I joined NaBloPoMo on a whim. It has been fun working out my blogging muscle. I do think that I will blog more often than I did before NaBloPoMo. I also got inspired this month, by our redesign of the site. Thanks Daniel for fixing our blog!

Some posts have been good and some bad, but you guys have stuck with me through it all. It has been interesting to see what posts people like and those that couldn’t give a flying flip. Everyone wanted to know which European city they belonged in. I even had people come up to me that didn’t comment and tell me, “I belong in Dublin!”

So here’s to you faithful readers. Thanks for sticking with me. Here’s to the end of NaBloPoMo and to the continued whimsical, randomness of this blog.

Cheers!

Earlier in the night I was having trouble writing it and he said, “Just flow with it.” So I was flowing and writing. It was great. Then *poof* its gone.

He said he was sorry. I do forgive him. Venting to my blog has made me feel better.

I love you, honey. I forgive you.

Here is a picture of the little shoes I bought Annabelle yesterday. I think that they are super adorable. She looked really cute in them today with her dark wash jeans and little pink top.

Oh and I felt a little sharp tooth in her bottom gums today! Soon, she will have her first tooth!

I would love to open up a Dessert Bar. I would sell all kinds of desserts, coffee, and wine. You could order at the counter and then stay as long as you would like. It sounds so good. It would be a little like Candlelight Coffeehouse here in town, but with more dessert options and no food options. When Metropolitan was open in the Quarry, they were a little like this. A Dessert Bar sounds so great. An after dinner hang out place.

Daniel said that he would open up an American food restaurant with steaks and wings. A real manly man place. Maybe some large screens. He would also like it to be a place where you can sit around and have great conversations with your friends. Like an American pub.

What kind of restaurant would you open?

We listen to it through our itunes radio. If you go to their website you can use their Windows Media Player link if you are using Windows.

The just played 4 Non Blondes! How awesome it that? I so need to karaoke ‘What’s up’.
Here is a list of what they just played. Good stuff.

06:43:44		4 Non Blondes What’s up Plus d’infos sur ce titre
06:40:43		Degrees Of Motion Shine on Plus d’infos sur ce titre
06:36:42		Lifehouse Unknown Plus d’infos sur ce titre
06:32:41		Train Drops of jupiter Plus d’infos sur ce titre
06:28:40		Rooney When did your heart go missing Plus d’infos sur ce titre
05:58:29		Cascada Everytime we touch Plus d’infos sur ce titre
05:56:29		Blur Song 2 Plus d’infos sur ce titre
05:52:27		3 Doors Down When I’m Gone Plus d’infos sur ce titre
05:48:26		Ghinzu Do you read me Plus d’infos sur ce titre
05:44:25		Fiction Plane Two sisters Plus d’infos sur ce titre
05:35:22		Rage Against The Machine Killing In The Name Plus d’infos sur ce titre
05:30:20		Sunrise Avenue Fairytale gone bad Plus d’infos sur ce titre
05:27:19		Kelly Clarkson Breakaway Plus d’infos sur ce titre

You may have noticed the little RSS icon on many websites with a statement that usually says, “Subscribe to My Feed.” The icon is also in the address window at the top of your web browser. The icon is typically orange with two white curved lines.

So what the heck is RSS?

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication or “news feed.” RSS is the format that syndicates content from blogs, news headlines, and podcasts into a subscription. Then a feed reader will read the subscription and show you the content of the website’s articles.

An RSS blog format contains the text and pictures of a blog post. Then the feed reader will show you all the blog posts of all the websites you have subscribed to in one window.

Back in the day, you would have to Bookmark a page in your web browser and then manually click on each individual site. Now with a feed reader you can view all your favorite websites in one window. Saving you time and making it easier for you to keep up with your favorite blogs!

Here is a picture of what my feed reader looks like. (This is the list view.)

Here is a picture of what a blog post looks like in the feed reader.

Here is a picture of what that same blog post looks like on its own website.

How Do I Use RSS?

Step 1. Get a feed reader. There are many feed reader options. If you already have a Gmail account, you can easily use GoogleReader. Other popular feed readers are Bloglines, Rojo, and Newsgator. You can also add RSS to your MyYahoo! Page, but it only gives you the titles of the blog posts. The titles of the blog posts then link you to the actual site.

Step 2. Go to the website you want to subscribe to and click on their RSS icon.

Step 3. A window will open and ask you which feed reader you are using. Choose the feed reader that you have an account with.

Step 4. Set up any necessary preferences. GoogleReader asks you if you want to view it on your Google Homepage or Google Reader. Bloglines opens up some display options.

Step 5. Enjoy viewing the content of multiple blogs all at once!

Is RSS really that great?

I really like my GoogleReader. I could spend hours reading all the content in my reader. GoogleReader posts the time that the blog post was created, so I can know the second that my friends update their sites. It is really great to have all the posts on my favorite websites in one place. Sometimes I will miss a post when I actually view the site, but I will catch it in my reader.

A feed reader is great for friends who don’t blog often. Instead of going to a website multiple times only to be disappointed that they haven’t blogged in three weeks. You can subscribe to their feed and be pleasantly surprised when one of their posts pop up in your list.

The bad part of using RSS and a feed reader is that you can’t view the comments or write a comment on a post. You have to click through to the post on the website and then comment. For this reason, I still personally visit all my personal friends’ sites, because I enjoy commenting.

If a website has the option you can subscribe to the comments through RSS, but you still can’t write a comment. Also, I have found that popular sites will have many comments that pile up in your reader.

One problem that I have had using my feed reader is that I will subscribe to a blog that I think looks cool, but then I don’t keep up reading the posts and I loose interest quickly.

Another down side to using a feed reader, is that you can’t see a site’s design. You can’t view the fun treasures in the sidebars of your favorite websites. How else will I know what books my friends are reading or who else is in their blogroll? The flip side is that there are no pesky advertisements in the feed reader.

I enjoy using my feed reader to keep up with websites that are informative and where I don’t comment much, but I will still personally visit my favorite friends’ blogs.

Extra Credit:

If a site does not have an RSS option, you can plug the address (URL) of the site that you want to view in your RSS reader into feedity.com.

Further Reading on RSS:

Explaining RSS the Oprah way
RSS in Wikipedia
Easy RSS Explanation

Do you use RSS? Do you like it? Which feed reader do you use?

Here is a list of my favorite 5 Christmas movies.

1.

Home Alone. I watched this a zallion times as a kid. I like the beginning of the movie when he has the house to himself. I thought it was cool. “Keep the change you filthy animal!”

2.

White Christmas. “snow! Snow! SNOW!” The best and most entertaining classic Christmas movie. My sister and I would sing the ‘Sisters!’ song all the time. “Sisters, Sisters, There were never such devoted sisters…”

3.

Love Actually. I love the stories and how all the characters’ intertwine with each other. Each couple shows a different aspect of love.”Eight is a lot of legs, David.”

4.

You’ve Got Mail. LOVE IT. My daughter is even named Annabelle, like Annabelle Fox in the movie. It is a good, clean, romantic comedy, and it is set in New York City. “Don’t you think daisies are the friendliest flower?”

5.

Bridget Jones’ Diary. It begins and ends with Christmas. Colin Firth in a reindeer jumper. “You like me just the way I am.”
Come to think of it – this list contains two Colin Firth movies. It’s a good list.

What are your favorite Christmas movies?

P.S.

Thanks Dawn for the favorite five idea.

I am completely an Under-buyer. It was like this article was reading my mail.

“You often need to come up with a makeshift solution, such using soap because you’ve run out of shaving cream, because you don’t have what you need.”

Completely true.

Someone suggested using baby shampoo for face wash years ago and that is still what I use. Recently we ran out of hand soap in our bathroom, so I used my baby shampoo to wash my hands.

We still have not completed re-finishing Annabelle’s dresser that was given to us. So I converted a boot-shoe box into a dresser drawer. I cut up the lid to divide the box into four sections. I have since built a table of boxes to hold up the makeshift dresser. This is sad. We should just finish the dresser.

“You often consider buying an item, then decide, ‘I’ll get this some other time’ or ‘Maybe we don’t really need this.’ ”

All the time.

“You think, ‘Not buying these things shows that I’m frugal and not a consumerist sucker.’ “

Absolutely.

Which one are you?