Gaga For Lulu

The very wonderful big guy let me sleep in this morning. Thank goodness. I worked last evening so I got home around midnight- which was actually around 11PM- but I have not been sleeping lately due to some new medication I am taking.

As I told you in my previous post- they diagnosed me with MS over the summer- so this week my neurologist started me on an anticonvulscent… Topamax. While some of you may take this with no issues for migraines or mood disorders, remember that I already live with numbness, foggy head, word dropping and extreme dizziness. Sooo…. these new side effects are not a welcome addition to my life. I also worked all evenings this week so I did not sleep that well. What the hell was my point? Oh yeah…I slept in and I came down the basement to the fam playing Rock Band.

By the way my girls totally have my voice (remind me to apologize for that later).  After watching them play for about an hour, I requested that we go outside and play as I am going back to work this evening and you know darn well they will be back down here in the dungeon playing games.

What did I get for my wonderful request of “lets go outside and play and take a walk and have some fun”?

“Mommmmmmmmmmmmmm, nooooooooooooooooooo, we are playing with daddy and having fun. You’re soooooo boring! ”

Well thanks is what I have to say.  Why do I even try sometimes. My kids play soccer, basketball and indoor swim team currently so it is not like they are not active. I just get all paranoid that one day of video games will be the end all. I guess I should just relax. Maybe it is my mood, maybe it is my medication, maybe it is just me….

For the record, I let it go and walked back up the steps to take my own walk in the leaves.

So, I am going to do something that I have never done before. I am going to mix business with pleasure. You all know I write for b5media on 2 sites, Diabetes Notes and A Hearty Life, and serve as the Science and Health Channel editor, so I am going to share with you an interesting newsletter that Darren Rowse sent us this AM as our Tuesday Training. He wrote about SEO techniques and tips, as well as the importance of knowing what and who your readers are. You have to know what traffic comes to your site if you want to increase the hits, pageviews, exposure, readers and ultimately $$$ of your blog.

Now, I know that a lot of you are not out there to make a buck, but it is very interesting reading, even if you just pass it along to someone that could use the ideas. I have no ads on my Gaga site and make no money off of it, but I do need to know the basics of SEO on a professional level for my other blogs and job duties. Tell me what you think? Do you have any SEO secrets that you want to share?

Below are the highlights that I thought were worth mentioning…

Ideally Speaking - The best inbound links have three main qualities to them:

1. they are from higher ranked sites than your own

2. they are relevant to the topic you are writing about

3. they link to you using relevant keywords to your page

 

This will do two things for you:

• it’ll help your search engine ranking over time
• it’ll help you bring direct traffic from the other sites that link to you

Guest Post on Someone’s Blog

One great way to get incoming links is to get yourself a guest posting job on someone else’s blog. Keep an eye out for when bloggers in your niche are going to take a vacation and when they do offer to write some posts for them. The general rule when you guest post is that you get a little link in your byline.

 

via Tuesday’s training with Darren, b5media

I took a little quiz , thanks to Hsien, for shits and giggles…. It was pretty dead on. Give it a go and let me know your results.

You are very perceptive and smart. You are clear and to the point and have a great sense of humor. You are always learning and searching for understanding.

Find out your color at QuizMeme.com!

Let me break it down for you, 4:23 AM, in our little corner of the world…

“What in the shit is that noise?”

“That would be your f’in’ bird sanctuary!”

“Huh, oh for the love of…”

“Um huh, sanctuary at Devonshire (our street name)”

“Why the hell are the birds up at this hour, damn, do they all live outside our house?”

“Yeah, you dimwit, you and your 800 freakin’ bird feeders, who do you think you are?”

Hahahahahahaha, heeheeheeheeheeheeheeheehee, yeah, I am the culprit. We made 20, or so, bird feeders on Saturday afternoon. You know, the pine cone, peanut butter and bird seed ones. By the way, they are messy as shit to make, but The Tribe loved the project. We also put a feeder up in the big ol’ tree in our front yard. It has actually been pretty cool to watch the birds eat, we have seen some pretty ones, but I forgot that they wake early. Sorry Big Guy, and neighbors! LOL.

As I mentioned in my last post I have decided to make some more changes in my life. You all know that I work part time, just 12 hours a week, as a nurse, babysit my nephews 2 or 3 days a week, part time professionally blog for b5media on Diabetes Notes, and of course write my little heart out at Gaga, but I have decided to take on another blog.

I am going to be writing for A Hearty Life, part of b5media. I am very excited. I have been a cardiac nurse for the last 8 years, so I have a passion for cardiac research, resources and everyday findings. Now I get to write about it, yee ha!!! I know, what a dork, right? Oh well, if he shoe fits…

And even bigger yet, I am going to be the CE, Science and Health Channel editor for b5media. So damn excited about that one!!!! Over the last 2 months I have come to know my CE, Hsien-Hsien Lei, a PhD none the less, and she is such a cool person. She has that personality that is go out and get er’ done, take no prisoners, I know what I want, self assured and has the shit to back it up. Ahh, a perfect match for me, LOL!

But seriously, she has done such a great job over the past year and a half at b5media, but it is time for her to get back to her passion, science and genetics. She will be writing at Eye on DNA and hasn’t made any definites on what is to follow. One thing is for sure, she will be missed and I have some pretty big damn shoes to fill. Gidde’ up, I am ready to ride!

So there you have it. I am nervous, anxious and overly excited about what lies ahead. Channel me some of your get it goin’ on girl energies.

And in the words of Veronica Corningstone, “I will have you know that I have more talent, and more intelligence in my little finger than you do in your entire body, sir. You look like a blueberry. Well, you have bad hair. I said, your…hair…looks…stupid!”

Side note: The Boss lost another tooth, isn’t she flippin’ adorable?

“I faurrrted mommy”

“Uh huh, everyone farts”

“Ohhh, mommy your breath is naaasssstty, no talk now, brush teef”

Yup, that is what I woke up to. I felt like saying, “if you don’t like my breath, then go in your own freakin’ bed and sleep, you little….”. But I love that little boogie face, so I just smiled and tickled the hell out of her.

I need a little pick me up after my day yesterday. As some of you have deduced from my ramblings, I am a diabetic. Diet and exercise controlled, but none the less, I have to check my sugars daily and keep myself in check. Well, after lunchtime yesterday, I did not feel well and thought I was going to pass out. I mean, I felt like shit!

I checked my sugar, 540. Holy fuddruckers. I have never ever been high like that before. I always keep myself in the 80’s, with an occasional high of 130. But 540, oh it was scary! It took 5 hours for it to come below 300 and The Big Guy had to come home early due to my “fuzzy” head. I have a Dr’s appointment tomorrow AM. Sucks though, I couldn’t go to work today, I need to keep a close check on the blood sugar thing and can’t think when I get high like that. Thinking would be essential in that whole nursing thing. LOL!

So yeah, I am scared to eat anything. I did have a low carb, low sugar yogurt, all 80 calories of it and 2 carbs, and my sugar soared to 240. Well damn. Who the hell knows. I am educated in diabetes, teach my patients all the time and even write for a diabetic site, but I feel clueless.

It is so flippin’ scary when it is happening to you, you know? All I have to say is thank god I am medicated with the ol’ anxiety stuff, or I would be broken out in hives right now.

And The Babe and M3 are giving me a run for my money today. Oh, how I miss poopy paradise at times. And on top of everything my bleep bleepin’ bleep fingertips are so damn bruised from checking my sugar a thousand times over the last day. Ugh!

Alrighty people, we have a flippin’ winner. Now let me start by saying we appreciate all the support that has been given to us in regards to the Babblz site. It really is a cool social site. Hopefully soon it will be a full fledge freakin’ community. Yee ha!!!

The Big Guy used random.org to generate a winner. Congrats to Allison from Caffeinated Ramblings! Allison, please send us an email through my contact form here, including your address and your choice of Passion Fruit, Cherry Blossom, or Japanese Cherry Blossom scents. We will send it out to you ASAP. Yipee!

If you didn’t win, don’t go bitching and throwing around those 4 letter words. We will be holding another contest after the next 75 signups. Damn skippy, we are also looking into offering more prizes during the next go-round!

A little side note. The Big Guy and I are soooo excited. The Babblz site is doing well. We are going to sit down and create a marketing plan in the next day or so. We really want this to work, and can seeing it doing so. It is cool because Mom and Dad bloggers will have a community that can pull from all different places and link them together.

We will have the first prize basket drawing on Thursday, based on the numbers we have now. Plans of other prizes are under way as well. We are always open to ideas, or advice. So if you have anything at all, send it our way.

Appreciate everyone’s support. Keep the ol’ articles comin’!!!! (Scroll down for some more random thoughts and crazy ass blabberings!)

Alright ya’ all. We are a little over a 1/3 of the way to our goal number for the gift basket drawing at Babblz. I am excited! I’ve been fired up over the last few weeks every time I have gone to submit a post or story to Digg, or others alike, and found that I just don’t fit anywhere.

Yeah, somewhere for mommy and daddy, or others that write in this avenue, bloggers and readers to submit their work. After all, don’t we put time and thought into our posts as well?

I mean, in the words of Napoleon Dynamite, “goshhhh”.

Also, if anyone is interested in adding a Babblz button to any of their posts to show off how many people have voted for you, copy the code from this file: babblzbutton.txt.

Be proud of your thoughts and keep letting them flow, I have been told I have diarrhea of the mouth, but does that stop me? Hell no!!!!

Also, This is my 40 gazillionth post in the last day or so, so scroll down and check out more interesting thoughts that have flowed from my crazy ass head. LOL!

Piggybacking a little off my last post about entrepreneurship, the Big Guy and I have started a new website called Babblz.com.

What is Babblz? I would be lying if we didn’t say we are taking inspiration from Digg, Reddit and the like. I have been using Digg for my articles over at DiabetesNotes.com with some success. But when I went to submit something that I wrote for this site, I had now idea where to catorgorize it!

So we decided to start a similar site for mommy and daddy bloggers. A place where stories from across the web can be collected and shared. We decided to try a contest to get the word out and to get some feedback for the new site. So here are the details:

1. You must sign up for a new account at Babblz.com, and submit at least one story. Submitting more than one would be awesome, but will have no effect on your chance of winning.
2. You must put a link on your site to Babblz.com. It would be great if the link text said Babblz - Tell Us How You Really Feel. It be even greater if you wrote a small review about our site, or gave us feedback.
3. A prize will be awarded every 75 signups. At that time, a winner will be randomly selected. After 75 more users sign up, a new prize will be awarded to one of the 150 users, minus the previous winner. We hope to continue this until we get to 300 users.
4. If at least 75 users do not sign up, the contest will be null and void

That’s it! If you have any questions, please leave a comment here on my blog. Oh yeah, almost forgot. the prize is…

A Bath & Body Works Signature Collection™ gift basket. If you win, you will have your choice Passion Fruit, Cherry Blossom, or Japanese Cherry Blossom scents. You can see more about the prize here.

So sign up, spread the word, and start sharing you crazy stories!

Thanks to Hsien, Melissa and Steve…