Comments & Interactions .

As a blogger, one of the greatest things out there is knowing that people regularly take the time to read what you have to say. For me it's my thoughts that people are reading. It's my heart and soul that I pour out onto the page, and for whatever reason, that's worth something to people. And that means the world. But even better, being a blogger means connecting. It means meeting and interacting; it means starting to design the most beautiful web that an internet spider could weave. It means knowing friends from Ontario, British Columbia, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Colorado and more. According to my blogger stats, there have been readers from all over the world, including Russia, India, Australia, New Zealand, Asia and all over Europe. That kind of thing blows my mind.

But do you know what thing feeds the blogger mind the most? Interaction. Comments, opinions, ideas, thoughts, discussion. This is way bigger than a few writers and readers. This is a movement. A revolution. The beginning of a family of people currently unintroduced. I'm excited for the future. If you write now, keep writing. If you don't, I highly recommend you start. And if you are simply a shadow of an observer, put yourself out there. Be known. Share your opinion. Facilitate discussion. Build bridges of friendship, and spread yourself and your spirit.

One day, I'm going to make an effort to meet you all. I can't wait to see and hear the people behind the wonderful words presented here monthly, weekly, daily. I can't wait to see vibrance in their eyes and hear excitement in their voices. That wonderful day has yet to come, but it brings a certain luster of promise.

Avid Blogger Award .

So I know that the Liebster Award is something that quite often goes around and is a great boost to confidence and a fun thing to do. But I decided to create an award of my own: the Avid Blogger Award. This award is for those people that always write interesting posts, always keep in touch, always comment on your material and are just incredibly active on Blogger.

I'm going to give this to two bloggers I know; the first is Keith over at Musings of an Unapologetic Dreamer , and the other is Angie over at The Best Part of My Day.

The Unexpected .

Today in the post I received a parcel from a dear friend of mine, Angie, author of The Best Part of My Day. Though we've never met, over the two years or so I've been writing this blog Angie has become a dear friend of mine and I really enjoy the time she takes out of her life to just be a friend. It really is a testament to the fact that we don't just read the stories from each others' lives here on Blogspot, but we become involved in it, a part of it. Angie and I have exchanged snail mail before and to receive a gift and a Christmas card from her this year was truly awesome.

I've decided to the save the gift for Christmas Day, as I feel that's most appropriate.. but Angie, know that my appreciation runs deep, and I can't wait for the day when I get a tour of Toronto from my favourite (note the spelling!) local!

May your holiday season progress wonderfully and create some amazing memories. This one goes out to you!

completing an 'about me' .

Since the time I started this blog almost 2 years ago I have never had an "about me" or an "about the author" section anywhere on my blog. I typed out my little blurb that goes underneath my picture in the sidebar, which I suppose I assumed sufficed for all intensive purposes. At one point (probably over a year after I first started blogging) I changed it around a little bit, as my thoughts on it had changed, as they often do over the years. And yet still, I fail to have an "About Me" tab.

the little things .

When people enter relationships, or even before that, there are some things you can usually tell right off the bat. It's easy to tell when someone is willing to go above and beyond just to put a smile on your face. I call these, 'the little things'. These are the things that you don't expect, the things that catch you off guard, the things that make you instantly grin ear to ear, the things that pop into your head over and over throughout the day and make you think 'I can't believe they are so thoughtful that...'.

are you obsessed with getting more blog traffic ?

Since one of my jobs is that of doing social media and marketing for an author, I have recently spent a lot of time trying figure out how to bring more traffic to his blog. Now, I've never really worried too much about how much traffic my own personal blog gets, (although don't get me wrong, I think we can all agree that if you see that out of the blue your blog gets a few hundred views in a day, we might very well do a backflip) but in this case it's sort of my job to be able to get his stuff out there and get it some more traffic.

But here's my question to everyone out there who is looking for more blog traffic or desperately wishing that more people would read what they have to say. It's something that everyone wants and that's why there are tons of other blog posts out there by reputable writers and bloggers that tell you how to do it! Also, you hear a lot from those who have many followers and tons of traffic "Just keep doing what you're doing, eventually the readers will come." But when someone gets in this thought cycle, I think they need to go and revisit the reason why they started a blog in the first place.

where'd you go .

As I was looking over my blog and trying to decide if I wanted to change some things up, I saw the "Blogs You Should Check Out" section I put up a while back so that other people could get an idea of all the people's blogs that I read. Plus, a little bit of publicity for my friends on here always helps right? Though upon reading that list I realized how many of them haven't posted in forever.

telling you what to do .

There are tons of people out there who run blogs that think that they have the magic secrets of how to market your blog, how to get the most traffic, view, comments, etc. They think that they know everything there is to know and that they can get you thousands of followers. They make rules to abide by and suggest (and by suggest I mean tell you) that you should be doing this or that. What has the blogging world come to?

new changes .

It's been over a year since I've touched the layout of this blog, and I think it's time for something new! It's so dark and I just wanna play around with it now that I feel much more adept at changing formats and layouts and whatnot. I'm not sure exactly what I'm going to do or the exact changes I'm planning on making. But if there are times when the site is down fear not! I am simply messing around with things and trying to make the reader's experience better. I'm also trying to decide whether or not I want to allow (gasp) advertisements on the sidebars. I've always been a fan of keeping the blog completely pure and bullshit-free, but we'll see.

forgotten .

If you're on blogspot, did you ever notice the little bar at the top of the page that has the 'follow' and 'share' also has a 'next blog' button? Ever click it? It randomly sends you to other blogs. I'm not exactly sure how it does that... but it picks out one for you to read. With the number of blogs that are out there, rarely ever do I find one that I really like. When I get sick and frustrated with that, I go onto the blogs that I follow and check out the followers on those to see if there's anyone's that I'd like to follow. See, I'm not just gonna follow someone just to get some exposure for mine -- it's not Twitter (not that I even do that on Twitter either..).

active listeners .

I've only been blogging for a short amount of time (one year or so) but I've already noticed there is a big difference in those who read blogs. There are, in my eyes, several types of people...