Where have I been?

I have neglected my Blog for so long because I now post everything on G+.  You can always find me on there but I will try to be better and post more on here too.

I've been debating whether to keep it running because I didn't think anyone ever read it but when I came one here today I was totally shocked as to how many people read it.

Of course you are all probably new people who haven't met me on G+ or haven't got sick of reading my blog yet :)

But I should probably post on here more often and it is definitely a good place to put the odd recipe I make up so I can find it again, which brings me to the reason I came on here today.

I often (well most of the time really) make up recipes as I go along and 99% of the time they turn out great which makes me feel extremely lucky as some people have many failures even with recipes from a book.

I tend to just add things on the spur of the moment and so often my meals / cakes etc. are either very or slightly different from before.

If a particular dish turns out really tasty I often try to jot down what I put in it on a piece of paper when I have finished eating it so I can make it again.  

That's not easy though as I as I don't measure anything and just add a sprinkle of this or shake of that and a dollop of something else.   

But it would be a good idea if I got myself in gear and not just write these things on scraps of paper I can never find again but on my blog.

One for the Ladies – Really!!! What do they expect?

Why is it that some men seem to think that on social media sites they can pick up women by saying something stupid like “I like you – we get together”?  You know all the stupid in your face comments that someone you have never ever spoken to before say on your posts.  

I have forgotten most of the comments but there are so many messages like this!  And for the sake of keeping this blog “clean” I wont even repeat some of the messages.

Don’t get me wrong – I don’t mean ALL men are like this and men from Western countries would know never to act like this, but there is a whole group of men from Eastern countries that seem to think it is the right way to start a conversation with a woman – even in the middle of a thread sometimes.

Do they walk up to women in the street where they live and say the same thing?  If so, do they really expect a good response?  Or do they think we are different and will be overwhelmed by their attention?

Men’s chat-up lines have always been a bit of a joke – “Do you come here often”, “I haven’t seen you here before”, “What’s a nice looking girl like you doing here on your own” etc., but men never used to be quite so direct as the Eastern men are on social media sites.

Do they really expect us ladies to respond and start chatting to them online?  What’s more, what do they expect to achieve from it anyway.  They live half way across the world for heaven’s sake. 

Do they think we will pay for them to come over to see us and marry them so they can get out of their country?  Do they think we are any better than their own women?  What is the fascination with trying to chat up women so far away anyway?

Surely they should realise that the softly softly get to know her approach would be the better option as their direct approach is an automatic turn-off and block.

How to Decide Whether to Add Your Photo as your Profile Picture

Have you ever noticed how your opinion changes of someone who you have got to know a bit, either online or on the phone, and then when you see a photo of them or meet them in person they don’t fit the image you had of them?  It is totally ridiculous but our brain forms not a picture as such but a person who seems to fit into a particular category and so when we actually see the person it most often comes as a complete surprise and our brain cannot accept them as the person we knew.  It is much more dramatic than seeing someone who you previously knew years ago who had changed a lot with a different hairstyle, maybe a beard and who now wears glasses and has put on weight.  The brain still accepts that person as a different version of the one we already know.

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As you know I used to run an Entertainment Booking Agency with a partner and I particularly noticed how much a photo changed perspectives when working there.  There was never a problem with the acts as of course we usually had publicity photos of those.  It was with the customers that I noticed it really.  We built some very close working relationships with some of the distance customers so we got to know them really well before we actually met them and in some cases it seemed really strange when we met as they were nothing like we expected them to look like (and most likely vice versa as well).  Sometimes the dynamics of the relationship changed after that initial meeting as well.  Often I presume just because the personal side of now knowing what the other person looked like affected the attitude of those involved. 

I sometimes found the other person a bit too intense after the initial meeting if they were male.  There is no getting away from the fact that a young woman can get a lot more attention and work than an older woman or a male.  We arranged a lot of military functions and I can only say that it worked to my advantage being a youngish female as phone calls were always returned and they made time for meetings.  Once we decided to put up a website and added our photos for the personal touch we found nearly everyone who rang in asked to speak to me and not my male partner in the agency.  That included women – women like to speak to other women, and males …. well males like to speak to women too, but for different reasons. 

I have noticed that although I decided I wanted to come out of the agency my ex partner has not changed the website at all and my photo is still on there.  I guess he thought it would be best for business and I have no problem with it still being on there as I am a rather laid-back soul and if it helps his business then I don’t mind.  I do wonder how it helps though, as apart from any new business, everyone else must know I am not there any more as it has been several years ago now since I left and they must just think the website is way out of date.  It probably just costs him too much to have it updated and to have my photo removed as he now just runs the agency in a smaller way on his own and the website hasn’t changed since I left.

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So there are several reasons I didn’t really want my photo to be on my sites, one of which is the reason I have mentioned, but also for several others as well.  I think there is a danger that stalkers can get too much information about you these days on these sites and not having a photo is quite a good prevention for this at the start.

Another reason is that I just hate having my photo taken – I must be one of these unphotogenic types.  There are very few photos I ever like of me and most of the photos before digital ones came in ended up in the bin.  I don’t look in photos the same as I look in the mirror (even though you are seeing a mirrored image to what everyone else sees) but other people have also said that I don’t look the same as I have come out in the photo.  The one I have used is one of the few that actually looks like me.

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Which brings me nicely to another point - the photo that is on someone’s profile may not actually be of the person at all.  It could be a photo of someone else entirely or a very old picture of the person.  So having an avatar on there instead is not a valid reason not to follow someone on sites like Google+, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter or the bookmarking sites either.  Checking out their profile, their followers (not the ones they are following) and their posts (checking they are not all shared posts) is a much better indicator of the person.

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If you are a good looking male or female you are likely to get a lot of followers for the wrong reason (unless of course you are on there to meet a partner in the first place).  But then you also have to risk once again that the other persons photo is really of them and not their good looking friend.

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However, I have succumbed and added a photo of me purely so that the people who are following me can put a face to the name BUT I am just going to keep it on my profile page rather than use it as my main picture.  So my Pendant-Heaven avatar will be the one that people see all the time as it is consistent with the avatar on all my other sites too.  

I do understand that some people have not followed me at all because I didn’t have my photo on my profile but then again are they the sort of  people I really wanted to follow me if they are that shallow that they only go by a photo rather than my posts or my profile information?

I also freely admit that it is subliminal possible advertising for my handmade jewellery, but then a girl has got to make some money somehow and the tiny reminder that I make pendants is there every time someone sees one of my posts.  They may not buy anything but at least they know I actually make the jewellery and will know where to look if they want something for a present if not for themselves.  If I didn’t use my Pendant-Heaven avatar they may remember that one of the people they are following makes jewellery but don’t remember who, although I must admit that the fact that I add one item to my ArtFire site each day and then post about it on the sites is a big clue.

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So at the end of the day it may well come down to whether you yourself are happy to put on your photo as your profile picture or not.  In most cases it would be perfectly fine but if you are a young female it is best to put a bit more thought into it as you may attract the wrong type of follower.

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Todays trivia snippet:

Why do people run over a string a dozen times with their vacuum cleaner, then reach down, pick it up, examine it, then put it down to give the vacuum one more chance?

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And here is todays chuckle:

A man went to church one day and afterward he stopped to shake the preacher's hand.

He said, 'Preacher, I'll tell you, that was a damned fine sermon. Damned good!'
The preacher said, 'Thank you sir, but I'd rather you didn't use profanity.'
The man said, 'I was so damned impressed with that sermon I put five thousand dollars in the offering plate!'

The preacher said, 'No sh-t?'

I am afraid I don’t know who this is to give them the credit but I saw it publicly on Google+ a while ago and it seemed fitting to use on this blog.

I CAN Live Without Seeing EVERYTHING Posted in my Circles on G+

As I have been trying to move things around in my office / craft room I have been rather busier than normal and realised I didn’t do a blog yesterday or the day before so thought I needed to catch up with everyone today.  I find there is so much good content from the people in my circles on Google+ that it takes me ages to look through the stream which takes up my time when I haven’t been on there for a few hours, especially in the mornings because I obviously go to bed before a lot of my friends in my circles who live in the US.  So when I get online at lunchtime I have an awful lot to catch up on and, as I have said before, I think I must have a FOMO complex (Fear Of Missing Out) because I don’t want to miss out on some of the really interesting posts.

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I can NEVER catch up on all the tweets in Twitter which I do find frustrating but as most of the non-direct tweets are promotions I don’t mind too much, but the posts on Google+ are much more interesting.  Facebook posts seem to be much easier to keep up with, possibly due to the shorter posts on there but also people don’t seem to put the same interesting things to read on there that they do on Google+.

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I had a great day yesterday as, apart from still trying to sort the room out, I had 2 friends come round – one in the afternoon and one in the evening – neither of whom I have seen for quite a while.  It’s funny but I just knew they would end up coming round on the same day and yet one was an unplanned visitJ  They are both very dear friends and it was lovely to see them and it made a lovely change to my normal routine to be socialising for most of the day.

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BUT I realised today that I am not really pining that I didn’t see all the new posts in my circles yesterday – I actually discovered that life can go on without me seeing everything on Google+ if there are other things to do.  I did find it was actually possible to just check out my “favourite” or “more important” circles without having to see absolutely everything that everyone had posted.  Normally I “make time” to see all the posts, or as many as I can as skimming down the stream sometimes manages to miss posts, and sometimes I am just so late to bed trying to catch up on them all as the stream is so very busy at that time of night as it is evening in the US.

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So it ended up being a day off work and only a short time to look at the posts online.   And I survived without my “see everything” G+ fix.  If I can manage it, the consequence of this is that I shall try to limit my periods on the computer to “sessions”.  I will try to discipline myself to not looking at my stream until I have posted my jewellery item of the day and my blog.  Then I shall try to keep to certain blocks of timed sessions so that I can still fit other things into my day and not allow myself a lingering session on there until late evening.  I am not sure I will be able to keep to it, and keeping offline while I am doing other things will be ok, but dragging myself away when I do go on there will be another story!!!  Watch this space…

Todays tiny bit of trivia:

If you can read this you have a strong mind:
TH15 M3554G3 53RV35 TO PR0V3 H0W 0UR M1ND5 C4N D0 4M4Z1NG TH1NG5! 1MPR3551V3 TH1NG5! 1N TH3 B3G1NN1NG 1T WA5 H4RD BUT NOW, ON TH15 LIN3 YOUR M1ND 1S R34D1NG 1T 4UT0M4T1C4LLY W1TH OUT 3V3N TH1NK1NG 4B0UT 1T, B3 PROUD! 0NLY C34RT41N P30PL3 C4N R3AD TH15.  C4N U?

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Here is the last part of those little chuckles:

The Things I Owe My Parents (part 3)

17. My Parents taught me about RECEIVING.

      "You are going to get it when you get home!"

18. My Parents taught me MEDICAL SCIENCE.

      "If you don't stop crossing your eyes, they are going to get stuck that way."

19. My Parents taught me ESP.

      "Put your sweater on; don't you think I know when you are cold?"

20. My Parents taught me HUMOUR.

      "When that lawn mower cuts off your toes, don't come running to me."

21. My Parents taught me HOW TO BECOME AN ADULT.

      "If you don't eat your vegetables, you'll never grow up."

22. My Parents taught me GENETICS.

      "You're just like your father."

23. My Parents taught me about my ROOTS.

      "Shut that door behind you. Do you think you were born in a barn?"

24. My Parents taught me WISDOM.

      "When you get to be my age, you'll understand."

25. My Parents taught me about JUSTICE.

      "One day you'll have kids, and I hope they turn out just like you!"

The “Should I be on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or Google+” debate

It seems to me from the short time I have been on all of them (2/3 months so far) I have found that they are all totally different from each other.  They all have different things that you need to be able to use and they all have plus and negative points.  Here are my views of them at the moment.  This may of course change once Google+ and the new Facebook changes have settled in.  Read my thoughts and please do let me know your opinions and experiences too as I would love to hear them.

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At the end of the day if you only want to use it for keeping in touch with friends you have no choice but to be on the same site that they are using.  You may well prefer Google+ but unless, or until, your friends are using it as well it doesn’t matter a hoot as you can’t talk to them on Facebook if you are on Google+ and vice versa.  You will probably find you need to be with at least Facebook and Twitter anyway as your friends probably use both.  As Google+ progresses, and as it is now being flooded with new people, you may well find you need to be on there as well if you have friends that will be using Google+ more than Facebook.  It has thrown a bit of “a spanner in the works” as it may split the Facebook community in that some of your friends may like Google+ better and hang out there more without going into their Facebook account so much, which will mean that if you want to chat to them you both need to be in the same place for it to work.  Most will probably use both unless they hate change and then they will stay where they are on Facebook, unless all the new changes on there upset their stability enough for them to try another site altogether. 

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Twitter is a bit different in that there is no content as such but is easy to use to send quick short messages to your mates (and without a fee for texting).   I find it annoyingly a bit too short (200 key strokes maybe - but 140!!!).  I have a job to précis what I want to say to 140 key strokes and sometimes have to send 2 single sentence tweets.   LinkedIn is only really for the people who are in for more professional discussions or looking for job opportunities although I have noticed there are “less serious” groups on there too.  Although I have noticed that even in the less serious groups the discussions can turn into heated debates sometimes.  So much so that I tend to stay right out of them even if I do have an opinion as I don’t want to get into all the “muck throwing” and would rather leave them to get on with it.  But it is a totally different environment to the other sites and would probably be quite boring for the average Facebook and Twitter users.  Whereas Google+ will attract a lot of Facebook users, I think a lot will still use both.

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In a nutshell this is a summary of what I personally have found and seen on these sites:

Facebook   - mates discussing everyday things as they would face to face

Twitter      - short messages, mainly with links to sales or other people

LinkedIn    - “professional” discussions & some rather heated debates

Google+     - friendly discussions, showing products, media discussions

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If I had to describe each of their content in one word or two it would be:

Facebook   - mate chatter

Twitter      - marketing

LinkedIn    - serious debates

Google+     - friendly discussions

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Or if you wanted to join a site for a particular reason, try these:

Facebook   -friends

Twitter      -sellers

LinkedIn    -jobs

Google+     -acquantances

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There are of course extra things on all the sites but this is the type of things that I see mainly in my newsfeed/follows/groups/stream.  Yours may be entirely different because it all depends on who we connect with on these sites.  They all work different in whose feed you actually see and who sees your feed.  The new changes on Facebook mean you can now also decide what particular information you want to see from your friends, so if you are fed up of seeing all their holiday photos or photos of their dog then you can opt out of seeing them.  LOL – they may notice that you have stopped commenting on them though even though they wont know that you have stopped receiving them.

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Apart from the time it takes up (LOL - as I well know!) it doesn’t hurt to build up some friends on all of them, even if your local friends are all on just one site.  They are all there for us to use free of charge so just enjoy them.  You can spend as much or as little time as you like on all of them.

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And on to todays trivia snippet:

Butterflies taste with their feet.

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I thought I would add this for you to have a look at today as I found it very interesting.  It’s about how many people notice if a change takes place right in front of them:

http://www.thatvideosite.com/video/psychology_experiment_75_of_people_dont__notice_huge_changes_in_front_of_them

Is Anybody Out There?

You know how you get this feeling that you are talking to yourself?  Well writing my blog seems to be like you having a conversation with the man in your life.  There is just no feedback or very little – well there probably is when you have been blogging for a lot longer than me.  You spend ages writing a blog and chatting away and then notice that no-one reads it much, well you certainly haven’t got many people who have signed up to follow it and you only rarely get any comments and when you specifically ask for comments you don’t get any at all.  It does make you wonder if anyone is actually reading it or maybe the few that show on the statistics could just be opening and then closing it again without reading it.  Personally if I like a blog I click the follow button straight away because I know I may not find or see the blog again if I don’t and I know I can always cancel the following if I did find the blog not to my taste after all, although what I suppose I personally would really do is to just not look at it very often in my blog list if I wasn’t too keen, as I am not one to cancel something I have started. 

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It’s funny that people seem to do that on Facebook – they Like your page and then some of them must then Unlike it at some point.  I hadn’t realised at first but have occasionally noticed that my Fan count had gone down by one since the day before so it had to be that someone had Unliked the page.  Now I find that quite weird as I only ever put one new pendant post on there each day and Networked Blogs adds my blog on there, so apart from the occasional post like a query / an FB warning or something unusual like one of my pendants being chosen for a collection, I can’t possibly be sending too many posts to their page as 2 posts a day is not excessive.  For them to become a Fan in the first place they must have liked the page to actually click the Like button in the first place I would have thought, so why the change of heart?  Or do the people who go round doing the “marches” to get Likes for their page cancel yours as soon as they have got you to Like their page?  And if so, why?  I don’t actually even know how you Unlike someone as I have never done it but wouldn’t see the point of doing it anyway.  If you find you are getting too many posts from a particular page you can always Hide their posts so that you don’t get them any more.  Is there a limit to how many pages you can Hide or something?  Do these people go round trying to get Likes and then when they get them they Unlike your page as they don’t want anyone else’s posts on their page at all?  I just find it very strange.

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But back to blogging – I don’t know how people keep spending the time blogging if they feel that no-one is reading it – I find it rather disheartening and just hope my followers build up.  I know I have only been blogging for a couple of months so it is early days for me yet but funnily enough I think some of your best ideas are at the beginning of blogging and so it is a shame that the later followers don’t see those earlier blogs unless the specifically look.  I quite like writing my blog but if I thought that I wouldn’t get more followers then I think I would prefer to just keep a journal for my thoughts.  It’s like those cases when you are talking to you man and he keeps grunting in the right places so you think he has heard you but then you realise he hasn’t listened to a word you have said really but has just learnt to grunt in the right places.  We just like to know that someone out there is actually reading what we are taking the time to write and to get the occasional comment in return just to know that what we have written has actually been read, or see the followers count build.  I personally am just keeping my fingers and toes crossed that I will get more followers as it goes along.  I am also totally open to suggestions as to what to include to get a bigger following.

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When I think about it there have been a huge amount of comments on LinkedIn about the subject I spoke about yesterday with regards to what people class as Handmade but obviously none of those read my blog as I have had no comments at all so farJ  I was hoping to get some comments from the other side of the fence as it were, from the consumers rather than the sellers.  The comments on LinkedIn have obviously all come from the sellers so it would be nice to know what the buyers think – what they look for and what they expect Handmade to mean.  Also whether it would even make a difference to them if the item they were looking for was called Handmade or Handcrafted or just Unique.

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Going off on a different tangent now - we had the first fete in our village yesterday – who on earth chose September for it I just don’t know but actually they were very lucky with the weather as apart from some sprinkles of rain in a couple of showers they only had one real short downpour and as it was so windy everything seemed to dry quite quickly.  My hubby and his partner were the duo for the afternoon.  They had the usual bouncy castle, stalls, raffles, ice cream van etc. as well as races and competitions for different things, and no I didn’t put any of my pendants in for the “Handicraft” (they called it) competition or hire a stall to sell them.  I must say though that the winning marrow was the absolute biggest I have ever seen.  It could have been the pumpkin for Cinderellas coach!  It had a hard knarled looking skin and I certainly wouldn’t have wanted to eat it but it was the size of a sack of potatoes (it must have been 24” long  x 18” x 18”) – it was HUGE.

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Now here’s a little bit of knowledge for today (that I didn't know): 

If a statue in the park of a person on a horse has both front legs in the air, the person died in battle.
If the horse has one front leg in the air, the person died because of wounds received in battle.
If the horse has all four legs on the ground, the person died of natural causes. 

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And here’s a chuckle to end on:

All This Media Stuff

How frustrating is all this media stuff!  Getting your head around it and trying to get the different parts to work is a nightmare.  Now I am certainly not dim (ha ha, don’t listen to what anyone else says about me!) but if I am struggling with some of it then I think a lot of people would just give up at a certain point and stick with what they have been able to achieve so far.  It takes so long and yet I really do it just to help sell my pendants. 

~o~o~o~o~o~

I start doing one thing and then either get distracted or have no choice but to go off in a different direction to sort something else out or find another piece of vital information  – yes I know what you are thinking, but I don’t mean I get waylaid with anything other than work related things either, although I have been known to add the odd comment to a post I have seen on FB or Google+.   But they do say that is good to get involved with other posts so that’s my excuseJ 

~o~o~o~o~o~

The trouble is I spend hours on the computer and have hardly any time enjoying my craft work.  I had expected it to perhaps be 50/50 with the time I spent working part time (half making and half selling), and yes I did expect it to be only part time!, but I seem to not only be spending 100% of my time setting things up for the selling but also I find I am working all hours of the day with only a couple of social hours break a day.  When my partner and I ran the Entertainments Booking Agency I was doing less hours than this because I made sure that I at least stopped working in time to go linedancing 3 times a week.  I also used to fit in Pilates, Yoga, Tai Chi and a spiritual Development Group as well as going out to see acts performing.   One of the reasons I gave up the Agency was for health reasons and to take it slower without all the pressure.  I may not have the pressure now but my hobby that I decided to develop has taken over my whole life.  Due to an achilles tendonitis problem all the social activity has been on hold and now it seems I spend 12 hours a day sitting on my ever-growing backside at the computer.

~o~o~o~o~o~

I keep telling myself that when I get it all sorted and belong to all the networking and bookmarking sites with them all running smoothly then I will have time to relax more and also have time to make some more pendants.  It is such a good thing that I had hundreds of them made before I started selling them – well I suppose if I hadn’t got so many made up then I probably wouldn’t have felt such a need to sell them.  It is meant to be a paid hobby and not a full time job which is why I keep the prices low.  I think I would have starved by now (but been thinner) if I had been forced to live off my Pendant-Heaven earnings.  Ebay eats too much of any potential profit and private sales on ArtFire or direct would only keep me in coffee if I was lucky.  I keep telling myself that when it is all running smoothly and the pendants start selling on ArtFire then I will have time to myself again and I can tell ebay and their relisting costs where to go but until then I can’t run them down as at lease they are keeping me in coffee J  Well chocolate preferably J

And todays little wonderful snippet of information:

This year we're going to experience four unusual dates.

1/1/11,   1/11/11,   11/1/11,   11/11/11 and that's not all...

Take the last two digits of the year in which you were born -

now add the age you will be this year -

The results will be 111 for everyone in whole world.