Tag: blog

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10 Ways to Be a Blogging Diva

Image: Ambro / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

As I chatted “boasted” about my status on Twitter the other day, and decided to update my status “sell my blog”, I thought about Diva-esque behaviour among bloggers.

Indeed I am guilty of Diva like behaviour on occasion, but I couldn’t resist the opportunity that it gave me to list my 10 favourite online Diva behaviours.

I am not telling you which ones I am guilty of, now that would be telling…..

Here is the quickest way to be a fashionable blogging Diva.

Have fun:

  1. Blogging – expect people to read your blog and comment on it, but never read or comment on anyone else’s blog  – unless they are a celebrity or a PR that can send you nice goodies.
  2. Blogging – only do product reviews and sales pitches because you are so awesome that nobody else deserves to know anything about you.
  3. Blogging – complain about free services that you don’t have to use when you don’t get high enough ratings.
  4. Blogging – complain about how few people are commenting on your blog, but you get high reader stats – they are obviously in too much awe of you to leave a comment.
  5. Blogging – pretend that you don’t blog for statistics or readers and that you only blog for yourself – a private diary is just soo old hat.
  6. Twitter – haughtily take the hump if anyone unfollows you.
  7. Twitter – commonly unfollow everyone that has a different opinion to you, and take the hump when they dare to ask why so you can get the sympathy vote with your own followers.
  8. Twitter – often complain when people ask you to follow them back.  Twitter is nearly a one way street to a good Diva.
  9. Twitter – don’t reply to everyone who @mentions or @directmessages you.  Celebrity “Divas” cherry pick replies for good effect
  10. Twitter – celebrity name drop and try to win status by pretending to have status  – it might rub off on you.

I love the Divas, it makes our circle complete.  Which Divaesque behaviours are your favourites?  What do you think?   Feel free to add ones I’ve missed below.

 

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FREE – Blogging Basics – Tips & Tricks E-Course

Get some FREE TIPS AND TRICKS advice.

You will receive your Tips and Tricks via E-mail every 5 days over the course of ten emails. Enjoy your journey along the new road you are taking.  Even if you are not a total novice, but are not sure of some of the terms that are used, you might learn something from the course.

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SIGN UP

Name:
Email:

Your email address goes in the bottom box.

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  • Feel free to share the course among your friends who are just getting started.
  • Have fun, and make sure to send me some feedback.
  • If you have any suggestions or think there should be more topics to add to the course, I’d be happy to hear them.
  • If you have any hiccups, make sure to let me know so that I can fix it.
  • This is not a commercial venture and I will not send you emails to try to sell something at a later date.
  • The course runs over 10 emails,  with one emails every 5 days.  If you would prefer the emails more frequently, let me know and I will see what I can do.
Disclaimer:  This course is for fun and to provide you with information only.  I am not in any way responsible for any actions that you take as a result of anything I have implied, said, or intimated.  Your blogging and social media is your responsibility and it is up  to you to research and be happy with however you decide to blog.
Best Regards and Happy Reading
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My Vege Bags

My little pots are growing their leaves and flowers, and I hope, that eventually we will manage to have some lovely little flowers from the pots and containers that are full of gorgeous leaves.  Whether they actually have some fruit or not remains to be seen, but hopefully they do.     I have spent hours (ok minutes) tending these lovely pots and bags to try to turn my non gardening fingers into some semblance of a growers beginnings.

Here for your enjoyment, in all the Scottish dreary weather are some shots of my growing pot collection.

I did try to hold off until the sun showed its’ smiley face again, but I suspect that might not be anytime soon.

Ok, ok, I know these are not vegetables, but some pansies and geraniums make lovely pictures.

The strawberries are nearly ripe for picking (all three of them).  There are two more, honestly, there are.

Leeks and Onions and Lettuce are really doing well.

My potatoes are growing up a storm.

And apart from the carrots on either end, I have no idea what is growing in the  middle of my trough.

My neighbour gave me the seedlings and I planted them.  She cannot remember what they were.  If you recognise the leaves, do let me know.

Thats it for now.  I’ll post more when I start to harvest my little crop.

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Competition June 2011 – £25 Gift Card for Pledd.

A new competition from Angelika of Pledd.   

Angelika invited me to have a look around her website and products to decide if I wanted to run a competition on my blog for a £25 gift card.  I like the idea of personalised baby blankets as it is such a thoughtful idea. 

 Angelika is offering a £25 gift card for the winner of the competition on my blog.  They also sell soft pillows/ toys for young children. 
 
  • The contest will run until the 30th June.   
  • I no longer have a small baby, but I could see their products being unique for new baby presents, or for special occasions.  
  • I think the little pillow in the picture at the top of my post looks rather sweet.

 To enter: 

  1. Pop on over to http://www.babyblanket.name/  and like them on Facebook if you have an account.
  2. Make sure you are following me on Twitter on @scottish_mum
  3. Like my Facebook page, or friend connect me on my blog if you haven’t done it already.
  4. Leave a comment on my blog to say what you have done, ie your twitter name etc so that we can identify you and contact you if you win.
  5. For an EXTRA entry – tweet the following:  (I entered to win a £25 gift card from Pledd. with @scottish_mum

Good luck everyone.

Scottish Mum
x

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Vlogging – My Home from Home

I don’t think I have got the hang of this properly yet.  If someone has some tips for embedding the videos, please feel free to email me, or let me know.    The videos that come up after my one has played are not mine.  Youtube put them there.  

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I88xJjZEPbU&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL

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5 Things That Make You Feel Good.

With all the juggling that we do on a daily basis, it seems to me to be a good thing to celebrate our womanhood, and what we like to do as women.   Not as employees, girlfriends, wives, mothers, daughters, or friends.   As I have been focussing on the negative aspects of my body and life recently, I wanted to move to the things about me that make me feel good.

I have seen lots of posts about what we struggle with, or things that we like to do, and I’d like to find out a bit more information about all of you. 

This is my way of doing it.     I am looking forward to visiting some of you on the blog hop.

What you cannot choose.  The Rules are Simple
We all know that blogging / facebook, & or twitter  is in our arena of what we like to do, so I am going to rule them out as one of the 5 that you can post about.  They really are not very girly.    Likewise, phones, computers, ipads are all out of the running.

 I am challenging myself to this, as I am really not a girly girly type of person, and I want to find that within myself.   It’s not all about power suits, filofaxes, ipads and designer phones.

If you want to pass this along, pick bloggers that you want to find out more about, and challenge them to write up their 5 secret passions that make them feel good.  The idea is to lift our spirits this week.  The fact that there is a linky added, just makes it all the more worthwhile in doing.

Here goes.

1 – I actually, really love my hair.  I pretend that I don’t, as its thick, tends to frizz with curl when it is humid, and can be difficult to tame.   What it can do, well, almost anything really if I really set my mind to it.  I can wave it, curl it, frizz it, or straighten it.  I choose to straighten mine nowadays as I like it that way, but in the 80’s, I used to have it like a poodle perm.  It takes colour beautifully (when I get time to go to the hairdressers), and I do tend to change my hair colour by the year.  Last year I was brunette, this year I am sort of blondish.

2 – I have no bunions, corns or callouses on my feet.  Yay me.  I hated my mother when I was growing up as she made me wear sensible shoes until I was old enough to buy shoes for myself.   She used to wear gym shoes as she couldn’t afford to buy both me and her shoes, but I didn’t know that as a child.  I so love her now for it, especially as I have internal foot problems with nerve damage, and I am grateful that the outside of my feet were never damaged by badly fitting shoes. 

3 – I love my pink epilator.  I used to spend a fortune on waxing, then I spied an epilator in Costco a couple of years ago.  It cost me £40, but has saved me hundreds of pounds on waxing.

4 – Shoes.  I have always had a shoes passion.  Unfortunately I can’t wear  most of the lovely things that are out there these days, so my passion has shifted to fitflops.   I can handle that.    It nearly broke my heart to sell the lovely Prada boots I had in my cupboard and the pair of Manolos that I had treasured, but when a couple of pairs of new fitflop boots arrived, I quickly got over my angst. 

5 –  I love make up and smellies.  You probably wouldn’t think so as I don’t go overboard with mine these days, but I do.  So many things are now free of the nasty stuff, that they are nice to try out.   I love scented oils, candles, perfumes, mascaras.   You can’t ever have too much make up choice, and a nice scented candle always makes me smile. 

I am tagging some people from twitter today, but anyone can join in, and add an old post that covers the same topic.  Lets find out a little more about each other.

 This will initially go to:

@crystaljigsaw @nettiewriter @kateab @superamazingmum @melaina25 @tara_cain @flutterbyrosa @softthistle @mummylion
@theboyandme @mrs_moog @jontybabe @jencull @mid30slife

Add your link to a new or existing post.   Grab the code, enter it into the html of your own post to see the same list as everyone else. 

get the InLinkz code


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Competition Giveaway – Crystal Deodorant Worth £5 + Ends 23 Jan 2011

Win a crystal deodorant.

Over the years, I have spent lots of money, and spent much time in looking for, and trying out new deodorants and anti-perspirants.  Last year I found a natural deodorant that worked for me.  It is a salt deodorant which has many fantastic properties, and the main one is the lack of things bad for you.   

I used to stay away from things like garlic and onions as they seemed to come out through my pores.  No matter which deodorant or anti-perspirant, I used I could not find one that kept my underarms smelling sweetly from morning to night without being self-conscious.

My expectations when I tried a salt crystal deodorant, were much the same as the approach I had taken to the many other concoctions I have tried, and fully expected it not to work. 

I have been using them for a few years now, and have found the brand that I like the best.    Lafe’s deodorant salt crystal deodorants have no additives, no parabens and are easy to use.  You just wet them, then rub it on your skin.  No chemicals, nothing nasty and it works for me.

It’s giveaway time, and I have one of these to give to a lucky reader.  It is a large deodorant stone, which is likely to last anywhere from 9 months to a year and more before it needs to be replaced.  It comes with it own dish to sit in your bathroom or in a cupboard and has a little velvet pouch in case it is needed for travelling.

I will put all the entries into a hat and draw a lucky winner on the 24th January.

These stones retail at approximately £5 – 7 with postage on top.  

TO ENTER – restricted to UK & Ireland entrants only.

  1. Leave a comment on this post to say what you have done, AND subscribe to the blog via email or rss feed to have your details entered into the hat once.
  2. For a second entry,
    Follow me on twitter if you are not already  , and tweet the sentence below.
    “I entered to win a Salt Crystal Deodorant worth £5 + with Scottish Mum.  Enter to win before 23 Jan.  http://scottishmum.com“
  3. For a third entry
    Follow me on facebook as scottishmum and post the sentence below.
    “I entered to win a Salt Crystal Deodorant worth £5 + with Scottish Mum.  Enter to win before 23 Jan.  http://scottishmum.com

Results will be posted on scottishmum blog on 24th January 2011.  Make sure you check to see if you have won.   If it is unclaimed for 24 hours, I will pull another winner out of the hat.

Each person has the potential to have their name entered three times to win.   If you are new to my blog, your first comment will need to be approved before it shows up. 

This competition comes to you from Scottish Mum and has no connection with Lafe.   By entering, you are agreeing that Scottish Mum Blog, or anyone connected with it, are not responsible in any way for the use of the product, and you use it at your own risk.

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Finding New Blogs

I am looking for some great new blogs to read. I love reading, and blogs always give me a reason to connect to other people and escape in the same way that a good novel takes me out of my life and into pleasant escapism.

I’m not an avid, daily blogger, but at times I may actually blog more than others. I don’t covet huge statistics from readers either, but it would be nice to have some readers for my rantings. Strangely enough, some people seem to find my blog on google using words that I would never connect to anything I have written.

I sometimes find it difficult to find blogs that I might be interested in. It is easy if someone has already visited my blog for me to return the favour.

Let me know on scottishmum@gmail.com if you would like me to read your blog, or leave a comment for me so that I know where to find you.

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Nothing Happens at School

Image: luigi diamanti / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The events of the school day always amuse me.  In an average school day, nothing much seems to happen.  I know this for certain, because my children tell me so, each and every day that they come home from school.   You know how it goes.

Mum “Did anything nice happen at school today.”
Child “Nothing much.”

Mum ” Did you have gym, or language.
Child “I told you mum, nothing happened.”

Mum “So you went to school, you didn’t do any work, you didn’t see any friends, you didn’t eat any lunch, and you haven’t got any homework.”
Child “Haven’t I just told you that.”

This is one of the universal truths that I seem to come across with boys, and not just my boys.  I have heard of a few boys who do actually go home and tell their parents how the day goes, but in general, most of us parents of boys seem to get the same answer.  Girls on the other hand, seem to me, to tell their mothers what happens day to day and piece by piece. 

That got me to thinking back to whether I was like that as a child.   I made myself a coffee and sat down to relax.
 
“Did I always tell my mother nothing happened at school.” I asked myself.  “No” I convince myself, as my mother and I were ‘friends’.   And there we are.  I am as smug as a bug in a rug that I was right about the boy/girl divide in school nothingness.

Grandma was here at the end of the school day today, and as I brought the boys through the door, she puts on a great big smile.

“What happened at school today boys, come and tell me all about it.”  I hear this and think that there will be no reply to it.   I wait for a few seconds and I am not disappointed. 

“Nothing, nothing much, that’s boring,”  come the replies.

 This is repeated a few times and grandma throws her hands up in the air and exclaims.  ” They’re just like you were at that age, they never tell anyone anything.”  And with that, off she flounces to the kitchen to put the kettle on in exasperation.

My first thought was “wow, no wonder no-one tells her anything,” then I remember how I act when my boys walk in the door, and I realise that I do exactly the same when I get exactly the same answer. 

Like mother like daughter.  Who?  Me?  No.