Tricia's Musings

Random Thoughts about life in general, living in the big city of Toronto



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Do you read the whole post or just skim?

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Ever since I mentioned that I’ve been steadily losing weight I’ve been getting comments on my blog posts, or via my contact form about various methods of losing weight.

I think it’s kind of funny because I’m losing weight by accident. It’s all because of a medication that I’m taking for my migraines. It’s cause me to have a decreased appetite and well, frankly – food just doesn’t taste all that good anymore.

Anyway … the suggestions I’m getting on my blog posts and on my contact form range from suggestions to take diet pills or to try hgh sprays or simple to just eat less. It’s kind of funny because it’s clear that people aren’t reading my full post. They must just read the title and or part of the first paragraph and decide on what their comment will be from there. I suspect most of these people are probably using automatic commenting software to find posts and that’s why this is happening to my weight loss posts.

If you’re also a blogger do you find that you get comments that only deal with part of your posts topic? Do you get a lot of spammy comments?





Working on Site Promotion tonight

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I’m in a lazy mood tonight.

We’re just waiting for our dinner to finish cooking and then we’re going to sit back and watch some TV shows like Glee and NCIS.

I think after dinner, while watching TV, I’ll work on doing a bit of site promotion. I haven’t done that in ages, and well … you need to do that every once in a while.

When I work on site promotion I generally visit blogs that I like and leave a comment if I have something to add to the post. I also sometimes spend time listing my various sites in niche directories or finding new directories like the freedirectorysubmission.org to list my websites in.

Do you actively work on site promotion? How do you promote your site?

Feeling more like writing – what do you want to read about?

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I haven’t been myself the last few months and I think it’s been evident on my blogs.

Obviously if you’ve been reading my posts over the last several months you know I haven’t been feeling all that well. First it was the Crohn’s that (well for the last five years) and then that seemed to start clearing up (finally!), but then I started having severe migraines.

I thought the pain of Crohn’s was bad enough, but somehow over the years I managed to work through it and well, at least I could work from home and when I really wasn’t feeling well I could at least read or watch TV.

Then when the Migraines started I began to get dizzy with them. Even watching TV or trying to read was difficult. Heck – sometimes even just lying down didn’t stop the spinning sensation. Now if only the migraine medication wasn’t causing so many side effects and now maybe skin blemishes I’d be happy! I think I have to get some acne products to battle the blemishes.

Normally my blog posts have lots of pictures in them, but I just realized … I haven’t picked up my camera to take photos of my garden or even taken my camera to any of the events or places I’ve gone since the end of May or beginning of June. Now that’s a first!

The good thing is that my head is clearer these days. My migraines are a lot better and well, the dizziness is still around, but it’s better than it was. In the last month it’s easier for me to write posts that it was all summer. Now if only I had more pictures of some of the things I did over the summer to add to my posts that would be nice. LOL

Oh one more good thing … maybe .. yesterday I wrote that my abdomen was so sore that I was curled in a ball on the couch. Today, for some reason, I’m feeling quite a bit better. My abdomen is still crampy, but it’s better than it was. Maybe it will slowly start to get better over the rest of the week. Fingers crossed.

So … now that I’m feeling a little more up to writing, or a little more “able” to write, what kinds of things would you like to read about? If you’re a long time reader of Tricia’s Musings what kind of posts do you enjoy reading when you come to visit?

Lets see .. I can write more posts about this great city – Toronto – and the various events that I like to try to attend (usually free or almost free), or I can write more posts about my silly Labrador Retriever?, life with my husband, crazy neighbors, my garden, home renovation and decor – although we haven’t been doing much renovating these days. What do you WANT to read about?

Product Review Etiquette

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Do you do product reviews on your website or blog? Do you receive products to test and keep? I do the occasional review, more in the past than I do lately.

Most of the time when I do an actual product review it’s an item that I bought myself and I’m just writing about my experiences with the product. One example of this would be the post I wrote just after I bought a Shark Steam Blaster (not that happy with it overall) or my discussions about our new front load washer and dryer (still extremely pleased).

Occasionally I’m contacted by a company and I’m given a product to test and then later write an opinion piece. I haven’t had many of those and I certainly don’t accept all offers for example I probably wouldn’t accept a clinicalliex review . I generally only accept products that I can actually get some use out of and that I will use regularly. In the past I’ve received a Nokia smart phone from a marketing company, bath soaps and skin care products, coffee and a few other food items or coupons for free and discounted food and beverage products, a photograph turned into a canvas, and a special window tint that I used on our very bright south facing kitchen window. There’s probably a few other products but those are the ones that I can remember at this moment.

One reason why I’m writing this post today is 1. that I’d like to do more reviews (a couple a month maybe) and 2. I just received a product that I’m going to review on my gardening blog.

In the past all the products that I’ve received to try out and review have been completely free and the one that I received early today was supposed to be free, however I was extremely surprised when the delivery person told me I had to pay the duty. It was a product shipped from the US to my home in Canada and I guess the company didn’t cover the duty and taxes.

I’m a little miffed, but when I think about it I’m getting a product that costs over $100 for free so it wouldn’t kill me to pay the almost $13 duty and taxes charge. Still, I think the company should have warned me that I’d have to pay these charges. I’ll be contacting the person who arranged the review to tell him about the Duty and taxes I had to pay. It’s possible that he either didn’t know about these extra charges or that it didn’t occur to him that my being in other country might incur these kinds of extra charges.

I’ll chalk it up as a lesson learned. the next time a company contacts me and offers me a product for free I’ll ask if there will be any shipping charges or duty.

Anyway, I’ll be reviewing the item that I just received on my gardening blog sometime next week. It’s a Black and Decker 24 V cordless Trimmer Edger. Definitely something that we’ll get some use out of. Oh, and I’ll be coming up with a giveaway too. The company said that I could give away a trimmer edger to one of my readers, so I guess I’d better start thinking about an interesting challenge for my giveaway. Any ideas?

If you do product reviews have you ever experienced something like this? Say a shipping charge, Duty or taxes?

Do you think it’s fair to have the blogger pay these extra charges or do you think the company sending the product should cover all charges?

Missing out on a great opportunity

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I’m disappointed today. As I said in my previous posts I threw my back out again and it’s really aching.

Unfortunately this means that I probably can’t do something tomorrow that I’ve been looking forward to for about a week.

I was invited to go to the Google Canada offices tomorrow for lunch to discuss my experiences with Adsense and possibly give some suggestions as to how they could make it better.

I was lucky enough to have been invited to the first Canada Google Partner day last October and I was surprised to have been invited to what sounded like a smaller and possibly even more informal gathering at Google so soon (or at all!).

I really want to go, but I don’t think that I can sit for very long with my back the way it is. Hmmm maybe they’d let me lie on the floor? LOL Nah, not going to do that!

Instead of going to Google Canada tomorrow I guess I’ll spend some time working on my websites and blogs and perhaps start searching for unique gifts for dad since Father’s day is coming up soon.

Hopefully I’ll get another invite to Google sometime in the future. Perhaps they’ll have another Partner day this fall? Sigh …

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