It's time to say goodbye so soon...

I think the most important thing I learned in Betty Blogger school is that this whole world of social media isn't so scary after all. It's just a matter of taking the time to learn about it. I also learned that some stuff is much more useful than others and that some people have a lot of time on their hands!

The most challenging thing for me was to remember to make the time to read the background info and instructions and not just jump in. The odd time when I did jump in, I ended up floundering around and it took twice as long -- much better to do a little reading or watch a tutorial.

The self-directed model was awesome! Even though I felt guilty when I would miss a week, it was great to be able to power through the lessons when I had the time without having to wait for more details or instructions. It was especially great since I'm preggers and wanted to make sure I completed the course before the baby came! (Oh dear... hope I'm not plowing through Betty Blogger as some form of pre-delivery nesting?!)

This course absolutely opened up the doors to the world of social media as a great introduction. In order for me to use it more for work, I think I would need more training on how to relate it to the corporate world, but it was definitely a great intro.

I would absolutely recommend the course to friends and colleagues if they didn't have much expertise in this field.

Thanks Library Lady... excellent work!

Library Thing

Oooh... after racking my brain for five books that I read lately and thinking how I really need to start reading more, I made up my own library http://www.librarything.com/catalog/fatfree.

I liked Library Thing cause it was really easy to use and got me excited about reading again. I found myself finding more books that I like to read. It's like when I go to Chapter's website and use their recommendation tool -- why doesn't the library catalogue work like that?!

I will totally use this again. It was fun.

Feed me!

Google Reader was super easy to use! I only signed up for one feed (A to Z Kids Stuff) because I want to make sure my inbox doesn't get inundated with stuff before signing up for more. I can see that this will be very useful for keeping up-to-date without having to traipse through a kazillion websites.

I think I'll for sure keep using Google Reader, especially because it was so easy to use. My only concern would be getting bogged down with too many feeds (I can see that it would be easy to get carried away signing up for feeds that look interesting!).

All this picnic talk makes me glad it's the long weekend!

I am bringing a five-bean salad to our family picnic. Yummy!

PBWiki was super easy to use so that was great! I'm still trying to wrap my head around why I would use a wiki instead of email. At least with email I don't have to go into a new program, it just comes straight to me. I guess if I got into it then it wouldn't seem like extra work.

I can see using my own wiki at some point -- maybe for planning those big trips to the cottage that have now grown to more than 23 people!

Ingredients

 This was the first meal I ever cooked for my hubby (not my hubby at the time). I wanted something that was yummy, but easy and didn't set the bar too high -- there was plenty of time for me to wow him with my culinary greatness!

 

The other night I cooked it for my 17 month old son for the first time, thinking there's no way he would like it ... and he did! He couldn't get enough of it. My picky eater was eating chicken and veggies!! Awesome. Now I just have to find more dishes like it. Yummy for the whole family!

 

Wowie Maui Chicken

Ingredients

4 Boneless, skinless chicken breast halves, cut into 1-inch cubes

2-1/2 cups Low-sodium, reduced-fat chicken broth

1 can (14oz) pineapple tidbits in juice, undrained

1-1/2 cups Uncooked long grain white or brown rice

3/4 cup Finely chopped carrots

1/2 cup Each chopped sweet red and green pepper

1/3 cup Ketchup

2 tbsp Each brown sugar, reduced-sodium soy sauce, and white vinegar

2 cloves Garlic, minced

3/4 cup Chopped green onions

Preparation

Spray a large saucepan with non-stick spray. Add chicken. Cook over medium-high heat until no longer pink.

Add remaining ingredients except green onions. Stir well. Bring to a boil. reduce heat to medium-low. cover and simmer for 25 minutes, until rice is tender (if using brown rice, make sure it is the quicker-cooking variety, but not instant). Stir occasionally.

Stir in green onions during the last five minutes of cooking time. Serve immediately.

Photo madness!

Who knew so many people liked to share photos of themselves?! I first did a search on dogs and pregnancy and was then just getting family shots, so I did a search on penguins (natural progression!) and came across this guy's page that had gorgeous penguin pictures. They're so cute.

The only tag on the photo I sent you was penguin (guess he's not that creative). What do you call a baby penguin?

Picasa was pretty good and I could see it's usefulness, but I use to use Facebook to share my photos with people and that way I have more control over who sees what. I could see it being useful in my career to try to find images for ideas on how to stage photo shoots, but I really like the glamour shots more than the regular ones and would get more use out of a stock photo site.

I think I probably won't use Picasa to post my own photos, but might use it every once in a while for fun. And it's good to know about.

Facebook

I used Facebook a lot when I was on maternity leave last year. Since moving and going back to work and having the computer in the dingy basement, I haven't really been on it. I found it was fun when you have the time and you get to catch up with a lot of people you haven't seen forever, but it can become a little stalker-ish.

I'm not really concerned about the privacy aspect of facebook, because I don't post anything I would worry about anyone seeing and if I don't know someone I don't accept their friend request.

I'll probably keep using Facebook after Betty Blogger, but I have such a hard time uploading pictures at home, I don't know how up-to-date it'll be.

Delicious doesn't taste so good!

This week's homework assignment was to mess around on Delicious and figure out the whacky world of tagging.

Since I just moved into a new house and am preoccupied with making it look like someone lives there (enough of the builder white already!), I bookmarked a couple websites relating to decorating:

• http://www.lampsplus.com/
• http://www.housebeautiful.com/
• http://www.copycatchic.com/
• http://www.homehints.com.au/

The tags I added were not very creative -- pretty much just descriptive like lamps, decorating, decor.

I have to admit, I did not enjoy my Delicious experience -- felt more burnt to me! I found it hard to navigate and can't imagine I'll use it again. If I want to see a website at home that I've bookmarked at work, I'll just email the address to home. It seems so much easier.

Maybe I'll check it out later today on a different computer and see if it's useful there.

Too cute!

Any time you're having a bit of a bad day, this can't help but cheer you up!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiEuFUwnGxE

YouTube is fun, but there's a lot of junk as well. I think some people think they're way more interesting than they actually are! :)

I think streaming has become so popular because people love to think they're famous. Plus with so many news channels looking for news, anyone can become famous just by posting something crazy.

I think I'll keep looking at YouTube every once in a while, but probably only to see things that people talk about. Not so much for surfing just to kill time -- although once the baby comes and gets into a nap schedule, maybe I'll be looking for a way to kill time!

Betty Blogger & Me

Whoo hoo! Betty Blogger summer school here I come!

What to do, what to do, what to do? What to do this summer while I work away at my PR job and wait for my baby #2 to germinate and join me in September -- I know, I'll learn more about Web 2.0.

While I know enough about facebook (thanks to maternity leave with baby #1), I'm pretty out of the loop when it comes to other things so this should provide the perfect intro... and at $10 the price is right!

Even though my first homework assignment is late (can I say that the baby ate it?), eventually it got done and that's all that matters!

Til next time.