No title.

All I have

is all I have

For all I have

I’m very glad

Sometimes my blessings are plentiful

Other times, perhaps not

One thing I know I’ll never be

is ungrateful for my lot

Our gifts are ours

and ours alone

Cherish them

Treasure them

Use them

Before they are gone.

Let’s – A Poem By S.McKeown

Let’s not lose this
Let’s not forget the dream as we awake
Let’s keep the truth in a beating heart
Let’s deafen our ears to the naysayers
Let’s remember those past whom fought to keep the ideals strong
Let’s always take defeat in our stride
Let’s remember that every rising sun is another day alive.
Let’s.

Kick Back Thursday

We all blog for several different reasons and interests. The arts, a wedding or significant life event, for business. Some of us even blog to relax, letting our creative juices flow is the perfect outlet to unwind after a busy day.

In this event Kick Back Thursday we would like to know what you do to unwind, be that from something as simple as a night in front of the box, a glass of wine with friends right through to scuba diving or thrashing it out in the squash court.

“Thursday is the new friday” is an adage being swiftly adopted by people the world over as we seek to squeeze as much time as we can out of our downtime.

So tell us, what is your choice, your perfect way to kick back on a Thursday?

Blogging 201. Day 3: Drive traffic to your archives

Today’s assignment: integrate features to draw traffic to your older content, including widgets, related posts, and a “Best of” page.

In line with todays task I have created a Best Of category, as opposed to a page, as my current theme only supports one page, so that is a work around that I figured would work just as well to showcase my best work on this blog.

Currently there are quite a few posts which stand at private status, as I feel they require a little more tweaking before they are worthy of being showcased, so to speak. Of course, as my content continues to grow I hope to continually add posts to this category.

I have enabled the Related Posts feature, which I find very exciting as it could drive some traffic to my blog which is the purpose of this task. So fingers crossed this will be an effective tool for increasing my readership.

Blogging 201 has already made me think in a lot more detail about the quality of the content that I put out on this blog PDX Magazine. It’s also enabling me to really get into the blogging everyday which, even if I don’t manage to maintain daily after Blogging 201 has finished, is no doubt going to be beneficial in assisting me to establish a good blogging schedule of at least three posts a week. (I have also established a Blogging 201 category which will be a good reference point for me when I move forward after the project is finished).

It’s wonderful to be involved with this project. It’s given me the opportunity to read some really inspiring blogs that make me wish to write, which is a fantastic feeling and I look  forward to the coming tasks!

Blogging 201. Day 2: Audit your blog

In line with the second day of the project I have taken a real long hard look at my blog, it’s appearance and my overall branding of my blog.

My main focus for the immediate future of this blog is to create an online portfolio of my various creative works but also to include some of the work I do for clients in a freelance capacity. Here I wish to successfully combine the two into a blog that my usual readership, but also potential clients, will enjoy and find easy to access.

In line with the above, I have stripped back my blogs appearance significantly. Here I want the reader to concentrate on the content, first and foremost, for isn’t that what we all read blogs for, the content that interests us?

I am now using a free theme called Syntax. It has a sober grey background with white text. All  of my widgets are at the bottom of the page and I have a nifty little button near the top which you click to access my menu which lists my different post categories. I am already liking the neatness and simplicity this theme and couple of tweaks have given to my blog.

Today I finally got around to updating my Gravatar profile, adding a photo of me and a little more information about myself, my interests and what I hope to achieve from this blog.

Let me know what you think?

S.

Blogging 201. Day one: My three goals

This year I am participating in Blogging 201. The purpose of this project is to enable bloggers to refine their blogging skills through the help of daily tasks. These will come in the format of targeted posts.

The first of these tasks is to set three achievable goals which you hope to achieve by the close date of the project which is 31 December 2014. As such, listed below are my goals which I hope to achieve with the help of Blogging 20

1. Increase my readership by 25 percent by the deadline of December 31st.
2. Be a generally more involved reader of the blogosphere by reading and commenting blogs with a similar readership and which cover similar topics and thus become more involved with the blogging community as a whole.
3. Post at least twice a week and less sporadically than I currently do. My main aim is to improve my blog and and some really worthy content.

I look forward to improving my blog and engaging with some wonderful fellow bloggers.