Housesitting…

Posted on November 26, 2016 by suzie81speaks

I’m currently sitting on a ridiculously comfy couch in front of the TV at my friend’s beautiful new house. I’ve been given the Wi-Fi password, the Sky remote, money for a takeaway and some mojito lollipops (early birthday present).

This wasn’t a planned visit – my friend and her bloke have had a trip to London booked for a while to celebrate her birthday – but two days ago a couple of scumbags decided that they had nothing better to do than break in and steal thousands of pounds worth of electronics and even worse, sentimental possessions that hold more value than anything money can buy. And, for some reason, my friend’s face cream, just to rub a little salt into the wound.

Assholes. I’m gutted for them both – they have only just moved into the property and it was obvious that they had been deliberately targeted. A month before Christmas. I’m not one to wish pain and suffering on people usually, but may the burglars crotches be infested with the fleas of a thousand camels and their arms be too short to scratch. Let’s hope that karma comes back to get them. Continue reading →

Seven Basic Ways To Increase Your Blog Traffic in Thirty Minutes

Posted on May 26, 2015 by suzie81speaks

You’ve written a blog post that you’re proud of. You’ve read, re-read, edited, re-edited and then edited again once after you’ve inevitably discovered lots of mistakes that were missed. You’ve created a pinnable picture and included all your social media links.

Then the little-one starts to cry. Dinner needs to be made. The laundry needs to be hung out to dry. In my world, papers need to be marked.

For those of us that want our blogs to be seen, but have busy schedules, children, jobs and homes to maintain, we often find it difficult to promote ourselves to the biggest possible audience. Time is always our biggest barrier and in the blogging world it is highly unlikely that a post will receive lots of views simply by pressing the publish button. Continue reading →

Suzie81 Speaks Is On Pinterest!

Posted on May 19, 2015 by suzie81speaks

My Pinterest Boards

I’ve had a Pinterest account for about a year and I’ve done absolutely nothing with it – I’ve spent the last six months attempting to build my Twitter and Facebook accounts – but this morning I decided to start developing my boards.

It has been hugely time consuming and I have only created four so far, but I decided to use it as an opportunity to share not only my blog posts, but my photography too. In addition, I have added a board for images that I like, and another for blog posts from my favourite bloggers. I find it fascinating to see how many different topics are available, and I have been able to find some of you guys already!

Want to follow me on Pinterest? Click on the link below.

http://www.pinterest.com/suzie81speaks

Don’t forget that you can also follow me on Twitter and Tumblr @suzie81blog, and don’t forget to check out my Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/suzie81speaks

Feel free to leave your links below!

Social Media: When Teachers Become The Targets

Posted on April 2, 2015 by suzie81speaks

It was reported in the news today that the number of teachers facing abuse via social media has more than doubled over the last year, with staff being subjected to personal and professional insults and pictures and videos of them being uploaded without their consent. Worse still, 40% of this online abuse came from parents.

Only two days ago, a picture of a very attractive maths teacher went viral – one of his students at UCL had discovered that he also worked as a model and the student had taken a picture in the classroom and uploaded it to his social media sites. It seemed to be taken in a light-hearted manner and jokes were being made about suddenly developing an interest in algebra, but I was really annoyed on his behalf. The poor teacher may have been absolutely mortified. The question I asked that day to my Facebook friends was this: Continue reading →

When Parents Get It Right

Posted on March 31, 2015 by suzie81speaks

Being childless, I cannot claim to know how difficult being a parent is, but I have found on many occasions that I have become agitated by the lack of consideration and discipline that children and young teenagers demonstrate when are out in public, and working with teenagers for nearly ten years, I have witnessed numerous examples where parents have made excuses for their children, rather than addressing poor behaviour that the child should have been made accountable for. While I don’t believe that any children are bad, I have judgements in the past, whether rightly or wrongly, when I have observed parents making these excuses. One of my biggest annoyances is the disruption that is frequently caused by children and teenagers when attempting to watch a movie at the cinema, and I have written about this on several occasions.

However, a story appeared on my Facebook feed this morning that made me want to punch the air and shout a resounding ‘yes!’ when I read it.

Image: Rebecca Boyd

On Friday night, Rebecca Boyd took her 12 year-old daughter to see the new Cinderella movie. Her husband had just been made redundant from his job and this would be the last film that they would be able to see for a while, and they were hoping for an enjoyable time.

Unfortunately, (as I have personally experienced on many occasions), their evening was repeatedly disrupted by two teenage girls who were misbehaving throughout – kicking the seats, talking, giggling – and this continued even when Boyd asked them to stop. At the end of the movie, Boyd sent her daughter to the car and spoke to the teens outside the cinema, explaining how their behaviour affects others and her husband’s situation.

In an interview given with Yahoo!Parenting, Boyd explained that she didn’t blame the teens parents, despite being annoyed by the girls behaviour.

However, the teens mother was furious… at her children. The girls were at the movie with their brother, who told their mom everything. Kyesha Smith Wood, whose daughter and step-daughter were the teens who has caused the trouble posted this to Facebook:

Image: Kyesha Smith Wood/ Facebook

The post went viral, and the comments that Wood received were hugely positive for making her children accountable for their actions.

The post eventually made it to Boyd, who was touched by the response and after connecting over Facebook they hit it off. Since then, both women have been interviewed on numerous occasions, and have demonstrated the upmost respect for each other. Wood told AL.com “A lot of times people get nervous about saying something to a stranger’s kids. We as a community need to hear this, that there are parents out there who still believe in old-fashioned methods.”

And the teens? In an interview with ABC 33/40, Wood explained that they were embarrassed.”They’re humiliated, but that’s ok. I told them, ‘you know what? You’re never going to do it again.’ ”

Both women should be absolutely applauded for their handling of the situation, for supporting each other as parents and for making the girls accountable for their actions. With parents like these, I’m sure that all of their children will grow up to be outstanding young people.

Bravo!

What do you think? As a parent, would you react in the same way?

You can also find me on Twitter and Tumblr @suzie81blog and don’t forget to check out my Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/suzie81speaks

Blog Advice 1: Increasing Your Traffic

Posted on March 21, 2015 by suzie81speaks

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One of the most common questions I am asked by fellow bloggers is, in my opinion, one of the most difficult to provide a definitive answer to:

How do I increase the traffic that I receive to my blog?

Before I begin, I think that it is important to note three crucial points:

Building a following and, consequently increasing your traffic, takes lots of time and effort. You are extremely unlikely to receive thousands, or even hundreds of views simply by pressing the publish button.
Content is key. Well-written posts will draw new people in, and encourage them to visit again. Posting page after page of inspirational quotes looks pretty, but will leave your audience bored after a while. Be yourself, make no apologies and believe in what you are creating.
I am not an expert, nor have I ever claimed to be.

I know very little about SEO, so I don’t feel experienced enough to comment on it. However, in my experience, there are number of things that you can do that will always pull in extra views.

1. Visit other sites. Like and leave a meaningful comment (but don’t leave a link to your blog – this is often viewed as poor blog etiquette and could be classed as spam).

2. Tag your posts effectively. I use between 15 and 20 relevant tags on most of my posts, and this will allow others who are writing about similar things to find you.

3. The more you post, the more likely your blog is going to be seen.

4. Share the work of others. There are some bloggers that have been extremely generous when promoting my posts and as a result I have gained lots of new followers. I like to return the favour by reblogging posts from some of my favourite blogs. I have also invited lots of guest bloggers to write post for me, and have guest blogged on other sites. You will find that other people will return the favour.

However, over time I have picked up a few hints and tips that has helped me increase my traffic further.

The Daily Post

When I first started blogging one of the most useful and effective ways of meeting other people and discovering new blogs was by following The Daily Post, which has millions of members. Each day, a prompt is given that encourages anyone and everyone to be able to interpret the prompt in any way they like and link back (these are called ping backs). All of the posts that are created in response are collated under the original Daily Post prompt, making it possible for everyone to visit each others blogs, and some will visit yours in return.

The Daily Post also hosts a photography challenge on Fridays, which is extremely popular, and on Mondays they host the Community Pool, which is essentially an enormous blog party.

Blog Parties

A blog party is simple: create a post that invites others to leave a link to their blog in the comment section. The participants then visit each others blogs. It’s a great way for bloggers to meet each other and will automatically increase your views on that post. You may find that followers of participants will find your blog and join in themselves. (However, it is worth noting that these are unlikely to generate traffic unless you have a larger following to begin with).

There are lots of blog parties that take place across the blogosphere regularly, and I would advise that you take part in as many as possible. Say hi, leave a link to a post with a little bit of information and then go and visit other participants. You don’t have to follow the blog to participate, but it is usually better if you do.

Want to participate in a blog party? There is currently a blog party going on at Hugh’s Views and News. Go and visit – Hugh would love to see you there!

Social Media

Love it or loathe it, I’ve found that social media is crucial for building your following and getting others to visit your site. It took me a long time to add social media accounts to my blog and it has always been one of my biggest blogging regrets that I didn’t start sooner, as they are now responsible for about 75% of my overall traffic.

These are my stats that show how many views I have had from my social media accounts from the last two years:

Facebook: 81,000
Twitter: 38,000
StumbleUpon: 17,000
Reddit: 10,000
Tumblr: 3,500
Bloglovin: 200
Pinterest: 50

These add up to almost 150,000 views.

Admittedly, I got lucky with Facebook – one of my posts went viral a year ago on there, but only after I had posted it onto my Facebook blog page and my personal page, where it was picked up and shared by my friends. However, some don’t feel comfortable with doing that. For me, Twitter is the quickest and most effective way of getting your posts seen on a regular basis, and it’s all done through the use of hashtags. Others prefer Pinterest, while others like Tumblr. Some even create Vlogs to go with their posts – my friend Steve often does this for his ‘Now This Is What I Would Call Music’ blog. Regardless of your preferences, create separate social media accounts (don’t use your own) and start linking your blog posts to them.

Twitter Hashtags and Retweet Accounts

There are several different parties that go on during the week that are easy to use. Each follow the same format – share your link on Twitter and use a hashtag next to your post. Once posted, visit the hashtag and go and read and retweet other people participating.

Monday: #MondayBlogs. This is the ultimate hashtag party. It’s been going for two years, and was started by @RachelintheOC. Thousands participate each week.

Wednesday: #WWWBlogs (Women’s Writer Wednesday) and Ronovan’s #BeWow.

Saturday: #ArchiveDay (for sharing old posts from your blog), #WeekendBlogHop and Part Time Monster’s #WeekendCoffeeShare.

Sunday: #SundayBlogShare, which I created. I started it last November and within just a few months there were hundreds of people participating. Last week there were over 1500 posts shared, and my traffic each Sunday has increased considerably because of it. This is how I did it:

I decided on a hashtag name and checked to see that it wasn’t already in use (just type your proposed hashtag into the ‘search’ on Twitter and see if others are using it).
I created a post on the blog which explained what it was, the rules for using it and invited all of my followers to participate.
I registered the hashtag via Twubs.
I created a basic button that advertised the hashtag.

Note: it isn’t possible to own a hashtag like you can a domain name. However, if you register it against your name you can at least have proof that you host the party regularly. And here, regularity and consistency is key. #SundayBlogShare has happened every single week, and when I haven’t been able to do it, I’ve invited other bloggers to host it for me.

However, there are more hashtags that I have found useful and use them at any point.

Are you a beauty blogger? Use #bbloggers after your post.
Life Blogger? #lbloggers
Fashion Blogger? #fbloggers
Parent? #pbloggers

There are also several accounts that exist simply to retweet your posts, and you can include them next to your link if you want them to do so. For me, some of the most effective ones are:

@FemaleBloggerRT
@UKBlog_RT
@TheBlogGuideRT

Note: there are no rules when it comes to the amount of times you should tweet. However, I find that once or twice every few hours is enough, and I try and retweet others where I can.

Follow For A Follow?

Some very popular, or ‘Power’ bloggers, gain lots of new followers by following them first. The blogging world seems to be very divided about this process. For me, I don’t do it myself – I follow about 250 as any more than that would be impossible to keep up with, but I don’t have a problem with those that do. It has worked for them, with great success, and kudos to them! However, don’t go and start demanding that people follow you just because you have clicked on their blog – it’s more likely to have a negative effect.

Other Ideas

I enjoy trying out new ideas. Some have worked, some haven’t, but like everything, blogging is a learning process.

Competitions: Lots of beauty and fashion bloggers regularly hold competitions, with the prize being a beauty product of some description. As I barely how to know how to use make-up without looking like an inexperienced drag queen, and have the fashion sense of a teenage boy, these sorts of things wouldn’t be of much use to me or my followers. However, I have done several lots of free advertising in the past as a competition prize and I have always received a good response from this.

Questions: On several occasions I have created a set of questions in an attempt to get to know my fellow bloggers. I have then collated their answers into a single post. Again, I received new followers when others reblogged the post.

Join other networks: I am a member of Mumsnet Bloggers, despite not being a parent myself, and I post on the weekly link up on the SITSGirls website. I’ve been featured twice on both, generating several thousand extra views to my posts.

Phew! There you go – some ideas to increase your traffic. Hope it’s useful!

What about you guys? Have you got any hints and tips to increase traffic on your blog?

You can also find me on Twitter and Tumblr @suzie81blog, and don’t forget to check out my Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/suzie81speaks

Slow Burning Posts

Posted on January 7, 2015 by suzie81speaks

For those who are interested in their stats and want their words to be read, it’s always a buzz when a post immediately does well. However, what I’ve discovered is that some of my most popular posts are not ones that have achieved this instant success. I refer to these as ‘slow burners,’ as they slowly build up my stats on a monthly basis, constantly bubbling away in the background of my weekly ramblings.

A year ago I posted ‘23 Things You Should Actually Do Before You’re 23′ in response to one of the most popular articles of 2013 on Freshly Pressed. It did quite well, being shared across Twitter and Facebook numerous times. However, while it didn’t light the blogging world on fire, over the last year I have found it to be a consistent feature in my daily stats, being viewed between 10 and 50 times a day. I’ve done very little to promote it, occasionally sharing on Twitter during hashtag chats, on my Facebook page and putting a link to it in the sidebar of my blog and the numbers are still there.

For example, if you look at the graph above you can see that it is constantly achieving the same number of views on a daily basis, with the occasional spike when I have highlighted it on my Twitter or Facebook page.

While these number may appear small, they all add up. In 2014 it was viewed a total of 8,710 times.

This isn’t the only post that I would consider to be a ‘slow burner’. Nine Things We Don’t Owe Anybody has followed the same process, again with occasional spikes every few months when it has been shared on social networking sites. In 2014 it was viewed 8,399 times.

46 Reasons Why Women Are Amazing was one of the first posts that I created. I don’t actually like it – my writing style has changed and I find it to be very superficial, but this is a post that receives regular traffic from search engines. I consistently find that sentences like ‘women are amazing’ or ‘why are women amazing’ in my search terms, and am hesitant to remove it based on the views that it pulls in and the positive emails that I receive about it. It was written in July 2013, but in 2014 it was viewed 1,218 times.

Those three posts combined added 18,327 views to Suzie81 Speaks last year.

So, don’t always go for instant gratification and get disheartened if your posts don’t receive the views that you want immediately. Instead, create articles that will consistently appeal to readers over a long period of time and occasionally share them on your social media sites – those ‘slow burners’ may make all the difference to your stats.

What about you guys? Have you had long term success with any of your posts?

You can also find me on Twitter and Tumblr @suzie81blog and don’t forget to hop on over to my Facebook page and give me a cheeky ‘like’ http://www.facebook.com/suzie81speaks

I Shouldn’t Be This Attached To a Phone, But…

Posted on November 26, 2014 by suzie81speaks

In the not-so-distant past, my personal life existed without the use of lots of technology. I didn’t have a home computer or the Internet and my mobile phone was a brick that I could use to ring someone, send them a text message or play snake on. I had a stack of hundreds of CD’s and a little CD player, basic television service and a DVD player.

Three years ago, I got an iPhone 4. I was late to jump on the Apple bandwagon, but being in a relationship with an Apple fanatic and all-round computer geek, I was easily swayed when it came time to renew my contract and decided to upgrade to something awesome.

From the minute I was handed that shiny black handset, I was hooked. Everything it did fascinated me and I spent hours poring over all the brilliant things I could now do that seemed almost space-aged to me before. However tragic it may sound, it became almost like another limb. Wherever I went, it came with me.

With the help of this little device, I kept in contact with everyone who means something to me through phonecalls, text messages, email, FaceTime, Facebook, Twitter… It was the source of laughter as my family and friends shared their stories, and of pain as I was informed of the loss of people that I loved. It helped me to mend broken relationships, and end others.

It shared with me major and local news events, corrected my spelling, told me the time in all the world’s major cities, informed me of the weather and reminded me of important birthdays and appointments.

It allowed me to kill zombies with plants, farm zombies, crush candies, match dots and throw agitated birds of various colours and sizes at green pigs.

It kept me entertained during train and plane journeys. It travelled to Paris, Malaga, New York, Philadelphia, Washington, London, Naples and Amsterdam with me. It joined me on the beach, at the spa, by the pool, in restaurants and nightclubs, the pub and several music gigs.

It encouraged me to watch entire seasons of ‘Drop Dead Diva,’ ‘White Collar,’ documentaries, children’s programmes that made me feel nostalgic and Rom Coms that I knew The Bloke didn’t want to see through the Netflix app.

It took this photograph:

And this one:

And this:

And over 10,000 more, which are all stored in random files on my computer.

It allowed me to expand my musical palette, downloading songs that I had previously forgotten. It gave me rock playlists to accompany my shopping trips, easy listening playlists to relax me in the bath, Motown and soul playlists when I needed cheering up. It helped me to downsize my CD collection, creating more space in the house and contributing to local charity shops.

It helped me develop my blog, storing my ideas in the notes section for a later time when I could copy and paste them into a new post.

It was my sanctuary when my brain wouldn’t allow me to sleep at night, and would wake me up during afternoon naps at a weekend.

It recorded every significant moment in my life in the last three years, and still doesn’t bear a single scratch.

Today, it decided that it had had enough, and travelled over the electronic bridge in the sky. I have an image of little wings on it’s back, happily flapping through the air and thinking ‘thank goodness I don’t have to listen to her ramblings anymore.’ I shouldn’t be this attached to a mobile phone, but… I’m gutted.

Goodbye my little phone, we had some good times together.

What about you guys? What piece of technology do you rely on?

You can also find me in Twitter and Tumblr @suzie81blog, and don’t forget to check out my Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/suzie81speaks.

Note To Self

Posted on November 13, 2014 by suzie81speaks

Yesterday I decided to edit my Facebook account, deleting unwanted photographs and removing people that I haven’t spoken to in over a year.

Inevitably I ended up trawling through my previous status updates, going back as far as 2007. What I noticed was that I seem to post similar things in patterns, one being in the form of a ‘Note To Self’ whenever I had done something particularly stupid that day. I thought I’d collate some of them and share them with you…

Ten Notes To Self:

1. When feeling inspired to cook, follow the instructions exactly and avoid substituting ingredients for ‘the next best thing’ because you can’t be bothered to go to the shop. This will prevent the resulting meal from tasting like vomit.

2. There is such a thing as too much garlic.

3. Drunkenly calling a man from Birmingham a ‘yam yam’ (slang term for a different area) in a chip shop in the early hours of the morning is not a good way to make friends, even if he insulted your accent first…

4. Wearing those shoes will be fabulous for the first five minutes. The rest of the night will be spent in utter agony. Next time, stick to flats…

5. When cooking a Linda McCartney lasagne it is a good idea to remove the plastic film from the top first. This will prevent your food being ruined and your oven from smelling like a plastics factory.

6. Do not allow your friends to film you during your drunken karaoke performances. Watching the video the next day will completely destroy the misconception that you were actually any good.

7. Replacing the word ‘Stingray’ with ‘bin bags’ in the Stingray theme tune and singing it loudly when you put your rubbish out will very likely cause your neighbours to think you have issues.

8. You may know all the dance moves to Beyonce’s ‘Single Ladies.’ However, your version closely resembles that of a frog in a blender. Stop doing it when you’re on a night out – people are beginning to pity you.

9. Happiness is not found in that unbelievably massive chocolate bar. However, cellulite is and you’ll spend the next week regretting it, however yummy it is.

10. If you have to be up early the next morning it is not a good idea to watch YouTube videos in bed… Two hours sleep is not a good way to start the day.

I think a huge facepalm would be appropriate at this point… Or just this – a look similar to the ones I receive from The Bloke on a regular basis.

What about you? Are there any notes that you need to write to yourself?

You can also find me on Twitter and Tumblr @suzie81blog, and don’t forget to check out my Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/suzie81speaks

Picture Credit: Google Images

My Love/Hate Relationship With Facebook

Posted on February 26, 2014 by suzie81speaks

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When I logged onto my Facebook account this morning I saw that somebody in my friends list had ‘liked’ this:

I sighed and continued to scroll. This is my main annoyance with Facebook – silly groups and memes that are created to guilt teenagers into ‘liking’ a post. At the risk of sounding old, teenagers don’t realise how different life was before Facebook. If I wanted to contact my friends when I was a teenager there were only two ways of doing so: a phonecall to their landline or a handwritten letter. If they were out, I had to wait until they returned.

We got the Internet when I was 17. It was a new thing to my sisters and I – I had passed GCSE IT but the most complicated thing that I had to do was wait for five minutes while the dial-up connection worked and then send an e-mail. To be honest, I wasn’t particularly interested in most aspects of computer based things and aside from attempting to use a few chat rooms, which I didn’t understand, I ignored it.

I’ve been on Facebook since 2007, along with half a billion others. In its original state it was unique in that it allowed us to connect with people from our past and we were able to do silly things like ‘poke’ each other or throw sheep. However, over the years it has changed dramatically and I think there is now a sense of distrust after many issues with privacy settings and advertising. The concept still remains the same though – tell everybody everything about everything and put up pictures to prove it.

When I first activated my account I added everybody that I’d ever met – people from primary school that I hadn’t seen in 20 years, people that I went to secondary school with, people that I used to see occasionally on nights out, people I worked with… At one point I had about 400 ‘friends’.

Eventually I came to my senses and embarked on a massive ‘cull’. I worked out that out of the 400 people, I actually only spoke to 30 of them regularly, and out of that 30, I only saw 15 socially. The people that disappeared over the years did so for a reason – we weren’t ‘friends’ to begin with and we never actually spoke after we’d added each other. However, this presented an issue I hadn’t previously needed to consider – offending somebody. It’s easy to remove a person that you’re unlikely to bump into, but it becomes more difficult when you have similar friendship circles and there is a chance that you may be expected to see them occasionally because of your mutual associations. For example, I have a ‘friend’ on Facebook because we once went away on a weekend together to celebrate our friend’s 30th birthday. She’s actually very nice and I don’t dislike her at all, but we haven’t spoken since we returned from the trip eighteen months ago. However, I don’t feel that I can remove her because there is a strong chance that we are going to see each other again in the future, and I don’t wish to offend, which seems a ridiculous notion for a 32 year old woman.

Facebook users can generally be put into different categories:

1. The Foodies– pictures of everything that they cook and/or eat. Always Instagrammed before posted, just to make their food look that little more special.

2. The Attention Seeker – status’s such as ‘well that’s that then’, obviously hoping to prompt someone to ask “what’s happened?”. Why can’t they just just state what the matter is in the first place?

3. The Pointless – usually consists of useless information: ‘it’s cold’, ‘waiting for a bus,’ ‘today I’m doing nothing’…

4. The ‘Honeymooners’ – recently in a relationship. Usually consists of ‘he’s so wonderful’, ‘just been out for a romantic meal’, ‘I love watching him sleep’. Always followed by pictures. This is made even worse if you know both parties as your news feed is then bombarded with double of everything.

5. The Wannabe Football Managers – comment on every move their team makes.

6. The Drunk – ‘I’m so p*ssed’, ‘off to the pub’, ‘it’s wine o’clock’. Fake drunken writing. Usually followed by ‘I’m never drinking again’ the next morning, and ‘in the pub’ in the afternoon.

7. The Drama Queens – these use Facebook to have a go at anyone that has ever offended them because they don’t have the nerve to say things to their face.

8. Too Much Information – ‘I just had a huge dump,’ ‘I’ve got a massive spot on my face,’ ‘My dog has just puked on the floor’…

9. The Troll – likes to write things to deliberately to wind people up.

10. The Animal Lover – endless pictures of their pets.

11. The Parent – endless pictures of their children. Little Billy smiling. Little Billy covered in chocolate. Little Billy dribbling.

12. The Cause Campaigners – posts and shares every heartbreaking news story that they can find, often including pictures of abused children and animals.

I’m guilty of lots of these, particularly number three and number ten. However, I’m lucky to have rather amusing friends who often post interesting or witty status’s that make me smile. For example, a small selection from yesterday was:

‘Tonight sees Mr Dynamic falling asleep on the sofa again.’

‘It feels like I’m still wearing a hat.’

‘Popcorn… Perfect food for a drummer’.

‘Eww, probably best I don’t wear flip flops next time my son needs an emergency wee wee in the car park.’

I’ve thought about deleting my account on more than one occasion. I’ve seen the very worst that Facebook has to offer – pictures of dead children, animal slaughter and embarrassing images of drunken people in compromising positions. However, despite the huge amount of negative press it receives I am finding it difficult to move away from social networking. It has allowed me to maintain friendships, re-start old friendships and I have the opportunity to see more of my friends lives than I usually would, particularly when they share photographs of their day. I have also been brave and shared a few posts from my blog with them, which has surprised some of them as most weren’t even aware that I had a blog to begin with. They’ve been very supportive and complimentary, and my number of views has increased dramatically because they’ve been kind enough to share my ramblings with their friends.

Regardless of your view on the subject, it’s difficult to ignore the impact that Facebook has had on modern culture and lifestyle. Love it or hate it, it’s not going anywhere soon…

What about you guys? What’s your relationship with Facebook? Do you share any of your posts with your friends?

You can also find me on Twitter and Tumblr @suzie81blog