Welcome back! Coffee's always on around here. Pull up your favorite chair and a grab a cup. Enjoy your visit today! And don't forget to stop back by again soon.

It seems there’s still some confusion about the disqus commenting system. So, just be clear . . .

• You do not have to sign up with disqus to comment.
• You can use your name/email/web address to comment just like usual on WordPress blogs. Disqus calls this commenting as a “Guest.” Disqus does not “get” your information when you comment this way. I do, though – just like I do when using normal WP commenting.
• Disqus isn’t going to send you spam if you don’t sign up for the service when you comment as a guest.
• If you don’t want to get email replies when others comment on the post after you, uncheck the “Subscribe to comments on this post” box BEFORE you submit your comment (it is checked by default and I don’t know how to change that).
• You can unsubscribe from post comments in any email you receive about a new comment reply. Just click the link at the end of the email that says “Unsubscribe from comments.”

Please do not call an email you get from this blog about a follow up comment on a post SPAM. It is not spam. You simply didn’t uncheck the box to subscribe to comments when you posted your comment. That’s not my fault, dear. It’s yours. And it’s easily fixable. So just fix it if you don’t want emails about replies, okay?

Simple as that.

I hope this clears up any “problems” you have with receiving emails about replies.

Have a great weekend! I’m going to go grocery shopping so I can use my new cane and see if it makes a difference in the pain in my back. I sure hope it does because walking around the grocery store and pushing a cart is very painful. I’d like to be able to walk around the store, do my shopping, get home and put my groceries away without feeling like my back got ran over by a Mack truck.

Until then . . .

Be blessed,

Breakfast is overrated.

I hate breakfast foods. Really, I do. I’m allergic to eggs, don’t like pancakes or sausage, can’t stand oatmeal or cold cereal, don’t eat bacon. I mean, what’s left after that? Hashbrowns? Who wants to eat hashbrowns every. single. day. Not me.

Waffles are okay – I like them, but as a mom of 4 children, who has time (or energy) to make waffles before school? I sure don’t. I already get up at 6:00am insanely early (for me, anyway, being a nightowl) and I refuse to get up any earlier just to cook. LOL

Okay then, what does one eat for breakfast?

Nothing.

Yes -I know, I know – everyone says it’s imperative to eat *something* for breakfast when you’re loosing weight. And yet, I usually just can’t. Nothing is appetizing at 6:00am.

But 10:00am? My stomach is ready for food at 10. Maybe it’s because it was conditioned to eat at 10 because that was our scheduled “lunch” time all during high school. I can eat lunch at 10 am. Or, I mean, breakfast.

Then again, maybe it has to do with that nightowl thing. I mean, if you get up 9 or 9:30, then 10 is the perfect time for breakfast.

And who says you have to breakfast food for breakfast? Is that a rule somewhere? I thought food was . . . well, food. You eat it, right? Who cares then?

Fruit is good. Ham sandwiches are good. Toast with almond butter is good. And smoothies. I can do smoothies. Or granola with a little warm hemp milk.

If you’re not a breakfast person (or even if you are), what do you try to eat for breakfast? And when? Early or later, like me?

I’m curious to know how you all handle the breakfast thing.

If it were up to me, there would not even be a thing called breakfast. LOL We’d skip right to lunch about noon or so and go on from there.

So, there’s my rant for today! Please . . . share your thoughts with me in the comments.

Until later -

Be blessed,

I don’t often talk about myself – well, not truly personal things – here on this blog. Mostly because I don’t really like to dwell on things that are going on in my life. But I’m going to break that silence today.

See, what you may not know is that I’m “disabled.” I don’t like to label myself as disabled, though, because when I think of someone truly disabled, I think of my dad who not only had an artificial leg, but was missing several fingers on both hands. Yet, he never thought of himself as disabled either.

It used to bug me to no end when people would stare at my dad when we went somewhere. I used to get so livid that people could be so rude! Sometimes I even told them so! LOL (Yes, I was a feisty kid!)

I always think of someone in a wheelchair or someone who uses a walker or mobility scooter as someone who is really disabled. I think I’m doing pretty good most days when I see people using those devices!

And so, even though my doctor says I now must begin using a cane, I am not going to think of myself as disabled. So there! LOL

Last week when I was in the doctors office for my back and shoulder, she said I really should use a cane. Apparently the arthritis in my low back is really causing some degeneration in the spine that she’s concerned about. Especially since I lose feeling my leg quite easily. And when she couldn’t even get my leg to reflex when she tapped my knee with the little hammer, she decided we needed an MRI.

Hopefully the referral for the MRI for both my back and my shoulder (which she also decided was necessary) will come this week and I get those done. The doctor also thinks it’s time to get started on social security paperwork and I suspect that also will mean paperwork for a disabled parking permit.

The worst part for me is realizing that in the last 6 months, I’ve lost A LOT of motion in my legs and low back. It seems like no matter what I do, everything is getting worse. I feared that one day this would come. In fact, when I first hurt my back in 1997, the doctors told me then that it likely would occur at some point. I just wasn’t planning on it happening until I’d at least reached my 50’s or so.

Anyway, I’m not going to dwell on it – I will do what I always do – what my dad taught me to do by his example and that is to do the best I can and to take it one day at a time.

And when my cane arrives next week, I’ll post a picture of it for you! It shipped yesterday so hopefully it arrives by Wednesday or Thursday. I really hope Wednesday, though, because that’s usually when I go grocery shopping and it would make it so much easier! Even though my mom usually goes shopping with me to help push the cart and carry the bags in, I would like to be able to walk around the store without so much pain.

I also found a really cool walking stick last weekend but decided against buying as it was a little pricey. If it had been about $30, I probably would have gotten it. My mom thought it was a little high for me, though. Oh well!

I think maybe I’ll get a couple of other canes too. Maybe some fancy ones. I figure, if you’ve gotta use one, you may as well go all out, right? Be a little crazy, a little goofy. Have some fun!

Canes are the new shoes. I’ll have one for every occasion!

Be blessed,

You may remember that I’ve been having trouble with weight gain. I was convinced it was due to the prescription I’ve been on since late last spring for high blood pressure. And you may remember that on my last update about this, I finally got the doctor to agree that it was probable.

In fact, the doctor and I determined I’d gained almost 25 pounds since I began taking it! So, he changed the medication on my last visit. I’ve been on the new prescription for about 3 weeks now and I am happy to report . . .

I’ve lost 10 pounds!!! (Note: I have not changed a single thing besides the prescription!)

And it was confirmed at the doctors office this afternoon. I’m so happy about that. I feel better too, of course. Though I am a bit more tired lately. He did say that this particular med could cause some fatigue. I would much rather deal with a little fatigue than a whole lotta weight gain.

I’m also happy to report that my blood pressure was even lower today!! Even on the previous medication, it had still been slightly higher than my normal range. But today it was right in line with what it’s always been. I’m so, so happy about that!

AND . . . I’m also VERY HAPPY TO SAY that my 11 year old DOES NOT HAVE DIABETES!! Yay! He had the testing today and it all came back normal. WooHoo!

The only thing that’s not good news is that xrays on my back confirmed that I have arthritis in my lower spine. So, the doctor ordered an MRI for both my back and my shoulder.

In any case, this is shaping up to be a good month! I am just over the top that my son isn’t diabetic. My dad and sister were both diabetic and I remember all they went through. I didn’t want that for my son. I know diabetes isn’t the end of the world, but remember — he’s the one with autism. So, adding another thing to the mix . . . well, lets just say, it was a very stressful thought.

Hope your week is good one!

Until next time . . .

Be blessed,

I’ve recently gotten a little flak for using disqus and although some intelligent conversation has come out of it, I felt compelled to say exactly WHY I began using it instead of the “works perfectly well built-in WordPress comments” form.

Let me preface this by saying one thing first – I am very selective and conservative with my online information. In fact, I’m probably more cautious than most people out there and those who know me would say I’m cautious to a fault. As my childhood best friend says, “I had no need to be cautious – you’re cautious enough for the both of us! And then some!”

Now, I know not everyone will agree with me and I don’t expect to “convert” anyone with my opinions here. However, do me one little favor, please? Set aside your biases for a moment and just take my thoughts into consideration.

While the built-in comment form is pretty simple and does a good job, the biggest point for me is that the web is moving more and more into a social network and frankly, the WP comment form is sorely lacking in that department. This is not just my opinion – look around the web and you will see countless articles and posts about this very thing – that the web IS a social network. And it’s becoming more so all the time.

If you’re a business owner, this is even more true. Customers and clients want transparency. They want accessibility. They want that social aspect, to be connected. Especially if you’re a business owner with a web presence.

Why? It makes them feel safe.

That’s the bottom line right there. People feel safe when they can connect with you, even if only on a shallow level. They want to know you’re a real person. Aside from that, it helps cure that “curious” nature of us humans. That bit of us that wants to snoop and gossip. It helps make people comfortable.

Additionally, there are several more good things about using disqus:

• Any user who comments is notified via a simple email message when someone replies to their comment. This allows continued discussion and you don’t have to subscribe to the thread or to the comments RSS (**IF** there even is one. Many blogs don’t have that feature). You get a message right in your inbox (unless, of course, you turn that feature off in your settings on the disqus.com control panel).
• You can reply to that comment right from your disqus control panel without the need to go back to that website. Also, if I remember correctly, a new feature allows you to email in a reply. You just hit “reply” to the new comment message you got, type what you want and hit send. So simple and FAST.
• Users can edit their comments any time. Just go to your disqus control panel, select the comment you want to edit and do so! It’ll be updated on whatever blog it’s attached to, pretty much in real time. This is a feature that isn’t generally available on most blogs. And those that do allow it, it’s only in effect for usually less than 5 minutes after you originally post your comment. After that, you’re out of luck.
• Users can also delete their own comments from ANY disqus-enabled blog they’ve commented on. Again, just go to your control panel, select the comment you want to delete and hit the shiny little button! Again, this is a feature that’s not even available on most blog platforms including WP.
• It allows comment nesting (replies to other comments) on a variety of levels that just are not available in the normal WP options. And it’s all customizable as to how deep you want the thread to go.
• Blog owners can also customize a variety of other options including paged comments. Meaning, instead of a huge long page of comments at the end of the post, you can break all those comments up into pages for easier reading. (Yes, I realize WP offers this in newer versions as well.)
• Admin can import all comments from every post on the blog so that each one is still available through disqus. No comments are lost when adding disqus and they are also saved so that should disqus ever be uninstalled, every comment is right there and available just like normal.
• Also on the admin side, using disqus gives a little added security as comments on the blog are stored not only in the blogs WP database, but also on the disqus database. That way, should something ever happen, you have a back up. And if you have a backup plugin installed on WP already, you have a back up of your back up. LOL Plus, if disqus goes down (which does happen every once in a great while), it automatically reverts back to the standard WP commenting which will then sync with disqus once it’s back online.
• Users also don’t have to sign up for disqus or your blog to post comments. You can use your login credentials from another service like Yahoo, Twitter, OpenID, and others.
• Likewise, if you’re logged into disqus, you’re automatically logged in on ANY website that is using the disqus commenting management. That means, if you want to leave a comment, all you need do is type it in and tell it to post. Your info is already filled in for you. Very cool!
• Disqus has a user “like” system wherein if someone posts a really great comment, you can “like” it – very similar to how Facebook’s “like” feature works. This is a very fun idea! It promotes that social aspect.
• Blog owners can manage comments both in their WP admin panel as always as well as through their disqus admin panel. This way, you can manage comments across more than ONE blog at a time. Very, very usual for those of us who have multiple blogs. One of the best features, in my opinion and one of the deciding factors in my decision to install it.
• Your disqus admin panel is separated into 2 sections – comments on blogs you own or moderate, and comments on other blogs. Each section has it’s own features and options. Very easy to use.
• Another feature users seem to appreciate is the “reblog” feature. It’s very similar to Twitter’s “retweet” feature. You can reblog your comments to your tumblr, your WP blog, your twitter stream, your TypePad blog and several others. This allows further discussion on other platforms of your choosing as well as the original blog. It’s another piece of that “social” aspect I was talking about earlier.
• Blog owners can also add “moderators” to their blog without actually giving anyone else access to their blogs back end and thus jeopardizing security. It works very similar to the moderation feature on services like yahoo groups and many forums. If you have a blog with lots of commenters, this is a very useful feature. Especially if you’re really trying to build a community. It makes it more “forum” like.
• When someone talks about your blog post on Twitter, Facebook or another social platform, a trackback is added to the post, just like a comment. Another great social feature! It allows you to keep track of who says what about your blog and open ups whole new avenues of communication.

And the last thing I’m going to say about the benefits of using disqus as a comment system is that it eliminates the need to have several other plugins installed since it effectively does a multitude of other things besides just “comment” things. (Like the back up I mentioned above.)

This is a great thing because the more plugins your blog has, the more loaded and bogged down it becomes. It takes longer to load as plugins take up valuable space in the database. The larger the core WP files and databases become, the more likely something is to break or malfunction. The less plugins you have, the faster your blog loads and the less likely things are to break.

That alone is worth it for me. I eliminated a good 5-6 plugins when I installed disqus and there are even a couple more I could disable and remove as well. That’s a very good thing!

I also like that I have almost no spam now. I use a plugin called Bad Behavior and while it catches 99% of spam, there are a few that do come through regularly. Since installing disqus alongside it, I have only had 2 spam comments TOTAL. I like that a lot. (And I should also mention I have not gotten spam related to using the disqus system. Since I use a different email for disqus than for other things, I know the spam I do get comes from other sources.)

In any case, I do understand the reservations some people have with giving their info to a third-party. I have researched this until I’m blue in the face, it seems, and I have not found anything significant enough to raise flags in my mind. As far as I can tell from that research, my info is safe with disqus and so is the info of those who comment here.

Frankly, I think my info is probably safer with them than on Facebook or Twitter and if you’re using either or both of those, what’s the big deal? Your info is already out there in less secure fashion than it will be with disqus, espcially with Facebook’s recent policy changes.

And further, if you’re THAT paranoid, perhaps you shouldn’t be on the world wide web to begin with. (I mean that with the utmost respect and love. It’s absolutely meant to just engage your thinking a bit and is in no way meant to be mean or harsh.) I think it’s probably more likely that you’ll get a virus or have your computer (or blog, even, maybe) hacked than to have serious issues with a commenting system like this.

In any case, I hope this gives you some food for thought. I hope you seriously consider the good points here and realize that sometimes a little risk is worth it.

Listen – having a blog isn’t really about you anyway, right? Isn’t the whole premise of blogging all about your visitors? To connect with others, gain new insights, have fun? Learn, share, grow? That’s what it is for me, anyway and I’m willing to bet it is for most of you too. That means, sometimes we have to put aside our reservations and do what is best for the community.

Like I said before, if you don’t want to comment but have something to say, by all means, contact me. That’s what the contact form is for. You’ll find a link up there in the navigation bar under the header of any page on this website. I want to hear from you and though I would really love it if you would leave a comment, I won’t be upset if you don’t.

Now, in all fairness, I do have to point out ONE minor gripe and flaw with disqus – it does not yet support CommentLuv. I have emailed disqus about it and their response was that the folks at CommentLuv are working on it. I do hope it’s soon because I seriously miss that and it is, in fact, THE reason I uninstalled disqus last time I tried using it in mid-2009 (and yes, I do know that IntenseDebate works with CommentLuv. I could include why I didn’t choose ID, but I will spare you those details right now This darn post already long enough!).

So, thanks for sticking with me. I hope I’ve given you some things to think about it. And if you want to read more about what others have to say on disqus, I found these immensely helpful in my research for this post:

Fred Wilson, a Venture Capitalist who has actually invested in disqus as a company – “Three Reasons to Use Disqus”

Michael Soriano of Web Designers Edge – “Using the Disqus Comment System”

David Risley, a professional blogger – “Disqus Not So Stupid Anymore”

Matt Langford, blogger at Matt Flies – “Why and How to Use Disqus with WordPress“

Check ‘em out!

One more thing – I promise! Disqus also works with many different platforms – not just WP – including tumblr, posterous, and TypePad among others.

Be blessed,

If you view websites and blogs on a mobile device like your phone, ipod, blackberry or whatever, you may know that sometimes it’s rather difficult to view your favorite places on your device. I know how frustrating it can be myself as I often view my favorites on my iPod when I’m away from my computer.

So, to that end, I have recently added an option on this site that will automatically detect where you’re browsing from, and will then display a mobile-friendly version of this site if you’re in fact on a mobile device!

You also have the option of switching to the regular version from your mobile if you wish AND you can even check out the mobile version on your regular computer – just select that option at the very bottom of the page. (Scroll all the way down and take a look if you’re viewing this on the web. It’s at the very bottom on the left side. Then click it again to switch back when you’re ready.)

Pretty cool!

If you have a website you want to add this option to, simply install the WordPress Mobile Pack and, if you want, a mobile-ready theme (like Carrington Mobile). Or simply use one of the one of the basic themes that come with the plugin.

The other cool thing about the plugin is – if you install it on your blog and YOU have a mobile device, it even makes the admin area a mobile version for you! How cool is that? You can moderate comments, publish new posts, adjust your settings and much more.

With mobile devices getting better and more common all the time – especially with Apple’s newest gadget, the iPad – it really is important to offer these options to your visitors and potential visitors who might find your site via a search or something. Just think about how many people can’t read your blog otherwise. Installing something like this is a smart move. And of course, you can always uninstall it if you end up not liking it.

So far, I like the plugin and I think it’s worth it to use it. You never know when someone is reading your blog via a small screen. And really, isn’t that what blogging is all about – your readers?

Do you use the WP Mobile Pack or something similar? Tell us why or why not in the comments.

Be blessed,

With the close of January coming up very soon, I thought I’d post one more time about my Themes for 2010. Earlier this month, I wrote about my ThemeWord for the year – CREATE. And it’s my single-minded goal for 2010. What that means, is I take that one word and apply it to everything I do – “What can I CREATE with this?” With only one thing to focus on, I find clarity as well as productivity in the things I do every day.

I’ve read several blogs recently that are taking this ThemeWord thing even farther and adding in things like Theme Song, Theme Color, and a variety of other ideas. While I don’t want to take it that far myself, I do like the idea of themes. Like I already said above, it creates clarity and productivity for me plus it also gives me a sense of balance.

(And sometimes a sense of balance is sorely lacking in the world around me! LOL)

Now, having said that, I am going to add a ThemeColor to my ThemeWord for 2010. I don’t know about a song. Maybe I’ll find one that really draws me in and compliments my other theme choices but for now, no song.

So here’s my color . . .

Mind you, I do NOT like pink very well (I’m not a girly-girl!) but I do like the brightness of this color. If I thought I could effectively change my blog design to incorporate this color, I would. But I think it would end up throwing the design off quite a bit and I have yet to find a design I like better than this one. So for now, no design change either but that may come at some point as well.

Have you considered adopting any themes for this year? Why or why not? And if so, which themes have you incorporated into your life and/or business?

(Please don’t be afraid of disqus! It’s a great commenting system. Oh – and speaking of disqus, look out for my post tomorrow about exactly why I decided to implement disqus here. I hope it’s helpful to you!)

Until then . . .

Be blessed,