Vlog: Online/Offline Resolutions

My first “vlog” aka video blog. Please be gentle!

I am aware of the bad camera positioning and such but for a first try… I don’t think it’s TOO bad. Please comment and boost my ego. Suggestions would be nice… if you want me to do this more often let me know that as well (topics couldn’t hurt either!).

A Blogging Schedule

I had the oh so brilliant idea after ranting and raving to Lisa Marie, to create a “strict” blogging schedule.

Here is what I’ve come up with so far!

Sunday
An entry about wordpress, blogging, design, etc. May be a screencast.

Monday
I will post a recipe every Monday, generally I try to make sure recipes I post are generally healthy, or at the very least minimally processed.

Tuesday
Nothing yet, feel free to suggest something!

Wednesday
This one is simple, Wordless Wednesday. It’s so hard this time of year for me to take any photos and this meme sort of “forces” me to grab my camera… even if it’s of the same thing every week.

Thursday
Nothing yet, feel free to suggest something!

Friday
Perhaps a vlog.

Saturday
Progress on becoming healthier, recap of what I’ve done during the week, etc.

Do you have a schedule, even if it’s just mental, of what you blog during the week? Would it be something you’re interested in doing?

Recipe: Keith’s Banana Bread

This is the ultimate banana bread that my awesome boyfriend bakes often. My oldest son and I just can’t get enough! So delicious!

This recipe will make 3 loaves of fantastic banana bread.

Ingredients

• 6 C unbleached all-purpose flour
• 2 C sugar
• 4 1/2 TSP baking soda
• 1 1/2 TSP kosher salt
• 14 bananas, mashed (he uses a potato masher as you want lumps)
• 3 sticks of butter (oh yes, real butter!), melted
• 3 TSP real vanilla extract
• 1 TSP rum extract (he says this is optional)
• 1/2 TSP ground cinnamon
• 9 TBSP sour cream (which is 1/2 C + 1 TBSP)

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
In the largest mixing bowl you have, mix the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt) using a whisk to aerate and combine. In the second largest mixing bowl you have, mix your wet ingredients (melted butter, bananas, vanilla extract, rum extract, and sour cream), until just barely combined. You want those tasty banana lumps!

Pour the wet ingredients into the “dry” bowl, stir to just combine, making sure to scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl often. Let batter sit for ten minutes then pour into your greased loaf pans.

Bake for one hour at 350 degrees, test with a toothpick. If it comes out gooey, bake for an additional 5 minutes until the toothpick comes out 95% clean as the bread will continue to bake internally as it cools.

After bread is done, remove from the oven, and release bread from the pan onto a cooling rack. Cool for thirty minutes before slicing and topping with butter. Awesome butter.

Wordless Wednesday #5

Vlog: WordPress is NOT a Trend

My thoughts on a message board thread that labeled WordPress “trendy to use”

Photographic Study: Pink Gerber Daisy

My boyfriend Keith bought me these flowers to give me something to photograph as it’s just too cold to take the baby outside.

I would appreciate your thoughts, comments, even respond with a photo of a flower!

WordPress Plugins I Use and Adore

I’ve been asked many times what plugins I use so I figure I will give the low down on the plugins I use and WHY I use them!

Yet Another Related Posts Plugin
I use this on the comment page of an individual post to show 5 related posts. I do this for a few reasons, namely for old posts to get some life back into them and because their may be some valuable (to someone at least) information in an older post the reader wouldn’t have seen otherwise.

Add the Twitter field to your comments
Really as the title suggests, this adds that fancy, sought after, twitter field to your comments so readers can not only do the typical name/email/url, but also add a link to their twitter page!

TweetMeme
Adds a really simple retweet button to your posts. What I like is that it displays how many times the post has been tweeted!

WP-Cufon
I use this plugin to do all my fancy fonts in the header/titles/sidebar.

Search Everything
This plugin is just awesome. It really amps up the built in WP search so it’s more accurate.

Sociable
Almost par for the course, this plugin let’s you add a variety of social networks to every post so readers can add it to stumbleupon for example.

Twitter Counter
Displays the amount of twitter followers in a basic text format so you can incorporate it into your design.

WordPress Mobile Pack
If you want to up your readership, you NEED a mobile version of your site. This optimizes your site so it can be easily viewed/used on blackberry, iphone, etc.

Twitter
Again, really basic, displays my latest tweets.

Defensio
I completely adore this plugin over Akismet. The amount of spam I used to get is cut down around 85%! It also is a lot friendlier to work with.

Do Follow
I won’t go into the million reasons why no-follow isn’t my favorite thing in the world, this nifty plugin removes that bit of code to share in the comment love!

FeedBurner Count
Displays your feedburner count in a basic text format, use it to make your design pretty.

RSS Footer
Let’s you add information to the bottom of your RSS for each post. It can be done poorly so less is more when adding to your feed!

WP-Typography
Ah how I love this plugin! Just for the proper char­ac­ter replace­ment alone!

Well I hope this list helps you out, let me know what some of your favorite plugins are in the comments!

Parenting Resolutions

A new year of learning, growing, thriving… especially now that I have TWO boys!

What do you want to do differently this year as a parent?
Be more active. Ok, I have to give myself some slack in this area. Last year I had hyperemsis, a subchorionic bleed, and symphysis pubis dysfunction. Was on bedrest the entire pregnancy, then recovery from the emergency repeat c-section (failed VBAC). Still. Our awesome friend Jennifer, gave us a Brookfield Zoo Membership that I can’t WAIT to take full advantage of.

I also want us to focus on more of a schedule. As it stands now we are all naturally nocturnal, which is fine for the Winter, but when the warmer Spring starts to happen I want us to have a semi-set bedtime so we can spend our days outside in the fresh air, exploring.

We also, especially with our oldest son, will give even more support and guidance. He came back from living with his bio-dad and bio-dad’s girlfriend sickly, unhealthy, afraid, and with night terrors. After only 5 months with them. It’s been a long year of slow healing for him emotionally and physically.

We will be working on stronger reading skills (we homeschool/unschool), more math skills, and anything else he wants to learn! Already we’ve noticed a huge leap in his language since being back home, especially in the past few months, and we really want to encourage him to speak properly, eloquently, etc. I always have a tendency to get a bit upset in general with people who “dumb” themselves down.

With the baby, there isn’t too much I need to do differently. Naturally this year is a big one for development so I do want to expose him to different music, photography, and textures early on.

What do you want to be the same?
With my oldest son, the love and desire to be a family. So many children I know can’t stand to be around their parents and my son loves nothing more than “family time”. Just on Monday night, he sat on the floor in our bedroom and sang to all of us (the boyfriend aka “real daddy” as my son calls him, the baby, and myself) about how much he loved us individually. His little brother LOVED it. Huge smiles, laughs, and squeals!

With the baby, just his enthusiasm. He is always so excited to see me when he wakes up (yay for co-sleeping) and overall is super chill.

What went exceptionally well in 2009?
Having Danny move back home into a safe, secure, well-loved environment. Giving birth to Tristan. Seeing the love between brothers who are almost eight years apart.

What could you use a do-over?
Well obviously, not have Dan live with his bio-dad heh. I also would have started homeschooling him right away instead of having more damage done by the local public school.

So to recap:
Create more of a structure for not only myself but for my oldest son. Make an effort this year to create some amazing experiences.

Visit Hobo Mama and Code Name: Mama to find out how you can participate in the next Carnival of Natural Parenting!
Please take time to read the submissions by the other carnival participants:

• The Adventures of Lactating Girl
  To Yell or Not to Yell
• Baby Dust Diaries
  It Is All About Empathy: Nurturing a Toddler’s Compassion Potential
• BluebirdMama
  To my babies: this year
• Breastfeeding Moms Unite!
  Mindfully Loving My Children
• Code Name: Mama
  January Carnival of Natural Parenting: Resolutions
• Craphead (aka Mommy)
  Resolutions
• Consider Eden
  Imperfect Mother
• FC Mom
  FC Mom’s Parenting Resolutions 2010
• Momopoly
  Use Love
• Musings of a Milk Maker
  My parenting resolutions
• Navelgazing
  Talkin’ ’bout My Resolutions

• Happy Mothering
  What’s in a Resolution?
• Hobo Mama
  January Carnival of Natural Parenting: Parenting resolutions
• Little Green Blog
  Natural Parenting Resolutions
• Look Left of the Pleiades
  This year, I will mostly…
• The Mahogany Way
  Parenting Resolutions
• mama2mama tips
  I Resolve to Breastfeed In Public More Often
• Megna the Destroyer
  Moving to Two Kids
• Raising My Boychick
  Invitations, not resolutions
• The Recovering Procrastinator
  No more multitasking during kid time
• Tales of a Kitchen Witch Momma
  I need to slow down, smell those roses AND the poopy diapers
• This Is Worthwhile
  Resolutely Parenting in 2010

Wordless Wednesday #6

WordPress: Copy My Comments Page

I’ve gotten a lot of comments about how I do my comments page and figured I would share how I do it! Granted not all of the styles are in my style sheet, that is due to pure laziness on my part when I was writing it up.

I use the following WordPress plugins specifically for the comments page:

• CommentLuv
• DoFollow
• Subscribe to Comments
• WP Twitip ID
• Yet Another Related Posts

For the rounded edges I use the following CSS3:

border-radius:6px;
-webkit-border-radius:6px;
-moz-border-radius:6px;

This chunk of code enables you to have alternating colors in the comments but also let’s you define in your CSS, a class to specifically customize the author (your) comments.

Place at the very top of the page, this defines the CSS class you will use for the alternating color row in your comments.

$oddcomment = 'alt';

This also starts the comment loop.

<?php if ( have_comments() ) : ?>
<?php $i = 0; ?>
<?php foreach ($comments as $comment) : ?>
<?php $i  ; ?>
<?php
//Test for author comment
if($comment->user_id == "1") {
$authorcomment ='me';
$commentclass = $oddcomment . ' ' . $authorcomment;
}else{
$authorcomment = '';
$commentclass = $oddcomment;
}//endif
?>
<?php $comment_type = get_comment_type(); ?>
<?php if($comment_type == 'comment') { ?>

I offer my comments page in its entirety. If you have any questions about it or if you want to use any part of it (such as the comment guidelines) just comment!

{Download comments.txt}