When I look back at what I write, it’s all very much my personal thoughts and experiences, so would I be classified as a personal blogger? Is that even a title?

I have also contemplated going to blogger meet ups like the ones organised by Hello Owl, but I don’t think I would have a very interesting way of explaining who I am, and what I write about:

I think it and I write it, because I don’t know how to keep it to myself

Yeah wow. Captivating. Snore.

Whilst I have dabbled in discussing my short-lived singledom & dating life as well as various relationships, I also wouldn’t say that I’m a dating blogger. Likewise, just because I have posted photos of the day for nearly 1.5 years, I also wouldn’t call myself a photo blogger.

If you had to categorise me, how would you do it?

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The old blog layout

The new layout

The main change with the new layout compared to the old is that it feels a lot cleaner. The old one had a lot going on the page, with all the various blue headings and boxes and the header image really grabbing your attention. I would like to hope that the new one has you looking at the right places (aka my content, not a bunch of swirling lines) but with easy navigation so you can still find what you need. I also like the rough grunge look too – I think that’s very “me”.

In the near future I have some improvements I want to make:

• A custom header. As self conscious as I am, I figure my head needs to make an appearance here. Thus the canon will have to surface from its camera bag, and a photo shoot will need to take place. I expect this will take hours, followed by the requisite photoshopping to take it from a bad photo to an interesting header.
• Better navigation from post-to-post. I noticed that I’ve again lost the “previous post” and “next post” options, so I’ll have to get this working again!
• A featured image per post. If I don’t get some colour on this blog somewhere I fear it will become depressing to look at, and I don’t want that!
• A better related posts plugin. Something that really makes you want to stay on my page and read some more of what I have to offer (and hopefully what I have available is actually interesting)
• A clean up of my categories and tags, they’re pretty all over the place and there’s far too many.
• A better About page. I think it’s time I stopped hiding and spent some time letting all you readers get to know me!
• A contact me page. Again, while I want to remain as anonymous with regards to my specific identity and contact details,  I would still like to set up a form so you can contact me personally if you felt the need. However if you’re offering to send me millions of dollars provided I first give you my bank details, or if you have offers for penis enlargements, I may ignore you. Actually, I will ignore you.

Of course, while I have my own ideas for this site none of it matters if it doesn’t work for you – the audience! I would absolutely love and adore you if you took the time to let me know what you think of the new layout, and if there’s anything else you think I need to do to it. After all, I’m very much a newbie to all of this, and you can’t learn if there’s not someone willing to share some advice! So please – comment away!

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The old site

I would love to know what you think of the site compared to the old one. I want to hear it all, both positive and negative. Go on, I can take it. I’m a big girl. Comment now!

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If you don’t know what an RSS feed is, it’s basically subscribing to a website using an RSS feed reader (Google Reader etc). If you subscribe to multiple websites, you can then just open Google Reader and see which ones have been updated. You can also read the articles from there. To subscribe to my feed, click on the big RSS icon at the top of my site, and it will take you through the process of subscribing to my feed. You can even set up a Google Reader account if you don’t have one!

The RSS icon to subscribe to my blog

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You read correctly, by the way. Yes, I’m back to riding my bike.

I only really blogged about the setback with my knee through a photo of the day,  but basically the my VMO got very lazy. In simple terms, the VMO is the muscle that is responsible for holding my knee cap in place, so whenever I was running/riding/whatever, I was putting some serious strain on my knee. It came to a head one day when my knee just ballooned one day, and was a little bit sore to walk on. The physio had one look at it and said “no running, no riding, nothing. Minimal walking”.

Fast forward a few weeks, and I found out that I wasn’t able to participate in the Sydney City 2 Surf, a 10km run in Sydney. I had done it last year, and swore that this year I would run the whole thing. Instead, I wasn’t able to go in it at all. I put on a brave face to the physio, but got home and cried. I think I was devastated more for the fact that yet again I was back to being injured, and I was sick of it!

Well, nearly 3 weeks later and after religiously doing whatever the physio told me to, I was allowed to participate in the Bridge to Brisbane. This was another 10km event, but I had strict instructions that I was to walk on any slope (uphill or downhill) and that I was only allowed to run approximately 100m or so for every kilometre. Mat and I did it, completing the track in just over 1.5 hours. Throughout the race it was clear that Mat could have run faster and further than I could, but despite my insistance that he should keep going, he stated that he had wanted to do this with me, and thus he was staying with me. I secretly was pretty thrilled, and thought that was incredibly awesome of him. End of the day we were both a little tired, I was sore (Mat wasn’t), but the main thing was that my knee held up really well. So well in fact, that my physio has allowed me to return to riding my bike, which brings me back to today.

So what else has been on my plate? Uni study. I let myself get a little behind, and I’m currently trying to catch up. Every night of the week is study night at the moment, but it’s tough. At the moment I’m studying differentials (maths), and struggling a little bit. I’ll keep pushing on though, I’ve only got 2.5 weeks until I have to hand in my assignment. Needless to say, a lot of my extra time will be dedicated to maths. Looking forward to my “school holidays” in a few weeks!

I think that’s pretty much everything at the moment. I have a list of blog posts that I want to write when I can, as well as get a few more photos of the day up. Wow, it’s never-ending is it! Lucky I enjoy this *grin*

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Take the common office notepad, for example. It could be that I’m just a stationery whore, or it could be an extension of my love of all things new. When my notepad is about halfway through I feel the itch. I start wasting pages, writing bigger, aimlessly drawing then telling myself I cant use that page now cause it’s ruined. All of it brings me closer to what I want: a new notepad.

It also extends to my blog; every theme I have lasts only a few months. I start out with the best of intentions, that this is “the one”. I tell myself that any future enhancements will be built upon the new theme and that it’s my “base” and not a whole product. A month goes by, then another. The theme stays the same, I never invest the time to make it something wholly amazing. Then the itch comes, and I install a new theme.

I had the itch today, and I scratched it. Welcome to the new Kelly’s world theme.

It’s called Desk Mess Mirrored 1.5.1 by Edward Caissie, and it’s available on the site for download at http://buynowshop.com/themes/desk-mess-mirrored/. I haven’t changed a thing, purely because I don’t think it needs to be changed. I love it. I showed it to a friend, and her first words were “it’s very you”.

I don’t know if this is “the one”, purely because I’m being realistic this time. What I can say, is that it has all the elements that I was hoping to do with all my former themes. Vector icons at the top, cool background, an overall interesting look to my blog. It’s not just some boring background with a bunch of text for posts over it. It’s visually appealing, and I love that.

Let me know what you think, I would love to hear your thoughts.

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Her balance eventually reached the threshold required ($100) before they would issue the respective blogger with a payment. Alas, no payment ever came. She has contacted them several times to no avail. It finally became nasty when they tried to block her from their site, but she was able to access it from another location and screenshot all her account details and the opportunities she had completed. Jenn is going to start contacting the people who engaged Blog Advertising Store to get bloggers to write about their business, so they become aware that the BAS isn’t upholding its end of the bargain.

You can read the entire story here on Jenn’s blog.

Just a reminder, if you choose to write sponsored posts on your own site be wary of who you do business with. Spend the time and do a bit of research before signing up with these companies. It doesn’t pay to sell yourself out. Geddit? Pay? This is why I’m not a comedian.

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For example, one of the regular top keywords leading to my site is:

big day out boobs

That’s DEFINITELY not something I ever thought would be a major traffic source to my site. It all stems from my review of 2009′s “Big Day Out” festival on the Gold Coast. Contrary to what the keywords might have you believe, boobs was not a big thing for me. In fact, the term “boobs” only appears when discussing Bullet for my Valentine’s lead singer asking all the women to flash him, and my subsequent curiosity on the world record for most boobs flashed at one time.

Some other keywords that make me giggle:

• Power peeing
• 3 month long rash
• How to put up with bitching at work

Yep, I write about some random stuff!

The most popular page on my entire blog isn’t even my homepage. It’s a review that I did on a new coffee machine we bought at work, the Saeco Modo Mio. In fact, to give you an idea of just how popular the page is, it’s the third link on google if you do a search for Saeco Modo Mio. If you search for Saeco Modo Mio review, it’s the FIRST link! Incredible. If I got paid for every single hit on that page, I’d have a lot of money (not exactly rich, but stoked with all the money I was getting).

Sometimes the attention you get is from the most unexpected means. Perhaps I’ll write a random post on donkeys, see how many hits I get on that. If I add boobs in there somewhere, I’m sure it will be a hit!

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This year I’ve really been focusing on my blog more, trying to make the effort to write more posts. To help “fund” this interest (sorry for the terrible pun) I signed up for google advertising, and a sponsored blog post site, SocialSpark. Not only do I benefit by earning money from my blog, but the actual thought of earning is enough to persuade me to continue writing. I truly enjoy writing, and sharing all my pointless experiences with the world, so it’s pretty ideal.

I had been looking around at paid blogging sites, but they all required the user to just sit around and wait for a specific opportunity to be presented to them. Not fun. Looking around on socialspark.com I was impressed to see it was completely different – the advertiser posts the opportunity in the “marketplace”, and if you’re qualified, you take it. Done! The advertiser benefits by having multiple people take up the opportunity, and the blogger has the flexibility to select only topics which they can connect to, and find interest in. No doubt it ends up with more fascinating and useful articles.

Signing up was simple – create an account, paste some code in your blog, and verify it. Done! Then you browse to the marketplace and see what’s available. The first offer for all users is to write a sponsored post about socialspark.com, exactly like this one. So I confess, I’m earning money right now (thanks for helping me out).

It’s also like a social network in itself though. You can become “friends” with other bloggers, which theoretically is a new way to connect with other people out there. From browsing other users I have already discovered a couple of blogs that I’ve subscribed to. I’m still new to the service and working my way around, so I’m still yet to discover the power of the network, however having the ability to find new people and blogs definitely doesn’t hurt.

Of course, there are a few rules when it comes to submitting an acceptable post. There is a full Code of Ethics available if you wanted to peruse it, but really, it comes down to a few major points:

1. Letting your readers know it’s a paid post. For example, at the top of this post you will find full disclosure that this is a paid blog, however;
2. You must be completely honest with your readers. If I had signed up for socialspark.com, but had some major issues with the site and had noted it on this blog, they would appreciate the feedback and I would still be paid. This isn’t a service where you get paid for lying to people, and I’m definitely not interested in that.

Time will tell on how valuable this service will be, but given I’m currently saving for a wedding, every dollar counts.

If you’re you’re also interested in earning money from writing, click here to sign up. And most importantly, I’d love to hear your opinions on paid blogging. If you think it devalues the blog and you lose respect for the writer, I definitely want to hear from you. Let me know!

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Friday there was no call but only a few hours into the day I received my iPhone from a courier! It looked like the order had gone out after all! I was stoked and immediately started loading stuff although the majority had to wait for when I got home, my phone contacts included.

I made it through the day without losing too much work time to the iphone, and as of today I only have two screens worth of apps. I am actually being quite selective on what I put on there, nothing silly but I do wish the light sabre app was there, that would have been fun to annoy mat with.

One of the apps I added was the wordpress app, for which I am currently writing this post on! It’s incredibly simple, I am very impressed. Anyways, like usual I will give the iPhone some time then post my thoughts. So far most if it is positive so that’s good. The typing I have picked up well, even mat managed to get. And for him to accept some new technology within a day that is pretty major.

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