site.

I’m still writing Watching House, but since there’s only been three new episodes of House so far this year I’m starting to have a hard time finding something to write about each day. If House doesn’t start airing new episodes regularly beginning in March I may quit writing that blog.

Why am I telling you this? Well, if you start to see changes occurring on some of the blogs I’ve listed above please feel free to give Chris and I some feedback. We’d love to know if you like the sites and their design as well.

I don’t talk about our other sites very often, but if you like them please feel free to bookmark them or add them to your blogroll. The newer sites could use a little linky love if anyone is interested in writing up an article or post about them please let me know.

Put your avatar in comments using Gravatar

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Gravatar is back!

I’ve been using the Gravatar plugin on all of our WordPress blogs for the better part of the last year. Those of you who have accounts on Gravatar, and who have been leaving comments on my site have a nice avatar beside your comments.

Unfortunately Gravatar shut down for upgrades for about two months and no new people could sign up with Gravatar to list their avatar icons. That’s over and done with now though. Gravatar.com is open again and you can sign up with them and list your own avatar.

A lot of people use gravatars on their blogs. It adds a little bit of personality to the comment area. I love seeing my visitors choice of icons beside their comments, as it can sometimes give me a little bit of insight into their personality.

If you don’t already have a Gravatar icon why don’t you visit Gravatar.com and sign up. All you have to do is sign up with your current email address – the one that you use when you comment on others sites – and then upload an avatar into your Gravatar account.

Once you have a Gravatar account your avatar will show up in the comment area of anyone that uses the Gravatar plugin on their site.

I’d love to see more avatars in my comment area, so go sign up with Gravatar and let your personality and sense of humor show in the comments you leave.

Start a free newsletter for your blog

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As I mentioned at least once before, I’ve noticed that a number of people have been registering on this blog. This is the only blog I have set up where people are able to register as a member. However, up until now I didn’t really have a good way to keep in touch with members of Tricia’s Musings.

Instead of registering as a member of Tricia’s Musings through the WordPress Interface, why not register to become a member of a blog email newsletter instead?

Zookoda has created an easy way for bloggers to keep in touch with their readers, and that is the program that I think I’m going to use on this and likely my other sites. With Zookoda I’ll be able to send daily, weekly or even monthly summaries of my latest posts directly to my visitors. It’s a free service, so I might as well give it a try.

I’ve discovered that by using the Zookoda email newsletter subscription program I’ll be able to manage my subscribers easily, as well as schedule regular broadcasts by day, week or month.

What I like about Zookoda is that I’ll also be able to customize my newsletter so that it will match my blog design, as well as create a customized newsletter subscription form. Mobile users can get their newsletters in text form which will keep the cost for those receiving mobile text messages down.

I have registered for an account with Zookoda and I’ll be setting up a subscription form for the new Tricia’s Musings Newsletter on this site. I’ll update this post when I’ve set up the newsletter so that interested visitors can sign up. Don’t worry. I don’t think that I’ll send out a daily newsletter, but one every two weeks or once a month with summaries of the best posts that I’ve made during that time period may serve as a nice reminder for people to come back and visit.

I think this is a great way of promoting your site, and getting those who only visit every once in a while to return more often.

Sites that provide content, but aren’t in blog format can also use this as a way of keeping in touch with their site visitors too. I might even set this up for my two websites. Oh dear, I’ll soon have 10 newsletters to maintain!

I hope that my favorite bloggers decide to set up their own newsletter through Zookoda too. I’ll sign up. I will. I promise.

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