Friday, October 7, 2011

Want a Hot Cup of Coffee? and how to blog

Okay so it's not real coffee, it's cookies. Are you really that surprised? It is called Cristin's Cookies you know... so here are the LAST of the cookies that I made for hubby's 50th birthday. Hubby runs on caffeine. Big time. Lots of coffee, lots of diet coke. It's not good for him and really, it's not good for us when he's all jacked up, but it is what it is.

So today I have some ramblings going on in my head that will make you think I'm jacked up on coffee, but I don't even drink coffee. Scary huh! Can you imagine me on caffeine? Scary thought, seriously. If you know me outside of our little blogging world, then you know I don't sleep. I do a billion things and then I get frustrated because I had a billion more that I wanted to do. Again it is what it is. None of us are perfect, we all have that weird, crazy side of us. It's not just me, right???!!

So here are the coffee cookies for hubby. I got the idea from Pam of CookieCrazie because she recently made these for her daughter's birthday. I thought they were just too perfect for Mr. Caffeine hubby's birthday, so I had to play along and make some too.
 So yesterday I read this great blog post from one of my cookie idols, Bridget of Bake at 350. When I first saw her cookies outlined and how they popped and looked so detailed, that's when I started outlining most of my cookies. I like how it makes the designs stand out. Anyway, Bridget did this great post the other day that had the "rules" of blogging and basically how to get popular in the blogging world. Thankfully she ended it with these are not the real rules of blogging and the bottom line is to speak with your own voice. Phew! So here are some of the "rules"..., you're supposed to be on WordPress, not Blogger. Supposedly WordPress has lots of bells and whistles. Well I'll tell you, I'm definitely a bells and whistles gal. When I buy a new piece of technology, I actually read the manual. Yep I'm one of those... I want to know everything my little item is capable of doing. Even if it's useless stuff. This will give you a clue. I know HTML to build a real webpage, I know that EF67BC makes a really pretty pink in the hexadecimal color system. Now let me tell you that as a stay-at-home mom that bakes cookies and rides her bike, this is a whole lot of useless information, but I do like bells and whistles ;-) and yet I'm on Blogger because that's what I started on and that's what I took the time to learn.
Your blog should have it's own domain. Yay! I got one right! I bought my own domain a long time ago simply because I didn't want to tell people that I was at www.cristinscookies.com/blogspotblahblahblah or whatever it would be. www.cristinscookies.com was just easier so that's what I did. Check. As a type A personality, OCD crazy, do you have any idea how important those check marks are? Yep, lots.
You must have a $1200 camera and an $800 lens to go with it. Ummmmm for taking photos of cookies? I think not. Did I mention that I'm a STAY-AT-HOME mom? Yaaa so no one is paying me to ride my bicycle. Even when I wear my Hammer Nutrition cycling kit (fully advertising for them) or tell everyone about my awesome bike guys at Summit Bikes/Trek Bicycle Store, they aren't paying me, so a $1200 camera is not in the plan. My camera is PINK and that's about all I care to say about that... because that's all that really matters, right?
Then of course we, as bloggers, are supposed to be incredibly concerned about SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and have fancy titles of our blog posts. Well my title today of "Want A Hot Cup of Coffee" probably doesn't quite cut it. I'm okay with that. I do label each of my cookie themes so that when people google how to make a certain theme, hopefully my cookies will help them. I also know that when I do a tutorial, my blog gets lots of viewing and I do enjoy helping others get started. I'm really big on not re-inventing the wheel and sharing information. I'm still a newbie in the cookie world. I've been making cookies for my kids for lots and lots of years, but I just started my blog on January 23rd this year. Since then my blog posts have been viewed 25,379 times. So while I'm doing most things wrong, I guess I'm okay with that.
In all honesty, before my father lost his battle with Cancer in 2008, he told me that he liked my pink hair because it's "very YOU". Really that about sums it all up for me. I just want to be me. I may not follow the rules, but I don't consider myself a rebel. I'm just me... the whole twisted package of me.

2 comments:

  1. Thank you for speaking your mind, Cristin! Your cookies speak for themselves, you obviously don't need any bells and whistles to get noticed :) <3 Stephanie

    ReplyDelete
  2. I find it very strange that you're "supposed" to use WordPress instead of Blogger - I love your Blog and all the cool designs you always post on it. I have a wordpress account and can't figure out how to do anything fun with it! :(

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for taking the time to leave a comment! I love hearing from you! Cristin