I came across this website today called Fat Girl Gets Fit and am rather impressed. It’s a completely simple concept, but the lady has done a really nice job with it. She’s got her original and current stats plus a graph to chart her weight loss all visible on the sidebar plus a bunch of other neat things. And she’s got a spot where you can sponser a pound, which I think is a completely hilarious idea in that ingenious sort of way.

Plus, I love the layout. Clean but fun and the exercising gal who looks like she’s exercising and praying for the weight loss dieties to shine on her is quite appealing (that’s probably a yoga pose that I know nothing about). At the moment, I’m on the all work-all-the-time/nursing-a-ten-month-old-walrus-baby (Henry, not a real walrus) diet so don’t really need any help in that dept., but now I’m sure I’m going to start wondering what else I could adapt for the idea. Hmmm, something to ponder in all my spare time….

Anyway, just thought some of you guys who are in weight loss mode might find it encouraging/amusing.

Rachel

to your 10 year old…

“No Georgie, I do not know how to make an electromagnet.”

That was the result of his reading this:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

and to your 3 year old…

“No Faithy, you may not get a tatoo!”

in response to her post-communion wine proclamation on Sunday: “I want a tatoo!” Maybe that’s why many churches forgo the Biblical wine part of communion wine in favor of grape juice. Just what I always wanted ~ my three year old guzzling communion wine and requesting tatoos in the middle of church service.

Rachel

Well okay, that might be a bit of hyperbole. Although I could blog without these, why would I want to? I’m sure this will be of interest to about zero people (maybe one), but I’ve decided to put it here so that a) I don’t forget what I did to my blogs this week so that next time I have to go revamp a blog I don’t have to try to remember and look all over, and b) it’s in a nice list for any other bloggy people should they be remotely interested.

Everything on this list is free except for aWeber, which has a monthly fee dependent on the package you sign up for. I think mine is $15 or $20 a month and I use it all the time.

WORDPRESS BLOG UPGRADE:

1. Automatic Upgrade Plugin ~ The newest version of WP comes with a built in automatic upgrader, but if you are running an older version, this plugin makes upgrading a snap (takes maybe twenty seconds).
2. WordPress Themes for giving your blog a makeover.
3. Plugins I use:
   • Akismet for trapping all those spam comments
   • Add sig automatically adds your customized signature to every post. Works for multi-author blogs.

   • Category Posts for adding a Favorite Posts list

   • FeedSmith is for running your blog through FeedBurner, which is blog stats and stuff

   • Google Analyticator for Google site stats

   • SnapShots adds those neat popup things to outside links that give a preview of the site the link goes to.

4. Publicity:

   • aWeber.com for emailing your posts to an email subscriber list (make sure you put a web form box at the top of your sidebar menu. If you have two menus, put it at the top of the left one)

   • hootsuite.com for automatically posting links to your blog post titles to your Twitter account (also has good Twitter blog stats and pays you for adding an ad bar to the top of your links)

   • twitter.com/widgets Twitter widgets for posting your Twitter updates back to your blog sidebar.

   • Facebook badge for your blog sidebar

   • Import your blog posts to your Facebook wall as notes: http://screencast.com/t/9UKFu0uNu2f. I can never remember how to do this, so I just made a short vid to show you (it’s in a really not-so-obvious place so this seemed easier).

   • Add your blog to Facebook Networked blogs to get it on your FB sidebar

   • FeedBurner.com for thorough tracking of all your blog stats and where they are coming from (even the ones that get read through aWeber emails) and lots of other neat features (like an email signature scrolling headline to put in your siggies.
5. Browser addons for posting automation and organization (these are all for Firefox. I don’t know what they have for IE so don’t ask.):
   
   • Scribefire for Firefox lets you post to all your blogs (and edit, delete, add categories, upload pictures, etc.) from one popup bar at the bottom of your screen. I never, ever go to my actual blog admin panels to post. Ever. It’s what I used for this post.
   • TwitterFox lets me post to all of my Twitter accounts from a little popup dealy.
   • Facebook Toolbar for Firefox lets me post status updates from my browser bar and see all my friends’ updates without ever going to the FB site.

Okay, well I think that’s my big list. Now I see why it’s been averaging me about five hours per blog to do a complete revamp. Having all this in a nice list will probably make it much easier and faster. Of course, now that I’m done with all of mine, I don’t need it! Maybe it will help some of you guys.

Rachel

So last fall when I had my what-are-my-kids-going-to-wear flip out, I ended up consigning a bunch of stuff at local consignment events and then buying new stuff at the same.

The payouts for these are much better than consignment stores, averaging between 65% and 80%. For stuff I had floating around that was too ancient for eBay but still in good condition, it worked beautifully. I think I made around $400 which immediately got spent at the next sale.

I found a lot of really nice things at great prices and am never buying shoes at Payless again because I found tons of really good quality things for between $5 and $10 (got Kyra a pair of gorgeous red leather boots from some European brand for $5. Pretty happy about that!).

So the other day I checked up on the dates for all the biggest ones and thought maybe some of you guys would like that information as well. I am a bit behind on a few of my kids’ summer wardrobes and am planning on filling in the rest at the consignment sales (except for Georgie who I found nearly nothing for last year).

3/13-3/15 Gresham Armory ~ Super Kids Resale
3/14-3/15 Red Lion at the Quay (Vancouver) ~ Kids Konsign NW
3/28-3/29  Oak’s Park ~ Pass It On Sales  
4/17-4/19  Washington County Fairgrounds ~ Pass It On Sales
4/24 -4/26  Expo Center ~ Just Between Friends

These look like the biggest. The other ones I scoped last year either aren’t there anymore or have no spring info on their site. If you would like to consign and need a tagging gun (you can use safety pins but if you have a lot of stuff that becomes a huge headache really quick), you can get one here for $7.99 including shipping, barbs, and all that. It takes a couple weeks for it to ship so order it early:
Tagging Gun.

Also, Old Navy stores give away free hangers when they are done using them and I hear that OshKosh and I think Carters outlets do the same. Just ask an employee when you get there. Dollar Tree and Bi-Mart carry pretty cheap kid sized hangers too.

So mark your calendars and don’t buy the stuff I want to buy (but you are allowed to buy what I’m selling).

Rachel

Oh, my brain is fried. Happily, it isn’t really required for the laundry folding that I have to do this evening. I’m still working a gazillion hours on web stuff, and I will be so happy when it’s pinned down and I can move on to something else.

Today my big project was revamping the Gymboree News Blog. I upgraded my blog software; switched out the template to a snazzy new one that I really like; got rid of the unnecessary stuff on the sidebar and added important things like email signup, Favorite Posts, and a Twitter feed box; hooked it up to my email service so the blog posts automatically go out to people on the list; hooked it up to Twitter so blog post titles will be tweeted for people there (increasing exposure and readership); added a little advertising here and there; added stats to everything so I can tell how many people are reading the emails, blog, and tweets; deleted some old pages that didn’t need to be there; updated the About the Author page; and generally cleaned up and revamped the entire thing. It took about seven hours. Then I fed Henry some oatmeal and took a power nap.

Even though I’ve been doing web stuff for six years now, I still always underestimate how long projects will take. All of those things on that list are easy enough to do, but getting them all done and figured out and cooperating with each other without breaking each other is a bit more complicated (upgrading is notorious for breaking stuff all by itself; happily it went smooth as could be this time). Plus, just keeping track of all the little pieces is a headache.

But it’s all done now, which is great because I’m picking up a new blog editor this week to run the GNGC blog (swapping for a link back to her site on each post) and now it’s all cleaned up, spanking new and ready to go. Yay!

Okay, I’m off. Must go make dinner and put Mr. Cranky Pants to nap before he hits my caps lock again.

Rachel