kids books that matter.

Now what?

01/22/11

PEDRO!!!

Plan.   Edit.  DEVELOP. Review.   Organize.

I am trying to add reviews to my website at a rapid pace. Perhaps too rapid. I just stepped back a moment to participate in a Bloggiesta Mini-Challenge and discovered that none of my recent blogs are appearing on my home page!

My book reviews are on the book review page – as they are supposed to be. But where are all the Bloggiesta updates and Values blogs I have posted tis past month? I have no idea. Is this part of my never ending cycle of frustration this weekend?

On the positive side, I was able to create a little icon all by myself. I chose something easy – A Star of  David, which I thought I might be able to use at  sometime. I used Real World Maker’s Online Icon Maker as suggested by Callista at SMS Book Reviews (@callista83). Here it is:

Rather spectacular, don’t you think? I am going to try a banner next…once I figure out where my blogs are hiding.

Happy Reading,

Kathy B.

©2011 Kathleen M. Bloomfield and forwordsbooks.com all rights reserved.
Books used in this review were provided by my local public library.
I am an Amazon Affiliate. If you click on a book title referred to on my web site and purchase it from Amazon,

I may receive a very small commission on your purchase.

You will incur no additional cost, however.

I appreciate your support.

Bloggiesta Mini-Challenge #1: Goal Setting

01/21/11

PEDRO!!

PLAN! Edit. Develop. Review. Organize.

Amy over at My Friend Amy is challenging the Bloggiesta-ers to do some goal setting before we get too far ahead of ourselves this weekend.  Normally, I have a plan – in my head – of what I am going to do. Then life interferes and I wind up in bed disappointed that nothing I had planned got done.

Today would have been exactly that, with the dead computer, the netbook tribulations and the snow shoveling. Instead, I find myself sitting at my net book, making a list of what I want to accomplish, not only this weekend, but in the future.

My plan for the weekend was to upload the many reviews I have stored away in my computer and get them onto my website.  I also want to add them and many other books to my Catalog of Books and my Amazon store. I would then like to see what types of technology I might add to the site.

My future goals include writing a blog each month about a specific Jewish value accompanied by the Jewish and Secular books that support it.  I want to write additional blogs so that I can be counted on for at least a blog each week.  I would also like to be a better citizen of the kidlitosphere.

However, probably the best pieces of advice Amy provided was the following sentence: “Write the blog you want to read.”  As I read it, she might as well have written, “Run the Boston Marathon in April,” because the blogs I want to read are written by extraordinarily gifted writers and reviewers.  To think I should, would or could attempt to join their company seems quite a stretch. However, the more I thought about it, why would anyone else want to read what I wouldn’t want to read myself? She’s a sly one, that Amy. So I am adding that to my list of goals, to write blogs that are the best writing I can deliver. Blogs that are so engaging, even I would want to read them. Now that is a high bar.

Of course, my list goes on, but I want to be realistic. No sense committing to everything in writing…what will I do next year?

Happy Reading,

Kathy B.

©2011 Kathleen M. Bloomfield and forwordsbooks.com all rights reserved.
Books used in this review were provided by my local public library.
I am an Amazon Affiliate. If you click on a book title referred to on my web site and purchase it from Amazon,

I may receive a very small commission on your purchase.

You will incur no additional cost, however.

I appreciate your support.

H

Bloggiesta at last!

01/21/11

PEDRO!!!

Plan.  Edit.   Develop.   Review.   Organize.

It is a little after 3 PM and I am just now starting my participation in the 4th Edition of Bloggiesta, a 72-hour fiesta of blogging, blog reviewing, website analyzing and blog updating unlike anything I have encountered since the last time I participated in this frenzy.

I thought I was going to get a huge head start on the event when I woke up this morning and discovered I had a “snow day”! Hooray! Unfortunately, I was greeted by a computer screen lacking any icons and after carefully turning it off and rebooting, then turning it off, unplugging it and rebooting, it appears my well over 7-year-old computer has entered the technological afterlife.

Which left me with an ASUS netbook with internet access, but no Microsoft Office programs.  OK, so I downloaded the 2-month trial of the Microsoft Office Student Edition. Problem solved.

Then I could not access my WordPress Dashboard because I could not remember my password which I had changed the last time something like this had happened. Oh for the love of…so I changed my password.

Now I am writing my initial blog because I know participating in Bloggiesta is worth every moment of frustration. As the manager said in A League of Their Own, “It’s supposed to be hard. If it wasn’t hard, everyone would do it. The hard… is what makes it great.”  That’s what perhaps everyone working away this weekend is shooting for – something great.I know I am.

But first I have to shovel some snow.  Back in a bit.

Happy Reading,

Kathy B.