social media — Page 4

Creature Hijinks

May 27, 2014 at 8:31 am by Claudia

Imagine her outrage.

I mean, the sheer temerity of that little bunny rabbit!

Look at that creature, thinking it is okay to hang out on Scout’s property.

You can see the stunned look on Scout’s face.

Okay. Now it’s time to get a closer look at this….this…this…thing.

He’s still not getting the point.

Scram!

And on and on it went, moving back and forth from one position to the next, each time more and more incredulous that this bunny did not seem to be one bit afraid of her.

Nope. The bunny just stayed in place. I would have said that the bunny froze in place, but he was chomping on food the entire time, so fear didn’t seem to be an issue.

Don and I watched this through the window of the kitchen door. Laughing.

Usually the bunnies around here freeze and, if necessary, hightail it out of there. This one has been hanging around the funky patio area for quite a while and seems completely at ease with us coming in and out of the house and not at all perturbed by Scout’s barks.

I caught him eating some of the crown vetch that has started to grow outside of the big garden bed:

Yep. That’s crown vetch hanging out of his mouth.

He’s a little slip of a thing but he’s clearly not lacking in self-confidence.

Moving on to the birdbath, it has been a hub of activity. The neighborhood pool has opened for the season. The birds even take turns in the bath; one bathing, the other perched on the rim of the barrel planter, patiently waiting its turn.

A catbird ready to take a dip.

In the pool.

And….there we go! That feels good!

I swear, I could sit in some inconspicuous place with camera in hand, and watch these beauties frolic all day long.

How can I not smile when such adorableness is happening?

I hope you all had a lovely weekend. Ours was quiet, nicely so. Some weeding, some gardening, some walking, some mowing, some reading, some television watching, some guitar playing – along with some cleaning and laundry and pizza.

Question of the day: Quite often, when I leave a comment on a Blogger blog, I receive one of the dreaded Mail Delivery Subsystem emails and it says something like, ‘Delivery to the following participant failed permanently’ followed by the blogger’s email address and then some sort of explanation, i.e., ‘failed DMARC evaluation’ or ‘messages on behalf of (fill in email provider’s name) could not be delivered due to domain owner policy restrictions’ or ‘message not accepted for policy reasons.’

Yet the comment always goes through and is published.

This doesn’t happen on WordPress or Typepad. Just Blogger. And before you ask, yes, I’m signed into my Blogger account when I leave those comments.

What the ?????

It’s extremely annoying.

Any ideas on this one? The comments always go through, so I can’t figure it out.

By the way, though I joined Instagram about two years ago, I’ve done virtually nothing with it until the last few days. I take a lot of photos with my iPhone. However, since I’m not always going to blog about those photos, it occurred to me that Instagram provides an alternative way to share them. (Others grasped this little fact long ago.)

It’s fun. It’s also quick and easy, so it’s not a time-eater.

I have a widget on my sidebar which shows the most recent photos. These were taken yesterday.

If you’re on Instagram and you want to follow me, click here.

I wonder if Instagram will work when we’re hiking up on the mountain? Hmmmm.

Happy Tuesday (though it feels like a Monday.)

On Keeping My Time on the Internet in Check: Making My Own Rules

October 15, 2013 at 10:11 am by Claudia

Social media. The very words exhaust me.

I know we are supposed to be connecting and re-connecting with people via Facebook or Pinterest or Instagram or Twitter. I’m sure there are more sites that I’m missing, which is sort of my point. I can’t keep up with them. Moreover, I don’t particularly want to.

I see them, in my moments of clarity, as huge time-sucks. And I have enough of those time-sucks in my life already. First of all, I write this blog seven days a week. Every post is an original post with my thoughts and photos. No guest posts. No using photos from other sources and linking to content elsewhere, unless it’s a quick link to something I think you might enjoy reading. For better or worse, it’s all mine. I answer comments. I do my best to visit other blogs when I get a chunk of free time. I check in on Facebook at least once a day. Facebook, by the way, is the one thing I will take some time for. It’s my way of keeping up with with former students and hearing about their lives, and that means a great deal to me. I spend much, much, much less time on the Facebook page for this blog. Sometimes I forget to check in there for several days. Since I post daily, I often feel I’m just duplicating things on MHC’s Facebook page. I started that page because it seemed to be the thing to do, but I’m far from committed to it. I try.

I force myself to go on Pinterest once every 3 or 4 weeks. I have no desire to spend hours pinning photos. I don’t care about being a “Power Pinner. ” Again: exhausting. I see its appeal. I do. But I have other things I’d rather be doing, like reading a book, taking a walk, working outside, working inside, talking to my husband or my sister or playing with my dog.

Instagram? I think I’ve done it 2 or 3 times. And that was well over a year, maybe even two years, ago. Twitter? Every once in a while. But I have to reminded to check in there. It’s not on my wave length. I did tweet John Boehner the other day to tell him to do his job and end this ridiculous shutdown. That’s as political as I’m going to get on this blog. At least for the moment.

Bloggers, especially, are told to use social media extensively. We should be tweeting our posts. We should be talking about our posts on Facebook. We should use Google+. We should do all this stuff to increase our page rankings. We should, we should, we should. I’m not sure who made up these rules, but, as you know, I’m not a big fan of rules. Yes, I do a bit of that. But only a bit.

I’ve already made peace with the fact that this blog is not a niche blog. As I’ve said on numerous occasions, if I had a niche blog I would go nuts, and not in a good way. Limiting myself to one subject matter would drive me right up the wall. Since this blog is about my life, it can’t be narrowed down to just one thing. Thank goodness. All that is to say that for niche bloggers, maybe all that social media stuff is a good thing. But for me? No. As it is, the first part of my day is about writing a post, checking in on comments, reading the news headlines from the New York Times, checking in on Facebook and reading my email. That takes a big chunk of time.

After that? I have other things to do. I already feel that I spend too much time in front of my laptop screen. The Internet is a temptress, don’t you think? I could easily spend hours here in this chair, going from link to link, site to site. Indeed, I’ve done that more that a few times. All of these ‘rules’ for blogging and/or living on the Internet only serve to suck up more of my time. So now every picture I take has to be Pinterest worthy? Every post I write has to be touted on other sites? I have to spend time tweeting things about this blog? I have to join Google+ because Google tells me I should? I have to be part of a ‘circle’ that involves even more work?

I don’t think so. I have nothing against any of these things. I’m absolutely sure they are used and loved by many; I just have to make choices that feel right for me.

I have to find some sort of balance in my online life. I need to make sure I don’t lose hours of my life staring at a computer screen. I will not let my life take place within the virtual world. I’m so aware these days of time slipping by; of years that seem to go by in an instant, of days that can be lost to the computer. Time seems to move more quickly as you get older. Days and weeks and years are more precious. I’d rather hear the sounds of the birds in our trees, watch a butterfly flit from flower to flower, read a good book, work on my real home – this cottage, and do what I love, whether it be my coaching work, crocheting a scarf, hand quilting a quilt or writing a post a day for this blog that I love so much.

So, while I’m very grateful for the Internet and all the information and entertainment it offers, not the least of which is the opportunity to write this blog, I’m constantly aware that its siren call needs to be kept in check. I need to be holding the reins. I need to do all of this my way. Not the way others tell me I should do it.

What are your thoughts on all of this, my friends? How do you spend your time on the Internet?

Happy Tuesday.

Rocks, Pajamas & a Hair Cut

March 9, 2012 at 8:51 am by Claudia

Recipe for an aching back? Picking up hundreds of rocks from my front yard. And there are thousands more, my friends. Talk about a frustrating task! Every time I think I have a little area cleared, as if by magic, more appear. And where the heck am I going to put them all? The larger ones will be used to further define the edges of my garden beds. The little ones? I have no idea!

Though today is about 20 degrees cooler, the last two days have been glorious. Temps in the 60’s, sun shining…oh spring, please come soon! I hope you’ve been having some spring-like weather in your neck of the woods. I have been extolling the virtues of spring so much that I briefly forgot that spring means no more of this:

Oh no! How can I go on? Fortunately, there will still be a few weeks (or more) of cooler temps, giving me more opportunities to wear my flannel pajamas. This is the Northeast, after all.

Thanks for all the wonderful comments on yesterday’s post. A couple of things come to mind: my friend Barbara said that she thinks women have been taught not to ‘toot our own horns’ and I think she’s right. I’ve always had a reluctance to do so and that hasn’t always served me well. I was speaking about those who seem to post only (and endlessly) about their accomplishments. It gets old, fast. But, yes, I could probably toot my own horn a little more than I do. But only a little.

The other thing I want to touch on is that I know many of you must promote your blog business and/or your Etsy shop and that the accepted method to do these things has become social media – using Twitter and Facebook to help get the word out there. That requires a juggling act of sorts, which must be time-consuming. But if you need to promote your business, you have to do it.

I know that writers hoping to get published are told to get a Facebook page because publishers and agents will automatically check to see how many fans or likes they have. That has become the way of the world in this century. The work can’t speak for itself? It all seems so exhausting.

There’s much to think about.

Okay. I’m not tooting my own horn, but you asked for photos of the hair cut.

I took these with my iPhone – always tricky. It’s just a simple cut, but I had about 4 inches chopped off. I feel so much better. And because I always feel awkward having my picture taken:

See? All about me, me, me.

I look rather startled.

And a little nuts.

I am.

Have a great Friday!

claudiahillsparks

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