I’m Beautiful Like Me.

Voters agree that Andy has busted his hump to make Commentluv thee very best WordPress plug-in. To say thank you for being Voter’s Choice, he is paying it forward to the very voter’s that gave him the win by way of a contest!

This is a contest like no other, folks. Why? Because you register at Commentluv.com, add a profile and verify your site, then visit registered sites (see all registered sites by visiting the contest page and clicking “Registered Sites” just under the post’s title) and leave relevant comments. Take note, though, that spam comments will not be tolerated and will never be eligible to win.

***You can be a winner by leaving a comment here!***

For complete contest rules, see the FAQ section at the contest page. Happy commenting!

As I don’t have enough on my plate, with working, being a full-time mama with a toddler nursling, taking on the task of trying to make some bread online with paid reviews and sponsored posts… I took on another blog! Natal Astrology is going to be a very simple blog that will cover the very basics about - you guessed it! - natal astrology. I do hope you stop by for a visit and to learn a thing or two about yourself and your fellow humans!

Kentucky Colonel-wannabe and most excellent blogger The Hawg nominated me for an award! Truth is, I’m a bit confused if I’m nominated or if I’ve won - but in either case, I’m totally flattered!

Here are the attached strings:

1. The winner can put the logo on his/her blog;
2. Link the person you received your award from;
3. Nominate at least 7 other blogs;
4. Put links of those blogs on yours; and
5. Leave a message on the blogs that you’ve nominated.

So, without further ado, some of my favorite blogs! I hope y’all go check them out, as they are my favorites for a good reason!

1. Life in Spain - an expat living in Ronda, Andalucia writes about his experience. He is also an extremely generous blogger. Besides being an Entrecard member that Does Follow, he recently gifted me a sizeable quantity of Entrecards simply because I offered to attempt some graphic work he requested help with!
2. Barry Wise Online Marketing and SEO professional - He is an exceptionally talented writer and his tips are simple and highly useful. Plus he left me a really sweet comment that inspired me to expand my horizons.
3. Bizphere - I have learned a lot and found some good sources of potential income from this really excellent blog.
4. Master of $EO - some great pointers here to help increase traffic to your blog, get Technorati authority and so on.
5. environmentastic! - I recently discovered this one, but fell hard and fast for it. Smart and easy-to-do going green tips.
6. Freebie Diva - daily (yes, daily!) posts with links to legitimate freebies to be found on the web.
7. Book -N- Boob - this blog was the first blog I ever fell in love with. I really, really heart her blog. Emily is such an amazing writer and storyteller that it downright baffles me that she isn’t paid to write. If you only check out one of the blogs on my list, (shame on you!) check out this one!

I’m ambivalent about only being able to select 7, since there are so many good blogs out there that I love! However, if the number had been much higher, I might’ve felt overwhelmed!

Now, off to share the news with some of my favorite blog authors!

One of the biggest reasons I moved over to WordPress from Blogger is that I found joining the I Follow Movement did very little good in Blogger’s format: the rel=”no follow” attribute is taken down, but comment links are led back to Blogger profiles, not to the blog. Fat lot of good that does to spread link love!

I realize that my blog is by far not one of the biggest or even all that popular - the highest number of hits I think I have ever gotten in one day is in the neighborhood of 250 unique visitors. This isn’t a niche blog by any means - I write about whatever moves me at the moment! -  which often makes it harder to get a strong readership. But the idea of giving my readers and commentators a little reward in the form of link love very strongly appealed to me. Andy Bailey’s Commentluv WordPress plug-in gave me the opportunity to do exactly that.

When I posted about my favorite WordPress plugins, Andy left me a comment about his new AjaxCommentluv plugin and I ended up being the first beta tester for it. For this, Andy gave me link credit on the AjaxCommentluv plugin page.

As if that weren’t enough, this morning I discovered that I am the very first Featured Site at Commentluv!

Those who are registered at Commentluv will be able to select from a number of their last posts (as opposed to their last post only) while leaving comments on other Commentluv enabled blogs, have access to a lot of fascinating statistics, have the ability to change your feed URL and a lot more!

If you do not have Commentluv - people, what are you waiting for! Besides spreading link love to your readers and commentators, you will “be in business” with one of the friendliest plugin coders on the web.

Thank you, Andy for all your link love. I’ve sincerely enjoyed working with you. When you need future beta testers, do not hesitate to contact me!

Also, thanks to Sire for a very lovely review!

Last month, we were Blogging the Recession. I subscribed to every blog that commented on the original post, as well as to every blog that was posted on my Plurk Blogroll. This meant my subscription list in Google Reader had nearly 200 blogs! And I kept my pledge as best as I could, clicking through to every post in an effort to help out with pennies or page views/comments.

Now that it’s September and I’ve become busy with off-line matters like knitting and football season and whatnot, I’m overwhelmed by the content in my Google Reader.

To deal with it, I’ve unsubscribed to a lot of feeds.

First off my subscription list are those that do not provide full content feeds. Teaser feeds don’t entice me - they irritate the snot out of me. I suppose I understand the motive for teaser feeds and perhaps it works to get more people onto their site and/or leaving comments, but it doesn’t work for me. I offer full-content feeds here and hope that, if so moved, my readers will click through.

Further, while I realize there is no better time than now to post about it, I’ve been put off by more than one blog author posting about the election and/or the candidates from both sides of the aisle. Perhaps I’m becoming more… erm, what’s the right word here? Uptight? Refined? Snooty? Diplomatic? Point is, I just don’t care to discuss or read about political opinions. I’m not persuaded by it and I don’t hope to persuade others to my line of thinking, either.

All that said, I still have 166 subscriptions! A score of them haven’t been updated in months. I spent some time this morning virtually cleaning up and dividing them into categories:

• 8 Artsy (think Post Secret)
• 70 Blogs (didn’t fit into any of the other categories)
• 6 Crafty
• 10 Green
• 14 Feeds (Newsfeeds, forum feeds, etc.)
• 51 Knitters (!)
• 7 Plurk

Sheese!

Update: Having just went through my Google Reader for purposes of catching up, I have unsubscribed to 2 more blogs.

I also wanted to add a point about how lame I find commenting on blogs that use both Captcha and comment moderation. Seems these blogs are also the ones with next-to-no comments. I’m going to let you on a little secret: using both is totally unnecessary and only serves to drive away would-be commenters! I understand (really, I do!) that you don’t want to be spammed, but if you are moderating comments, you can simply reject spam and if you are using Captcha, that will catch the spam. I am boycotting leaving comments on your blog on principle, dammit, ’cause it’s just plain annoying.

So, I’m going to cheat just a little bit and post about blogs that are sorta new instead of totally new to me. as part of my BlogDay2008 post.

*If you have participated in BlogDay2008, I hope you share your posts with me in a comment, as I am always interested in great new blogs to read and subscribe to!*

1. Craftapalooza - England’s Aussie-living-in-Perth, WA’s crafty sweetheart blogs about all her crafty endeavors several times per week. She inspires me.
2. The Akamai Knitter - Hawaii feels like another country (after all, it is so far away!). Opal spins the most beautiful yarn and posts delicious pictures of her work.
3. Brian Green’s Blog - he’s practically my neighbor but he posts about quirky/funny/cool/interesting stuff he finds online.
4. BlogBloke - his blog is about blogging, improving your blog, getting traffic for your blog and all-things-blogging. I think he’s Canadian, despite his Aussie-sounding name.
5. light night rains - South Carolinian Cory Godbey’s blog wherein he shares his art. He really is quite amazing.

Don’t forget to check out my blogroll! Some really great reads there, too (obviously!).