#Bloggiesta – El Fin

One thing I’ve learned that I already knew but just hadn’t realized and applied to Bloggiesta is… I’m a sprinter.  I got an incredible amount of stuff done on Friday, not so much on Saturday, and then today has felt like a huge brain-ooze.  But, here I am at the finish line, even if I’ve drug butt the last 6 miles… OKAY, 16 miles.

Today has reminded me of the scene at the end of Run, Fatboy, Run! Where he’s at the wall and is ready to quit.  I have to say that it’s definitely the help and encouragement of fellow bloggers that kept me going.  And I still have a few more things I want to get done, but I think I’m out of gas for this weekend.  But I’ve been writing them down on post-its for later.

First off, I want to give a rousing THANKS! to Natasha at MawBooks for organizing Bloggiesta in the first place.  AND to thank the publishers and sponsors who have provided the prizes.  I also have to give a special thanks to everyone who thought of and hosted the mini-challenges.  There are a LOT of things I just would have NEVER thought to do that I found out about on their blogs.  I still want to go through a few more, but again, too pooped out to do it tonight.  Blogging with children is a LOT of stress!

So Natasha asked for the following in the wrap up post:

Let me know how many hours you spent on the challenge, the mini-challenges you participated in, how many comments you left other bloggers, what you accomplished, what you liked best and any constructive criticism you might have.  I also need some ideas for mini-challenges for the next Bloggiesta so let me know!

So here we go:

I spent 12 hours working on Bloggiesta on Friday, 4 hours on Saturday, and 5 hours on it today.  That’s a total of 21 hours of Bloggiesta bonanza!

I participated in the following mini-challenges:

1. Emily’s Reading Room – set up Google Alerts
2. Books, movies, and Chinese Food – created an elevator pitch
3. Bloggiesta Mini-Challenge: Set Goals for 2010 – firmed up and fleshed out my main goals for 2010
4. Bloggiesta Mini Challenge:  Footers – Got a copyright doodad widget in the sidebar.
5. Bloggiesta Mini-Challenge: Clean Up Your Feedreader!
6. BethFishRead’s Mini-Challenge – Got a fun rainy-day rant wrote up for later.
7. Go forth and comment – I’ve commented on more than 10 new-to-me blogs now.
8. Bloggiesta Mini-Challenge – Dead Links – last minute mini-challenge completed
9. Bloggiesta Mini-Challenge Sign-In – made tons of comments on several blogs, both old and new
10. Bloggiesta Mini-Challenge: Blogging Buddies!! – Hi Care! 😀

As to how many comments I have left, I could NOT even BEGIN to say, because I’ve done my best to keep up with my Google Reader, and to leave comments on the posts as they’ve came up.  Plus the ones that are tweeted.  AND the ones that are posted through Networked Blogs on faceboook.  I’ve gone cross-eyed this weekend from all the montior-reading! 🙂  I should’ve grabbed one of those people-counter-clicky things and ticked off each comment.  It’d have to be between 60 and 70 comments.

Things that I accomplished this Bloggiesta that I’m most happy about, besides mini-challenge stuff, is that I’ve updated all sidebars, widgets and pages.  I’ve decided that, for now, I’m going to take a break from Viral Video Wednesday.  It was something for my own pleasure, anyway, and I ended up doing a LOT more video searching and watching than I did reading.  I may still have a random video post, but not a regular meme for a while.  I edited my Mt. TBR inventory page to be just my ARCs and then put a link to my LT Catalogue if people want to see what ALL books I have, which is over 1000 books.

What I’m super-excited about, though, is that I’ve got a separate blog set up for The Welsh Reading Challenge.  Rhinoa, host of the Manga Challenge, and BethFish, who hosts Sookie Stackhouse Challenge and What’s in a Name?3 Challenge, both had talked about making a separate blog for their challenges so that they can keep things better organized.  Now that I have the Welsh Reading Challenge blog, I can do so much more, like have featured authors, places for the reviews, and list suggested reading.  I’m looking forward to really getting it finished so I can announce it’s grand opening 🙂  Maybe I’ll be able to get a few sponsors and prizes then 😉

Minor adjustments were made to better organize and navigate the blogs pages and widgets were also made.  One thing that may change later is the pages and categories.  I think I’d like to make a page to list the review links for all the books I’ve reviewed.  I haven’t decided whether to list them by author or by title, but I suppose I could do both.  As for categories, I’m thinking “Blog Reviews” may be to broad a category.  I may break it down by genres, that way it’d be easier for someone looking for a specific book or topic to find.  I know that when I was visiting new blogs for the comment challenge, I looked through their categories like Reading with Tequila’s 5 Shots books (now I have Mockingbird coming in the mail) and English Major’s Junk Food’s Jane Austen label.

As for ideas for the next Bloggiefest in June… can’t wait, counting down already!  I don’t know, really.  I’m content with leaving such things to the more experience and learned blogging folks.  By June, I’ll have been blogging for 2 years, which is still a bit young.  THEN, remember all the sidetracks and diversions and breaks I’ve taken, and it probably averages out to me being an 8-month-old blogger, if that much.  I’m just hoping that I won’t get distracted between now and June!  I’ll try to have a better answer by then 😉

Bloggiesta Progress Update #5

Okay, I’m having a spastic moment.  There’s some weird smell somewhere in the house that smells like maple syrup, hot dogs and Fat Bastard.  I took out the overflowing trash can in the kitchen, which was a challenge.  I had to put a black trash bag over can and turn it over… then sweep up everything that had fallen out.  JOY!  But I’m still smelling it.  Maybe I need a shower?  And now I’m getting  a bit of a headache and SOMEONE has run off with the Ibuprofen. Grrrr….

Oh, and I forgot to eat today, so now I’m in that “Whoever gets in between me and the TWINKIES will DIE!” hunger mode.  And I don’t even LIKE Twinkies!  LOL, but I did love Zombieland.

So I’m just a bit ADD at the moment, and was going through my starred stuff in my Google Reader.  Some of those posts I can’t even remember WHY I starred them.  Some of them were for challenges and to bookmark them so I could blog about it, but then I forgot to unstar them.  But one of them was a fun distraction:

Just for fun: stress test

Dawn at She’s Too Fond of Books had posted Just for fun: stress test last June, a time of year when one kid was gone to Dad’s, another was in summer school, and the third was spending all day outside with her friends.  So it was a LOT less stressful then that it was a few minutes ago when I looked at the not-moving, but “Hey, they ARE moving!” pics.

Apparently, the pictures are suppose to gage your stress level.  The more stressed out you are, the faster the images “move”.  They are, of course, NOT moving.  It’s only an illusion.  But the funny thing for me was how much faster they seemed to be going today than six or so months ago.  That one on the bottom is waving like a flag in a hurricane for me!

So how did you fair with them?  What’s your stress level?

TSS ~ Bloggiesta and a Bitch Slap

Good morning, bloggie world 🙂  The sun is shining bright and warm… through my window it’s warm, outside the temps are brutal.  I’ve been very productive with Bloggiesta housekeeping, mini-challenges and stuff, this weekend and I feel good.  I even finished a book, went to the grocery store, library and breakfast yesterday.  It’s just been a busy weekend!

Of course, it’s not all roses, either.  I have teenage people living here.  One who’s almost 17 and has recently returned to the mentality of a TWO year old, telling me “NO” and actually trying to stand on that.  Then there’s the 15-year-old who seems to have forgotten how to speak English, but is fluent in WHINE-ESE.  I bought a box of Cream of Wheat for the first time in about 12 or 13 years and she’s dying to try it.  But, instead of reading the box’s directions or waiting for help, she starts making it like instant oats.  She came in with the dessert bowl full of dry mix asking, “Is this how you do it?”  NO, it’s not how you do it… that’s enough to make a pot of the stuff!  *heavy and frustrated sigh* So she stormed off to her room, demanding I let her know when I’ve finished cooking her breakfast.  Grrr…..

Teenagers… dontcha just wanna BITCH SLAP them sometimes?

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Here’s a cool thing I wanted to pass along:

Introducting the International Book Blogger Mentor Program 2010

Lenore at Presenting Lenore is starting an International Book Blogger Mentor Program to help those who live outside the US and Canada be able to read and review the newer books that they’d otherwise not be able to receive as most publishers and blogging contests aren’t open to them.

Any book blogger who blogs in English about books and lives outside the US and Canada can apply. Each month I will pick one blogger to send 2-3 of my most recent review copies to.

I myself have always held my contests open to anyone, anywhere, so long as they have an address to send to, because I know it’s gotta suck to see a book you’d love to have, only to find out you’re geographically ineligible.  So Lenore’s idea is pretty cool 🙂

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Random rant….  Why is it that SPAMMERS suddenly think I’m a randy, philandering, inadequately equipped middle-aged man?  Judging by my INBOX… the one’s that my spam filter thinks I WANT to read, I’m in the market for Extenze… GAWD, I HATE those commercials! I want to rip that chick’s face off and monkey-stomp her… grrr……… AND that I’m in need of Viagra or the cheaper substitute.  The latest additions to my inbox are:

“I missed you at the bar” – really?  That’s probably because I wasn’t there.

“Why Wait have an affair with a cheating wife today” –  K, erm… I like to eat fish at the dinner table, cooked and with tartar sauce, NOT in the bedroom… or any other room they might want to hang it.  And eww… JUST… EWwwwWWWwwww… Not that there’s anything wrong with that, right Jerry?

“Engagement Ring. Make your proposal memorable.”  Apparently, not only am I a randy cheater with a tiny willy, but I’m lookin’ to get hitched, too!

I’ve been deleting all these messages, then emptying the trash, but maybe I should keep ’em for a while, then share them all in a blog post.  WordPress’ Akismet filter seems to work better than Yahoo’s, maybe they should work together and then I won’t get such craptastic emails.  But, then again, what would I have to laugh at?

Listening to Bodies by Drowning Pool