Good Enough to Eat Indeed!

Allow me to introduce you to Stacey Ballis.  Besides blogging at The Polymath Chronicles, Stacey is a fabulous author.  She is the partner in crime to another of my beloved authors and bloggers, Jen Lancaster and I tell you no lie, I would gladly give up just about any vice to be a fly on the wall when those two get going. Stacey has a new book, Good Enough To Eat.

I have a special place in my heart for books by bloggers but my literary tastes are vast, I’ll read anything as long as it isn’t a bodice-ripping Harlequin romance, a Western, a Sci-Fi book or anything that Stephen King has touched.  And aside from my love of Chick Lit, Memoirs, Forensic Thrillers and True Crime, Not to mention, I’m a book-a-holic.  I read about 3 books a week.  I devour them at an inhuman pace and my computer pretty much just points itself to Amazon without any prompting.  (Although much to my husband’s delight, I have recently procured a library card.)

Having read three of Stacey’s previous books, Inappropriate Men, Room for Improvement and The Spinster Sisters, I was so excited to hear about her newest release and pre-ordered it on Amazon months and months before it was released.  When it showed up, it was all I could do to keep myself from feigning a pathetic cough and rushing home to curl up on the back porch with my new treasure.

Stacey’s protagonists are always strong, powerful and unapologetic women and the latest, Melanie Hoffman, is no exception.  After working hard for nearly two years to lose half her body weight, Melanie has gone to culinary school and now runs a take-out business specializing in healthy gourmet food.  Then one day, with no warning,  her previously supportive husband up and leaves her for a woman twice her size.

I could not put this book down for the two days it took me to finish it.  Stacey Ballis has surrounded Melanie (who I adored secondly only to Sidney, the witty, sexy plus-sized star of “Inappropriate Men”) with intriguing friends and family and weaves a really wonderful story of a woman who thought she’s come to the end of a journey, when in fact, she’s only at the beginning.   I’d call it a beach read if it weren’t so freaking cold outside.  And yet… it has more to it than a normal beach book… more heart.

Stacey’s books are refreshing because they are about REAL women.  These aren’t supermodels skipping around Manhattan in 4-inch heels with mysterious unlimited funds (although I do profess a guilty pleasure for those books as well).  Her subjects are smart, witty, accomplished women who aren’t afraid of their faults and love themselves just the way they are.  Just between you and me?  That’s the kind of role model I would want for myself and my daughter… if I had one.

Find Good Enough to Eat, along with all Stacey Ballis’s books, on Amazon.

Featured photo by Horia Varlan

Programs For Blogging On The Go

I have several blogs that I write for.  I have my own personal blog, my own review blog that I’m just getting started, my photoblog currently under construction, and of course, here at Buy-Her.com.  With all that going on, along with being a single mom with two daughters, I usually write whenever, whereever I can.  And that sometimes means I don’t have access to internet.  I needed tools made for blogging on the go.

I went in search of a off-line desktop blogging program that I could use.  There are a lot to chose from.  My first and foremost criteria was it had to be free.  I needed to be able to use it for multiple blogs.  I needed it to be able to upload pictures.  I needed not just the pictures but I needed to title the picture and caption the picture.  And it all needed to be easy to use because I am *not* a computer genius.  (oh, and I’m a Windows user, sorry Mac people).

The easiest, cleanest, most straight forward program I found was Windows Live Writer. It’s very simple to set up. It works with Blogger, WordPress, and Typepad.  The set up looks very similar to Blogger or WordPress dashboard. The feature that I loved about it was the auto linking.  I since I use Buy-Her.com often in my blog posts, I could set it up that every time I typed Buy-Her.com it would automatically link here to the website and save me those extra steps.  Another nice feature is the ability to schedule a blog post.  I could write it, and schedule it to post at a later date, and then upload it to my blog and viola! It would be scheduled for the later date.  It also lets you upload your file as a draft so you can finish editing it on line adding keywords, SEO information, keywords, whatever before you hit Publish.  Good news?  It’s free!

The next program I looked at was BlogDesk.  Another free program this one works with all of the popular (by popular they mean WordPress, Movable Type, Drupal, Serendipity, and ExpressionEngine) blogging platforms, except Blogger.  The layout of BlogDesk is sparser, so if you like minimal tool bars this is the one for you.  I’m one of those if there aren’t a lot of buttons on the tool bar I forget there are other options available.  BlogDesk lets you add and edit photos in your blog posts.  It also has a frequently used phrases option with allows you to insert phrases and links that you use often with just a couple clicks of your mouse.

There is also Thingamablog.  I downloaded this program but I could never get it to connect and successfully publish a post to my blog.  What help I was able to find online did not solve the problem and then it was just over my head.  I also downloaded W.bloggar, which is another free program.  It appears to work well with most blogging platforms (most on the list I’ve never heard of).  The problem I encountered is it works with WordPress.com, but not with self hosted WordPress.

The one that I settled on, was Zoundry Raven.  The reason I like this program best is that I have it connected to my three blogs, and when I did that it downloaded all my previous blog posts.  So, I have my entire blog archive accessible.  I can search my history for a particular blog post, and link to it without having to go on line to do that.  It allows me to chose the categories that I want, schedule the blog post for a later time/date and I can use tag words. It also has a preview pane so you can see what your post will look like once it’s published.  You can also upload your file as a draft so that you can be sure all your SEO information is entered before publishing your post.

Like blogging platforms, choosing a blogging software program is a personal choice.  They all have their pros and cons. The ones listed here are all free to download.  Try them out, find out which one works best for you.

9 Books by Bloggers

Like many personal bloggers, I carry with me a secret dream.

Some day, somehow, someone will stumble upon my blog and be blown away by my writing and say “hey, lady, you should write a book.  Here’s thousands of dollars in advance.  Go to it!”

That sounds realistic, right?

OK, maybe not.  Maybe it requires a little more work and a hell of a lot of talent.

Oh, fine.

A lot more work and an extraordinary amount of talent.  Whatever.

Regardless, it’s inspiring to know that people have done it.  It says that it’s possible.

Looking for a great gift for an aspiring writer?  These books by bloggers are a great place to start.

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Get Your Geek On: Shirts & Gifts For Bloggers

The Internet is a strange and wonderful place, filled with strange and wonderful people.  And not all of us are living in our parent’s basement anymore.

While blogging and the blogosphere haven’t gone completely mainstream yet (we all still have friends who “don’t get it” and use air quotes when talking about “the Internet”), our cool factor has definitely gone up in the last few years.

Here’s a few products to help you embrace our geek chic.

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