So, here we are, another Monday morning on the blog. Hi. I am a bit scattered at the moment, so please, pause & lower your expectations of what you're about to read.
It's a big week for me. Thirty-four is looming awfully large. Today & tomorrow will be spent saying a long goodbye to my thirty-third year. Thirty-three began like this:
Last year, I ordered myself a cookie cake for my birthday. Then, over the course of a few days, I ate almost all of it myself. This year, for several reasons, I won't be bringing a huge slab of carbohydrates into the house to celebrate my advancing age. I begin this new year weighing almost twenty pounds less than I did when I turned thirty-three. That is as, perhaps more, satisfying as sucking down an entire cookie cake.
Friday, Trey & I will celebrate our fifth wedding anniversary. In a box in the bottom of our freezer is the top layer of our wedding cake. It looks something like this, only much colder:
Ah, memories.
After the wedding, the top layer of the cake was swaddled in aluminum foil & put in the freezer. When our first anniversary rolled around, I was pregnant with Reagan & had barely passed my sugar test, so we opted not to sample the frozen year-old cake. Then, we had kids, & the lovely top layer of wedding cake was forgotten, left in the dust of yesteryear with blissful nights of eight to nine hours of uninterrupted sleep. I don't know what the expiration date on frozen cake is, but I'm guessing it's somewhere between one & five years. My plan is to return to you at some point this week with, guess what?, more wedding pictures & maybe a few words about my husband of five years. But, we'll see because as I mentioned, SCATTERED.
So, none of the above was what I intended to say. I guess my thoughts this morning aren't so much scattered as they are cake-centered. My purpose in sitting to write was to blog about a few blog issues. It's not going to be the most interesting thing in the world, so it's cool if you want to check out now. There are two principle items of concern on the agenda today. First, I am going to discuss accessing the blog, though obviously if you're reading this, you've got that basically figured out. Second, I am going to reveal an idea I have for the blog that is far less exciting than the introduction I've just given it.
I mentioned last week that comments have come my way hinting at people's confusion as to when I post, & how they might be made aware of new blog content because at present, notifications are escaping them. I've given this some thought. I am not a technology expert or a Facebook employee, but I have a guess as to why my posts may evade you. Keep in mind, this is for those who access the blog by clicking on a link I post to Facebook, which I'm guessing is the main way traffic is directed to this, my little corner of cyberspace.
It's my understanding that Facebook makes decisions for you about what you see in your newsfeed. Facebook thinks it knows what you what to see. Based on your behavior on Facebook (what you 'Like,' what you comment on, what you click on), it attempts to feed you more of what you like, filtering out other posts that it doesn't think will interest you. I am friends with hundreds of folks on Facebook, & yet, I regularly see what maybe twenty people post. It drives me a little nuts because I know, I just know, there are pearls of wisdom & pictures of what people ate for dinner that I am completely missing. Facebook only thinks it knows me!
I post a link to each blog once on Facebook, & that's it. I guess in the future, I can link to it again at some point (except maybe not this post, because wow, this is dry . . . unlike a good piece of cake), but I don't want to be annoying with it, so I'm not sure about that. My thinking is that if you don't see it the first time I post it, you may not see it the second time if Facebook has determined you're not all that interested in what I post. One suggestion I have is to occasionally 'Like' or comment on a blog link I post which tells Facebook, "Hey, more of this in my newsfeed, please."
It's been suggested to me that I start a Facebook page for the blog, which would be separate from my personal page & would give people the option of 'Liking' the blog page, meaning they'd be more likely to be alerted to a new post than if they simply happen to see the link posted on my personal page. I am kind of meh about this idea at the moment. I refer you back to my earlier statement, "I am not a technology expert." We shall see. Understand that I have no employees; this is a one-woman show, so I can't tell Bob in IT to get on it.
The blog is in no way connected to Facebook. You don't have to have a Facebook account to read the blog, nor do you have to be my friend on Facebook (or in real life!) to read the blog. I point this out because I was confronted by a frustrated lady who wants to read the blog but has no interest in maintaining a Facebook account. Imagine her glee when I told her that was totally doable (imagine her bewildered face when I suggested she save the link to her favorites on her computer for easier future access). One way to subvert the Facebook alert entirely is to submit an email address in the box to your right (where it says, "Get Email Updates"), & a link to new posts will be sent to your inbox.
I'm going to be very honest & tell you that were the blog monetized (& more readers equaled more ads, which would equal more $), I'd care tremendously more about this issue, & maybe I'd have money to pay Bob in IT to set up a Facebook page for the blog. Since the blog is not monetized & is mainly a form of therapy for me, while I am glad that you're eager to read my ramblings, I think possibly posting each link to Facebook (& Twitter, I guess) a second time, maybe a day or two later or something, is about the extent of my blog outreach for the moment. I hope you don't think I am callous. I know I've bored you as those of you still reading are unlikely the target audience I'm hoping to reach with this blog access tutorial.
Moving on, item No. 2 on today's agenda is a little blog project I have fancily titled, "All the book ramblings." I'm going to set up a page on which I plan to link to all the blogs I've written about books. How exciting is that? I realize for you, not very, but this is right up my anal retentive, organizing alley. I don't know when it'll be live on the blog, but when it's polished & ready to go, there will be a tab at the top like the ones that currently read 'Home' & 'Dear Miss Moreau.'
Have I made your Monday worse with this blog dribble?
Are you craving cake now?
See y'all on the other side of thirty-four.
AZ
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