Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Random Thoughts

I love reading The Peach's Saturday Randomness posts, so I'm using her idea. :-) I originally planned to title these posts "Weekend Rambling," but I realized that I would be terrible at keeping up with scheduled posts like that. I'll maybe just keep a draft of this type of post running constantly, add to it when I think of something to add, and post it when it gets to a decent length.

Comments

I originally intended to reply to all comments, but I haven't followed through on it. Please know that I appreciate the comments I receive. It makes me really happy when I see emails letting me know that I've received a new comment, but I don't always feel the need to respond to them. What do you ladies think? Is it necessary/proper etiquette to reply to every comment left? How do you deal with comments?

GFC

The demise of GFC for everyplace but blogger blogs has created a little bit of a dilemma for me. I've already hinted at it a couple of times, but I'm plotting my first giveaway. I want to keep it simple, so I planned on the only requirements being to follow me on GFC and leave a comment. Does it still make sense to do giveaways this way since people not on blogger would need to create a blogger account? Is there a better way?

Photo Editing

I read somewhere about Picasa photo editing software. I started using it over the weekend, and I'm really liking it. I was thrilled when I saw that it has a function to straighten crooked pictures. I had been missing that function using Photobucket. I think I'll be able to keep my photos a bit more organized this way too.

I also started watermarking my photos. I don't know that anyone would ever decide to steal content from my blog, but it's a simple change that is extra assurance that it won't happen. I did my first tagged photos with the name of my blog since my URL is rather long, but I'll probably switch to my URL for all future posts since it is better assurance that people can't steal my content.

Formatting

My bachelor's degree is in journalism, and I supervised a school newspaper during the two previous school years. Why am I bringing this up? My lack of consistency, which is so necessary with a newspaper, is bothering me with my blog. I use picture captions in some instances but not others. Sometimes I include prices other times I don't. Same with linking to where I purchased something. Even though it is bothering me, I'm not going to stress about it too much at this point. I figure most of these things will work themselves out over time when I figure out what works for me. 

No-Buy

I didn't post anything official,  figuring I would fail miserably, but I've been on a no-buy for the month of March. So far, I've made it, and it's the downhill slope of the month. This weeks 40% off Physicians Formula sale at CVS was really tempting me, but I was in there yesterday and resisted. I'm also worried about going on a buying binge when my no-buy is over, and I shouldn't do that either.

My Makeup Setup

I was going to leave this post picture-free, but it just looked so bland. Instead, I figured I would post a picture of my makeup area.



My fiance and I bought a home back in August that is large enough for both of us to have an office. Mine had this desk and shelves already in place. I love having the room to spread out my collection. I use it a lot better now than I did when it was all shoved into a small bathroom. My laptop sits on the small desk in the bottom right corner of the pictures (yes, my computer desk is smaller than my makeup desk). I like being able to play youtube videos while I'm getting ready in the morning or being able to grab things from my collection when I am writing blog posts. It's still a work in progress, but my current setup works well for the time being.

I hope all of you ladies are enjoying beautiful spring weather. It has been gorgeous here lately!

8 comments:

  1. I start a draft post for my Saturday Randomness then add to it throughout the week. Seems like some weeks I have more random thoughts then others! I have wanted to respond to all comments, but it just hasn't been pratical for me. But I always make sure to respond to any questions! I had the same thought about GFC when I just posted my last giveaway. Since not everyone is using GFC, I just asked that people who entered the giveaway at least tell me how they are following. And YES! mark your photos! I never thought people were going to steal my stuff, but they did :( Good work on your no-buy! I kink of went on a binge, but not bad. It was all stuff I had planned out and thought thru first.

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  2. I've personally decided that it is unfair to only allow certain followers to enter because it was the easiest method of "tracking" them (GFC). I learned that I have almost as many followers that use other methods that in total use GFC, so I've totally changed my perspective on it.

    I never mark my photos. I am unconvinced that people won't steal them even if they're marked. :P I see marked photos stolen all the time, too.

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    1. I think I'm going to use The Peach's approach to giveaways...let me know how you follow in your comment.

      I realize that marking photos isn't a foolproof method for preventing content being stolen. Some people have no shame when it comes to that sort of thing. It's really sad. At least marking my photos might discourage theft.

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  3. That desk with the shelves above is awesome.

    I was never fussed one way or the other about comments - if someone just wrote, "Great post!" or something I didn't really feel like I needed to reply, but if someone asked a question or said something I had a response to, I would. But then one person I know went off on this rant (that may or may not have been directed at me) about how rude it was not to bother responding when someone has made the effort to comment and blah blah, and a fair few people responded agreeing with her. I thought it was a bit precious, but on the other hand, I'm not out to hurt people's feelings either, so I try to make more of an effort now. Having said that, I might get half a dozen comments on a post, so it's not that big a deal for me to reply to all of them. If I was getting 40 or more, I might not be so inclined to bend to the whims of the fragile egos. ;-)

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    1. I love my makeup area!

      Thanks for your perspective on comments. My perspective has been sort of like your original one. The rant in interesting. I guess I'll try and start getting better about responding to each comment. I certainly don't want to offend anyone by not responding.

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  4. I love this :) I think it looks really great :) I have my laptop and another computer on the same desk where I do my makeup, uni work etc :) My makeup collection is in a bureau in the same room :)
    The blue walls look awesome :)
    Oh btw, I have awarded you on my blog :) Under my header you see a page called Awards! Click on that and scroll down the page and you will see the award :) Its called The Blogger Appreciation Award :)
    hugs

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    1. Thank you! I love the wall color too. :-)

      Thanks for the blog award! That's sweet of you. I haven't gotten around to doing a post on it, but hopefully I can get to it within the next few days.

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