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Books & Threaded Comments

January 15, 2012 at 9:30 am by Claudia

It’s Sunday morning. I’ve been awake since 6 am. A mite too early for my taste.

:: My current stack of reading matter:

The Prime Suspect mysteries – these were the inspiration for the British television series starring Helen Mirren and the current series starring Maria Bello (both of which are excellent, I might add.) I’m reviewing these in March and April.

A Novel Bookstore by Laurence Cossé – A wonderful read by a French author that has been translated into English. My friend who owns a bookstore in Spring Green, Wisconsin recommended it to me last summer. I’m just now getting to it and I really love it.

Starting an Etsy Business for Dummies – If I can, I will always consult a book for ‘how-to’ knowledge. I need to see all the information on the page. And I like being able to go back to the reference book again and again.

Country Gardens magazine – Because when I am in the midst of Winter, I desperately need to see green things growing.

:: Someone recently asked me about compiling blog posts in book form. I’m sorry but I can’t remember who it was! There are several programs available. The one I use is Blurb. It’s very simple. All you have to do is download the software – then you can have fun editing and designing your book. I have another one ready to print, but I’ve been lazy about pushing the publish button. I like the idea of having a book for each year of my blog. My 4 year blogiversary is around the corner, so that means I’m about 2 books behind!

:: I’m going to try something out. My friend at Olive Out recently wrote a post about how to add threaded comments to a post. That means that the blogger has the ability to respond directly to a question or a comment within the comments section. I get a lot of questions and, as you know, there are still many bloggers out there who have a “No Reply-Comment” address which makes it impossible to respond via email.

I’m a little hesitant because I know that I rarely go back to a post I’ve commented on to see if there is an answer to my question. This means there will no longer be a pop-up window when you comment, which I’ve always liked. But, let’s experiment! I’m willing to give it a go – who knows? It may be the perfect way to respond to your questions.

Let the thread begin!

It’s absolutely frigid here. Is it cold in your neck of the woods?

Update: I did some googling and it looks like bloggers who use IE are having problems commenting on posts with embedded comments. I don’t want anyone left out, so I’ve reverted back to my pop-up window until the issue gets fixed. So…I’ll definitely do this in the future, but let’s hold off until everyone can comment.

A Little Bit of Random on Thursday

December 29, 2011 at 10:40 am by Claudia

Some thoughts on a cold day in December:

:: I’m seeing “Best of 2011” posts all over blogland. The very thought of going back through all my posts and figuring that out exhausts me. If you’d like to visit my archives, have at it. I won’t be doing a “Best of” post. (I can barely remember why I just got up to go to the kitchen.)

Don gave me this hat for Christmas. I love it.

:: This one has always bugged me. When I see a bumper sticker or anything else that says, “I (heart shape) something,” I read that as “I love.” Isn’t that what it’s supposed to mean? When we were young and we wrote our initials and made a heart and then added the initials of whoever was our latest crush, we were saying, “Claudia loves so-and-so.” Not “Claudia hearts so-and-so.” But everywhere I turn, someone is writing the word ‘heart’ instead of what the heart symbolizes – love.

It makes me nuts.You can love, but you can’t heart. Heart is not a verb, it’s a noun.

:: I’ve been itching to write this for a long time. I understand that correct spelling doesn’t come easily to everyone, but in this high-tech age we all have spell check or a dictionary as part of our computers. I see this particular error everywhere in blogland and on Craig’s List. Please, please, please: it’s Dining room, not Dinning Room. A dinning room (if there was such a word) would be a room where a lot of noise is made.

:: What’s with news programs fudging the facts? I see this every so often on CNN and I know it happens elsewhere. The talking head makes a sweeping statement that simply isn’t true. It may be partly true, but a quick bit of research will prove that it isn’t entirely true. Or it might be out-and-out wrong. Here’s an example: Last night we were watching the local evening news, which in our part of the country comes out of New York City. That’s a big market with well paid anchors. The anchor was talking about Chris Christie, the Governor of New Jersey, who is apparently stumping for Mitt Romney. He made a reference to Christies’s ‘having withdrawn from the Presidential race.’ He never was in the race. There was a lot of press speculation about Christie’s presidential aspirations several months back and a lot of air time was taken up with all that, but he never entered the race. Considering a run is not the same as running. You can’t withdraw from something you never entered. Word choices matter. Shouldn’t a newsperson know more about political facts than me?

Am I being too picky? I don’t think so. News organizations have a responsibility to report the facts. Even a little fuzzy reporting is too much. Walter Cronkite must be rolling over in his grave over what passes as reporting nowadays.

Okay, enough complaining.

I have a project in mind for this. I need to think it through and buy a few components. I’m not sure which way I will go with it….stay tuned.

Color Serendipity

November 2, 2011 at 5:00 am by Claudia

I’ve noticed a certain color combination appearing in my home, specifically in the kitchen.

This combination of red and aqua/robins egg blue/turquoise/sea glass – whatever you want to call it.

I didn’t plan it this way. As most often happens in my decorating life, these things just evolve over time. When we moved into the cottage 6 years ago, though I’m not especially enamored of window coverings, I ordered these roman shades. The kitchen has so many windows and Don was going to be away working and I didn’t feel entirely comfortable being on display as I cooked and washed dishes in the evening.

The red came long before the blue.

Then I started to fall in love with blue. But not dark blue. No, I fell for all of the various manifestations of aqua in my McCoy Pottery collection. Those particular blues made me very happy, indeed. Soon, the chalkboard was painted in that color.

Then I painted the hanger for the jumping jacks in a slightly different shade of blue.

And one day, not so long ago, I realized that I had combined it with red. It’s there in the jumping jacks. And the bench. And a pillow.

It’s there in the red chair in the living room that we’ve had for years.

Funny how these things happen.

Then I looked at my blog yesterday.

And there it is again!

Now I see it everywhere. On Pinterest, on blogs – especially this one.

I am officially smitten. And it appeared in my home by happy accident. Serendipity.

Pretty neat.

Do you have a favorite color combination?

Remember tomorrow is Reality Shot Thursday. And once again, I find myself scheduled for 2 posts as I’m also doing a book review. Double the pleasure!

Books & Threaded Comments

A Little Bit of Random on Thursday

Color Serendipity

Lambs Like to Party

A Note

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