New Features!

Typically, I am of the "if it ain't broken, don't fix it" mentality. In fact, even if it is a little broken, I tend not to fix it, but to instead adapt and make it work anyway- usually involving some time-consuming or labor-intensive method. I generally don't realize how ridiculous this is unless Dave witnesses one of these little "tricks" and just looks at me, aghast.

Related to this, anyone who has lived or worked with me knows that I am terrible about filing. I consider myself more of a "project person" than a "maintenance" person, and filing on a regular basis is definitely maintaining. (The irony, of course, is that there is no worse project on earth than filing the last year's worth of paper.)

So, naturally, I never bothered to tag my posts; and whenever Clio wants to watch video of herself, I simply open all the drop-down menus on the blog archive until I find the title that corresponds to a video.

Well, no more. Today, I embrace technology. Today, I embrace the notion of doing it the easy way. Today, I ad gadgets to my blog.

On the right, you will notice two things:

1) You can now search this blog. Go ahead, google yourself. Actually, let's google Target and see just how often I talk about going there.

2) I have begun the massive filing job of tagging nearly 500 posts. The original idea was to simply tag the categorical things that people might be looking for, like video, as well as some of the mini-series that have emerged, like "Outfit of the Week," "Status Update," and "On..." But naturally, as I got going, there were more and more things that I wanted to categorize, and the system got messier and messier. Actually, let's call it idiosynchratic. So you might notice, for example, that there are a number of posts that I have tagged as "Status Updates" or "Overheard" or "Outfit of the..." even though they don't use those as titles; that's because in some cases I wrote the post before I regularized the title or thought of them as a "series." I also noticed a blurring of lines between some of the "On..." posts and what I would now consider a status update. Either way, I tried to find some clusters of posts that tell a particular kind of story.

Additional notes: halloween, valentine's day, Christmas, can all be found under "Holidays." Family matters have been categorized by place (Minnesota, Connecticut, Illinois) rather than person, but I did also create a "Grandparents" category (which includes Great-Grandparents), as well as a category just for Lucia.

Those of you who want to delve into the archive will surely figure it out. Click on a category and you will see all of the posts that have been tagged in that way. And if there's something in particular you want to be able to access easily, let me know; I'm certainly open to expanding my tagging horizons!

OTHER FEATURES

1) You can become a follower of the blog. Go ahead, do it. I think it means that you will get automatic updates when there is new content on the blog. I'll become my own follower to test it out, and share more details, if desired.

2) I'm contemplating signing up for AdSense. For me, this means possibly making a little bit of money (yes, please) and having access to information about how many people are reading, where they are linking from, which posts are most popular, etc. (helpful, no?). For you, this means seeing some ads on the blog (which you could always block with an adblocker), and possibly even clicking on them to help the blog make a little money (yes, please.) But I have been ambivalent about this for a long, long time. So please, make use of the comments feature and let me know if you have a strong opinion about this. I'm curious how people feel about this.

Finally, any other thoughts for improvement? Any regular columns you'd like to see? Want more recommendations- what Clio is reading, family friendly recipes, etc?

Let me know. (Because, also, I looooove getting comments.)