One of the earliest (and most fun!) ways that I learned about networking and boosting my Twitter (and consequently, my blog) following was through the use of Twitter chats. They’re exciting, fast paced and a great way to meet new bloggers without leaving links or spamming the community with content. It is important to note that there any no links allowed until the very end.

The premise of a blogging chat is simple: the person hosting the chat will ask a question and include the hashtag associated with the chat eg.

Q1. What’s your favourite social media to use for blog promotion? #BlogBashChat

Everyone participating in the chat will answer the question and include the same hashtag eg.

Q1. My favourite is Twitter because… #BlogBashChat

You can then use that hashtag to see everyone else’s answers – if you type in the hashtag in the search bar at the top…

As promised, this is the second part of my Game of Thrones location visit, this time to the spectacular San Juan de Gaztelugatxe, on the coast of Spain.

San Juan de Gatzelugatxe is actually the name of the small hermitage located on the islet, a sanctuary dedicated to Saint John and dating back to the 10th century. The name of the islet, Gatzelugatxe, comes from the Basque language and translates roughly to mean ‘craggy fort,’ very appropriate.

The islet is joined to the mainland via a manmade walkway, which twists and turns up the rugged rock face to reach the monastery. There are two ways to reach the walkway – the first is a steep narrow trail, very rough underfoot, only wide enough for two people to pass. It starts at a restaurant perched high on the cliff, with excellent views over the small bay.

As we descended the kilometre…

I stopped reblogging blog posts months ago. In fact, I wish I’d never started using the reblog button. Why? Because of the fantastic little feature WordPress call ‘Press This’. But, what is ‘Press This’, where can you find it, and how do you use it?

‘Press This’ is an alternative way to reblogging. It’s like reblogging a post, but you can do so much more with it than you can when using the reblog button. It does take a little more time to set up, but that’s because it’s more than just about pressing a button and then moving on. For quickness, reblogging a post is perfect. However, if like me you have made the most out of reblogging (click here to read the post) then you can easily make up the extra time it takes in setting up a ‘Press This’ share.

The ‘Press This’ button can be found…

Today I am grateful for endings and for new beginnings.  I am a bit subdued, feeling like an 18 wheeler got the best of me.  But thanks to Josie for her faithfulness in keeping this blogging challenge GOING!

One.   This migraine headache is finally relinquishing its hold.  I spent yesterday huddled in the darkness as my dearest widower brought me ibuprofen and Tylenol.  Yet another side effect from yet another statin drug.  Coming to an end, right?

 Two.  The necessary roofing repair, with its pounding and ladders and men of integrity, is also coming to an end.  I’ll miss the way they hung around….

Three.  We are finally tackling some overdue home repairs and cleaning.  The roof rot (above) was a serendipitous discovery after pressure washing the house.  See?  My pressure to get the pressure cleaning was a good thing!  I should remind my dearest widower.

Four.  The…

I’ve got murder on my mind. Are you responsible for any of these?

1. Do not have an ‘about me’ page on your blog
2. Your ‘about me’ page takes more than a few seconds to find
3. Your ‘about me’ page starts with these words – ‘this is an example of an about me page…’
4. The number of followers you have is more important to you than what you write
5. Poor quality posts
6. Have broken links on your blog which you have no idea are broken or can not be bothered to fix
7. Do not respond to comments
8. Do not respond to questions
9. Ignore your readers
10. Do not treat visitors to your blog as guests
11. Have no name to be called by
12. Do not read other blogs
13. Do not comment on other blogs
14. Believe that blogging is going to make you rich
15. Leave links with no relevance (usually to your own posts)…

“I am not a hoarder!  In fact, I am quite organized.”  I can see your eyebrows rising in disbelief.  Yeah, we have an uncontrolled junk room, tons of closets stuffed to the brim, and every drawer and shelf in the house is packed.  But that clutter is not hanging over my head, as of a day ago.  My dearest friend, who shared her “A-student” story, has inspired me to ignore the whispers of “clutterer.”  Those shelves and shelves of teaching supplies?  Their days are numbered.  Today I filled up 2 bags of clothes for the thrift shop.  Whee!

In the past, in a far away land, my cleaning binge radar was firmly fixed on my dearest teaching widower’s clutter.  In fact, my own stacks seemed to disappear as I grunted and glared at his piles of paper, pounds of erasers shavings (he writes by HAND), and random books, paper…

Even though I’ve been blogging for three years now, I’m still finding my way around some of the other social media platforms. There are so many it can be difficult to find time to work across all of them, especially if you want to, you know, actually get some writing done.

One platform I’d been hearing a lot about, especially from other bloggers, was Pinterest. I’d heard of it years ago, via a designer friend, but hadn’t ever bothered to look into it. It wasn’t until my soon to be sister-in–law was pinning wedding ideas and invited me to take a look, that I decided to set up an account.

Once set up I pinned a few blog posts, set up a couple of boards, followed some people and left it at that. I didn’t really get any blog views from the site, and I just didn’t have any time…