Texty Ladies » blog

Wishcasting Wednesday

Pamela Sweet — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 20:00:43 +0000

Wishcasting Wednesday is a weekly exercise in exploring your dreams and supporting the dreams of others. It is hosted by the beautiful and inspirational Jamie Ridler of Jamie Ridler Studios, who posts a weekly question and explains:

You can be a maker of magic and a tender of wishes. It’s easy. Answer the wish prompt above on your blog and then add a direct link to your post in the box below. Support wishes by visiting other participants, leaving a comment saying “As (insert name) wishes for her/himself, so I wish for her/him also.” It’s that simple. There is great power in wishing together.

I’ve been participating for some time now and find it to be one of those few moments in my week I take entirely for myself, to dream, ponder, explore, learn and support others. I look forward to it immensely!

This week, I talk about my reason for taking a blogging hiatus in October. If you’d like to read about it, please hop over to Sweet Soliloquies. If you’d like to learn more about Wishcasting Wednesdays and see what other people are wishing for, go to today’s question at Jamie Ridler Studios.

I hope you’ll join us. Dare to dream!

Seems like forever…

Pamela Sweet — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 17:26:48 +0000

Hello, all! It seems like forever since I last posted. I was on hiatus while recovering from an illness but am feeling better and look forward to hanging out with you all again!

I’ll bring you a new prompt next week for Poetry Play Thursday so I hope you’ll stop back and participate. I love reading your poems and discovering how the prompt inspired you!

Some of you may know that I’m addicted to changing the theme of my personal blog every month or so (sometimes more often than that!) and you’ll be happy to know that I’ve finally found one with enough options to keep me happy for some time to come! For those of you who use WordPress, I’m using the free Suffusion template downloadable right from your Dashboard. It’s awesome! I’m in the process of updating my blog now and hope to complete it soon!

That’s it for now. I hope you have a fantastic weekend!

~ Pamela

Changes & Challenges!

Pamela Sweet — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 06:35:34 +0000

On what was to be the day of our big reveal, we experienced formatting issues that made it impossible for us to continue using our chosen new template for this site. Over the next few days, we’ll reselect a template and make the necessary adjustments so please bear with us.

In the mean time, I can tell you about a new feature here at Texty Ladies…the book challenge! You have noticed them on other blogs or might even be participating in one more more yourself. It seems that people can get quite addicted to them!

We’ve created our own challenge and if it’s successful, we might consider hosting one quarterly. Our first challenge is the:

Rules:

The challenge runs from August 10, 2009 to December 10, 2009 (4 months).
The goal is to read at least 1 ebook each month for a total of 4 ebooks (or more if you’d like). These can be read all in one month or one each month; it’s up to you.
You do not have to have a blog to participate.
It is okay to use ebooks you’re using for other challenges but at least 2 should be specific to this challenge.
If you do have a blog, it would be great if you posted the books you are reading on your site, perhaps even writing a review for each one or post one wrap-up post about all the ebooks you’ve read for this challenge. If you do not have a blog, please comment on this article listing your name and how many ebooks you plan to read. You may also list their titles if you know them.
To sign up, please leave a comment for this article with the above information. We’re having Mr. Linky issues right now but plan to use it for future challenges.
Prizes, you say? But of course! We’ve got a Texty Ladies basket of goodies for the challenge participant whose name is drawn at the end of this challenge.

If you have any questions about the challenge and its rules, please leave your question in the comments or use our contact page and we’ll answer promptly. Oh, and please help yourself to the button we’ve created for this challenge.

That’s all there is to it. Easy as pie, right? We do hope you’ll participate and we look forward to hearing about your ebook experiences (and hopefully get to read some reviews as well)! Happy reading!

We appreciate your continued patience with the many changes occurring here at Texty Ladies. We sincerely hope our efforts will provide you with a much better organized site.

Awards!

Pamela Sweet — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 05:31:12 +0000

Anita Davison and the amazing authors at Hoydens and Firebrands have awarded Texty Ladies with the “Premio Dardas Award.” Hoydens and Firebrands is an awesome site dedicated to 17th Century writings.

The Premio Dardas Award:

“acknowledges the values that every Blogger displays in their effort to transmit cultural, ethical, literary, and personal values with each message they write.” According to the creator of the award, it is “a way to show appreciation and gratitude for work that adds value to the Web.”

We are so very honored to receive this award and would like to thank Anita Davison and the Hoydens and Firebrands for reading Texty Ladies. We would like to nominate the following outstanding blogs to receive this award:

1. Happily Forever After

2. Allison Winn Scotch

3. Unusual Historials

4. Witchy Chicks

5. Nathan Bransford

Thank you to all of our readers for spending time at our blog and sharing your thoughts with us. You’re the best!

I’d also like to thank Gypsy from Creative Soul Explosion for giving me this award at my A Touch of Inspiration blog. I’ve been having so much fun with that blog and have met so many kind and creative people. Gypsy is wonderful and I’m honored to receive this award from her. Please check out her awesome blogs at:

Creative Soul Explosion

Confessions of a Kitchen Witch

Barefoot in the Sand

Allie & Me

~ Pamela

Here a Meme, There a Meme, Everywhere a Meme Meme

Pamela Sweet — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 04:16:28 +0000

It seems that the world is caught up in memes, myself included. Not familiar with the term? Here’s a brief explanation.

According to The Daily Meme and sites around the web, a meme is:

An idea that, like a gene, can replicate and evolve.
A unit of cultural information that represents a basic idea that can be transferred from one individual to another, and subjected to mutation, crossover and adaptation.
A cultural unit (an idea or value or pattern of behavior) that is passed from one generation to another by nongenetic means (as by imitation); “memes are the cultural counterpart of genes”.

Some pronounce meme so it rhymes with the word team, others make it rhyme with the word hem (as in mem ory).

Memes give us ideas to think and write about, help us discover new websites, and introduce us to interesting people and potential friends. They’re also great as writing exercise. Some people think they are silly. Personally, I think they are what you put into them.

How do you do this thing called meme? Find one that speaks to you then follow the instructions given on the host site. Usually, you post a photo or write about the chosen subject, leave a comment on the host site, visit other bloggers who are also participating and leave a comment on their post as well. Not only will you meet new people, you’ll generate traffic to your blog or website.

For my Thursday Thirteen, I’m listing the memes I participate in and some I think look interesting (and will probably participate in at some point).

SACRED LIFE SUNDAY – Write about what is sacred to you: a moment, a treasured possession, a companion.
SLEEPING WITH BREAD- Based on the spiritual practice called the Examen by St. Ignatious. It is a weekly time to look at both the postive and negative aspects of your life.
SIMPLY KIND TUESDAYS – Write about kindness. The goal is to keep kindness on our blogs and in our minds.
WORDFUL WEDNESDAY - Showcase a photo and then write about it.
THURSDAY THIRTEEN – Post thirteen things about any subject.
ILLUSTRATION FRIDAY – The host posts a topic each week that you need to draw.
CAMERA CRITTERS – A weekend photo meme all about animals, be they pets, wildlife, domestic animals, insects, birds, etc.
IN OTHER WORDS – A quote to make you think (and write) about.
BOOKING THROUGH THURSDAY – All about books and reading.
A MONTH OF POETRY - The idea is to write a poem every day in the month of February, then post them, print them, sell them or burn them.
101 IN 1001 DAYS – You have 1001 days (approx. 2.75 years) to complete 101 goals.
LIMERICK & HAIKU PROMPTS – Every Friday, the host writes a funny limerick and haiku about a given theme and invites readers to write haiku and/or limericks about the same topic.
FREE FOR ALL FRIDAY - It isn’t about what you post, but what others post for you. You participate by allowing the public to post on your blog.

You’ll also find memes about food (recipes), movies, music and more. The Daily Meme is a great place to find out more about memes and search through a variety of links. I enjoy discovering new memes as I surf the blogs and have met some great people this way, too!

You can find most of my meme posts at A Touch of Inspiration, Rudigirl’s World, or here at Texty Ladies where I’ve posted several Thursday Thirteens.

Would you like to rave about a particular meme you participate in? Please tell us all about it in the Comments section of this post. If you’ve never tried a meme before, give it a try and let us know how it goes!

Links to other Thursday Thirteens!

1. Heather L

3. Ms. Menozzi

7. Paige Tyler

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

View More Thursday Thirteen Participants

~ Pamela

My Blog Update

Pamela Sweet — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 05:33:27 +0000

Hello, fellow texty folk!

Just wanted to let you know that I’ve done a major overhaul on the look and feel of my blog Rudigirl’s World (formerly Rudigirl’s Book World). The focus will not only be on books but art, music and more. I joined the CreativeEveryDay challenge this month and will post about it at Rudigirl’s World. What is that, you ask? CreativeEveryDay was started by artist Leah Piken Kolidas in 2008 as a way to infuse her life and the lives of others with daily creativity. Your creative acts do not have to be art related, but can include cooking, doodling, writing, dancing, brainstorming, what-have-you. You do not even have to post about it every day. Post whenever it works for you to do so. Leah has added a monthly theme this year that you can use or not, it’s up to you. Click here for more details on this low-key but worthwhile challenge. To follow my journey, just go to Rudigirl’s World.

I’ve also changed the look of Dreaming in Digital. This blog will continue to be my place for sorting out thoughts, experimenting with ideas, and ranting and raving about daily life.

Believe it or not, I’ve created another new blog, A Touch of Inspiration, to help focus my thoughts on more positive matters. Singer-songwriter, public speaker and creativity consultant Christine Kane, in her Resolution Revolution message, suggests we pick one word that will guide us throughout the year. Please check out her post to find out why she believes this will help. After deliberating for a few days, I’ve decided my word will be “inspire” or “inspiration.” I am inspired by so many things and would like to do something with that inspiration but I often run into a wall. It’s time to break it down. I think Ms. Kane is on the right track with this idea and so I’ll be following her lead and posting inspirational items at A Touch of Inspiration. You might ask why I need two different blogs for creativity and inspiration. Well, I probably don’t. I just wanted to have one separate place for inspirational items instead of mixing them in with the book reviews, library features, and more that will be posted at Rudigirl’s World. Besides, I liked both backgrounds, so sue me!

These three blogs will be where you’ll find me most often, outside of this group blog where I like to hang out with my texty friends.

On another note, I wanted to let you know about upcoming posts here at Texty Ladies. Talking as we have been about inspiration, I thought it might be nice to catch up with some of the artists we’ve featured here in the past. An update on what’s been going on with artist Kathy Ostman-Magnusen will appear next Thursday, January 15th, and I hope to bring you the latest on Natalia Pierandrei and others.

I’ll also be posting more author and artist interviews, a series of posts about something that’s been on my mind a lot lately, the senses, and more. I defer to my fellow Texty Ladies, who have more writing experience than me, to bring you the best writing tips and tricks. I’ll just let you know how my writing is going, fill you in on my trials and tribulations, you can do the same, and maybe we’ll learn from each other.

I hope you’ll check out Rudigirl’s World and A Touch of Inspiration and join me in the CreativeEveryDay challenge and the Resolution Revolution. I’d love to hear your thoughts on both.

Thanks for spending time with us here at Texty Ladies. I hope you’ve had a fabulous start to your new year!

Hugs!

~Pamela

Website News

Pamela Sweet — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 05:25:50 +0000

COMING SOON:

We’ll be making a few structural changes to the Texty Ladies website in the very near future.

Jane, BB and I will each have our own page, which will include internal and external links and a blog for news and other items that may not be appropriate for the Home Page.

The About, Cares & Causes, and Off Topic pages will be removed and their content transferred to our individual pages.

Our hope (at least mine!) is to eventually incorporate a forum, but to the best of our knowledge, WordPress does not support that at this time. Rumor has it that they are working on a social networking system which may or may not include a forum. We’ll definitely report back if we hear more on this subject.

We have lots of goodies in store for you in the coming months: loads of interesting interviews, guest blogs, book reviews, tutorials and workshops on a variety of topics. The next few weeks should bring more specifics so please stay tuned!

We hope you’ve found a home here with the Texty Ladies and want you to know we appreciate your comments and feedback and welcome any suggestions you might have regarding our site!

~ Pamela

Thoughtful Thursday: Blog Software

Pamela Sweet — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 18:35:32 +0000

My name is Pamela Sweet, and I’m a blogaholic. I admit that any time I hear about or discover new blogging software, my entire being wakes up and thrills at the opportunity to set up a free account. Will this be the ultimate in blog software? Will it do anything and everything I could ever want it to do? What about ease of use and ultimate control? I get bored quickly so does it have enough good themes and layouts to satisfy my desire for change? If not, it will need to provide me with the opportunity to add and modify outside themes; full HTML and CSS control.

One thing I’ve found in my blog software travels is that most do not allow you to add a forum or message board to your blog. It is true that a lot of people like the power of control in the blogging setup where the blogger posts and people comment. The blogger can choose whether or not to allow those comments to appear to the public. In a forum or message board, chaos reigns and the blogger would have to spend a lot of time moderating. We’ve talked about adding a message board to our Texty Ladies site but that will be some time in the future.

Here’s a list of the blogware I’ve used and a few comments about each. I’d love to hear about your experiences and preferences in this regard.

LiveJournal - Dreaming in Digital, created at LiveJournal, is my very first blog. LiveJournal is fantastic. It is extremely easy to set up an account and I love that there are so many themes to choose from. LiveJournal is all about community with a plethora of groups to lurk at or join. My only desire for LiveJournal is that they add widgets and other options you could place in the sidebars.

Blogger – My second blog, A Work In Progress, was created here. Blogger is good and quite often one of the first blog sites people will try. Just like LiveJournal, it is very easy to set up your blog. Maybe I’m just not looking hard enough, but I wish it was easier to browse other blogs. They do have “Blogs of Note” on the Dashboard, but what if I want to search by interest?

WordPress – My third blog, A Curious Brew, is at WordPress and is currently being updated. We also use WordPress for this Texty Ladies site. Of the three I’ve listed so far, WordPress gives you the most bang for your buck (actually, it’s free). Again, it is easy to set up, but it also has more options and gives the user more control. You can add categories, widgets, text boxes, videos, podcasts, and many more goodies to your posts and sidebars. There’s more control over comments and an added bonus: you can assign more than one user. It’s great for group blogs! NOTE: If you use an outside WP theme, be sure to look for one that is widget ready.

Vox – Vox has a cool look and is great for organizing and displaying photos, books, audios, videos, posts and comments. The ability to create collections is another neat feature. A collection is a convenient way to group together a set of assets for a particular topic. For example, if you took a vacation, you could make a collection of the travel books you read and the pictures you took. You could even add an audio or video file that you took sightseeing! I recently started a blog at Vox, Of Questionable Character (what was I thinking?), but need to play around and add more to it.

Typepad – My first experience with Typepad was not a good one. During the trial period, I had difficulties changing my theme and after repeated requests for help with no response, I canceled my account. Typepad is not free but it does offer varying degrees of control for the user and has plenty of options. You can go mobile, track your stats, add widgets and pages, and have complete control over HTML, CSS & JavaScript. You can also integrate your other blogs and social networking sites. Typepad also has more layouts to choose from than most other blog software. I’ve decided to give Typepad another chance and am creating “Sweet Endeavors”, which I hope will be up and running soon!

I’ll be checking into more blog software and will report about them in a future post. These will include Squarespace, BlogWare, b2evolution, Textpattern, and more. Please let me know your thoughts on the software you’ve tried and any tips or advice you might have. Thanks!!

TT Post

Pamela Sweet — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 15:16:48 +0000

Good morning! Please check back later today for my Thoughtful Thursday post on blog software.

Have a fabulous Thursday!

~Pamela

Off Topic

Pamela Sweet — Sun, 11 May 2008 04:10:03 +0000

I just finished a post on my personal blog over at LiveJournal that talks about a major component of my life…autism. My blog, Dreaming in Digital, is where I can talk about whatever comes into my head, work out problems, try out different writing styles and exercises, and just be myself. In April of this year, I took on the NaBloPoMo challenge of posting every day for the month using the theme of “Letters”. I chose to write to myself at different stages of my life, beginning at four years of age. In this post, I talk about how an important issue, that affects more and more parents and children these days, began to affect my family. I hope that you will read my post and comment there or here about your thoughts on this issue. Thank you. ~ Pamela

P.S. We are currently experiencing problems with posting comments on our other pages. Once that has been corrected, all Off Topic posts will be posted on that page.