MONTHS, people!  MONTHS ago I mentioned these Sichuan Green Beans and how they were delicious and what a great side dish they were for Korean Beef Lettuce Wraps and how I was going to post the recipe, but I couldn’t get a good picture and then…I completely forgot.

I still can’t get a great picture, this one is too blue, but frankly I don’t feel like messing with the white balance.  I’m tired tonight and I feel like you will be just fine with my too blue picture.  

These are so easy!    From the September 2008, Cooking Light

1  lb  fresh green beans, trimmed and snapped (I have a little secret.  I used frozen green beans and they are FINE.)
1  TB  canola oil, divided
1/4  cup  chopped shallots
1 1/2  TB  minced garlic
1  TB  minced peeled fresh ginger
1/2  tsp  crushed red pepper
1  TB  Chinese black vinegar (I can’t find it in my grocery store and I refuse to traipse all over town for 1 measley tablespoon) or balsamic vinegar
1  TB  soy sauce
1/2  tsp  salt

©2009 Playgroups are No Place For Children. All Rights Reserved.

I remembered on November 6, the eleventh anniversary of our first date.  (Jesse James’ Hideout in Rolla, MO.  Jealous much?)  (I also puked the next morning right in front of him.)  (Again.  Jealous much?)

I can’t believe that neither of us even REMEMBERED that October 31 was the TEN YEAR anniversary of when we became engaged.  How could we have both completely forgotten!?!  Since I feel like he and I are having some blips on our marital radar, and I tend to overanalyze A LOT, it made me particularly sad and introspective to have forgotten.

I’ve been thinking about all of our special dates.  We don’t celebrate any of these days except for our wedding anniversary anymore, but I remember those early days when we at least acknowledged (wink, wink) all those significant days.

December 29, 1998, This one is none of yo business
December 30, 1998, The first time we told each other we loved one another
May 17, 1999, The day we moved in together in Knoxville, the day after I graduated from graduate school.
July 14, 2001, Our wedding day

I miss those days when we celebrated that we’d been together a WHOLE MONTH! or a three months or eight months. When we got married, we decided that it would be too much to try and remember all the milestones.  Celebrating our wedding anniversary would be plenty, we’d agreed.

Maybe we should reinstate celebrating those milestones.  Maybe we should do what we did before.

Do you still celebrate those little days?  Or do you only celebrate your anniversary?

©2009 Playgroups are No Place For Children. All Rights Reserved.

With that said, I have learned a few things about using SU that I think will help you.  I’ll give these tips in list form! And! I’ll give these tips in three, easy to follow levels! (Please note that SU has recently updated itself and I’m still learning the new format.  I’m trying to provide as accurate of information as I possibly can!)

Part 1, StumbleUpon Kindergarten

Let’s start at the beginning.   For those of you who are not SU newbies, scroll on down to Part 2 and Part 3 of this post where I’ll give some more intermediate tips.

1.  First of all you have to set up an account at http://www.stumbleupon.com. You’ll be asked to choose a name, try to choose one that best fits your brand (links to a blog tip post that’s not yet been updated) .  Next, you’ll be directed to “Join and Download Now.”  The “download” part means that you’ll be downloading the SU toolbar into your browser, which is vital to getting the most out of SU.

If you use Firefox as your browser, you’ll also need the SU Add-on.  I’ve heard that SU and Safari don’t play well together.  That’s too bad.

2.  You need to set up your preferences once you’ve received your password via email and have logged into your SU account.  Along the top right of the page, you’ll see the word “Settings.”

Next you’ll see some more tabs:  Account Settings, Customize Profile, Manage Interests, and Profile Picture.    Go ahead and complete the information in each of the sections.

In the “Customize Profile” tab, you can write a little blurb about yourself, your blog, share your interests, and customize the look of your SU page.  My blurb says, “I’m Jennifer, nice to meet you!  Come visit me at my blog http://playgroupsarenoplaceforchildren.com!”  You can write whatever you’d like, although I’d recommend putting your blog address, as this is the only place on your profile where you can do that.

Make sure you’ve hit the green “Save Preferences” button at the bottom of the page!!!

3.  Start subscribing to other’s StumbleUpon pages.  This is entirely different than subscribing to a blog via a feed reader, as you will access their pages from your personal SU homepage.  (Though you can subscribe to these pages via feed reader, but you really don’t need to do that.)   Subscribing is basically the same as adding friends, a feature that recently was discontinued on SU.

Click the word “Stumblers” at the top of the page.  Allow SU to search your email address book for people who are already SU users, click the green “Find Friends” button on the right hand side of the page.

4.  Begin to understand the toolbar you’ve downloaded. The following is a step by step guide on how to use it.

* To stumble a post click on the title of the post so that you’re on the direct URL to the post you wish to stumble.

Rather than stumble an entire site, stumble specific posts on a site.

* Hit the “thumbs up/I like it!” button.

* If it hasn’t already been stumbled, then a box will appear where you’ll write a little review (explanation below).  You’ll also be asked to put it in a category.  Choose your category WISELY. Then add as many tags as you can, the more the better.  (Sometimes, SU screws it up, though, and puts it in an incorrect category despite your best efforts.)

* If the post HAS already been stumbled, then when you hit the “thumbs up/I like it!” button, it will change colors.  When it does, hit the little “speech bubble” button and write a review and add tags. You certainly don’t have to write a review for EVERY site you stumble, but the more reviews you write, the more weight your stumbles carry…(yes, the explanation is below)

And now you are ready to graduate to 3rd grade!  You’re such geniuses that you get to skip 1st and 2nd grades!

Part 2, StumbleUpon Grade 3

So now what, right?  Now that you’ve subscribed to some other’s SU pages, also known as their SU blog, AND you know how to use that fancy schmancy toolbar, you are ready to learn more about stumbling.

Let’s start stumbling!  Here are my favorite ways:

1.  Just read a post or found a website you adore?  Stumble it!  Hit the “thumbs up/I like it” button on your toolbar and write a review.

2.  Go directly to your friends’ SU pages and see what they’ve most recently stumbled upon.

On your SU toolbar, look for the icon of two people together.  See it up there?  Clicking this allows you to discover the sites stumbled by your SU friends/subscriptions.

3.  From your own SU page, look for the “Discover” tab and see what has most recently been stumbled by different friends.

4.  You can even simply press the “Stumble” button on your toolbar.

Okay, next, let’s discuss writing a review and what I mean by “writing a review.”  It’s very simple, grasshopper.

After you clickity-click that “thumbs up/I like it” button and either the box appears OR you click the “Speech Bubble” button you’ll write a review for the site.

For example:

“Recipe for peanut butter and fudge pasta.”

Or you can copy a key sentence from the post for your review.  In Firefox, if you copy a section, it’s magically pasted into your review.

“From the post: ‘Obama and McCain are running for President of the United States and this is who I’m voting for.’”

BEWARE!  Stumbling upon sites is addicting and can cause you to realize you’ve been stumbling for the past four hours while your children ate crumbs off the kitchen floor for lunch.   Or so I’ve heard.

Okay, smartypants 3rd graders!  It’s time to graduate to HIGH SCHOOL!

Part 3, StumbleUpon High School

Now that we can use the toolbar and we know how and what to stumble, let’s talk tips to drive traffic in your direction.

First and foremost, approach SU unselfishly.  Look at it as a way to send traffic to your friends and highlight their really great work.  Karma will hopefully eventually hunt you down and return the favor.

1.  StumbleUpon frowns upon you stumbling your own site.

If you think you have a really fantastic post, ask someone to originally stumble it for you.  You can always give it a thumbs up and review after them.  The rumor is that you can only stumble one site fifteen times.  I think this rumor has something to do with a time frame.  You can review the same site MANY times over the course of months/years, but if you review the same site everyday for a month, you’ll get yourself banned from SU.

2.  Write reviews when stumbling! They help up your status over simply just giving a site a thumbs up.  The more reviews and sites you’ve stumbled upon, the more weight your stumbles carry.  It also helps to subscribe to many people on SU and have many people subscribed to you.

For example, if you’ve only written a few reviews and given a handful of thumbs up, when you stumble a post it doesn’t carry as much weight as someone who has stumbled AND REVIEWED 3,286 sites.  Getting a thumbs up from someone that has reviewed many sites and has many subscribers, will get your post noticed by more people.

3.  Stumble often and stumble a variety of sites.  DON’T ONLY STUMBLE YOUR OWN POSTS.  BAD!!!

When I originally tried out SU, I only stumbled my own site and saw NO visitors.  Once I figured this out and starting stumbling LOTS of sites, whenever I had a new post of mine that had been stumbled (by someone else), I saw more traffic driven to my site.

It’s also nice to just be generous and send traffic to sites you admire.  If you’ve just read something that you just KNOW other people should read, too…then STUMBLE IT!  It’s always nice to send a little traffic to your friends in the blogging community.

4.  SU users love lists, pictures, humor, and well written posts.

According to different things I’ve read, SU users DO NOT LOVE slow loading sites, blah blog designs, long posts, typical “mommyblogger” posts about poop and what your kids didn’t eat for dinner.

5.  The more tags you give a site, the more exposure it will get.  Choose those tags wisely!

For example, if you choose just “Parenting” as a tag, you’re missing out on LOTS of potential visitors.  Also choose “kids,” “family,” “babies,” “for-kids,” “homemaking…”  Those are merely examples, but the point is…the more tags the better.

6.  Review your friends’ SU blogs.

The term “blog” in this instance does not mean their actual BLOG that they write posts for, but rather the collection of sites they’ve stumbled upon.  Your SU blog is your SU homepage (mine is http://playgroupie.stumbleupon.com).

To review your friends’ SU blogs, go to one of your friend’s SU page/blog, and click the “thumbs up/I like it” button on your toolbar.  Write your review (”Love his stumbles, such a variety!”), add the tag “stumblers” and you’re done!

The more reviews you write and receive, the more weight your stumbles carry.

7.  Take advantage of the StumbleUpon’s Photoblog It! feature.  This feature adds the pictures you’ve stumbled upon to your page/blog.

When you stumble upon a photo that you’d like to review, you can right click on the image, scroll down to the bottom where it will say “StumbleUpon Photoblog It!”  Click that, write your review, add your tags, and done.

8.  DO NOT ONLY REVIEW YOUR OWN SITE.   Yes, yes I know that I’ve said this like three times already.  But I really need you to HEAR it.  I mentioned above to approach SU unselfishly and I cannot stress enough how important it is to stumble and review OTHER’S sites.

There is nothing necessarily wrong with stumbling your own site occasionally.  However if you stumbled your site today then before even CONSIDERING stumbling yourself again, you should go out and stumble 10-20 OTHER sites.  Seriously, it drives other stumblers insane to see a person’s SU blog and the only things stumbled are things from their own website.  Not cool.

********************************

I realize that this all seems like a lot of work.  It is, but there are rewards.  I think that SU can generate quality traffic, meaning that I’ve noticed after a high traffic day on SU, I’ve seen an increase in subscribers the next day.  If you have any additional tips or corrections to what I’ve said, please include those in the comments section.

I’m certain that there will still be questions about StumbleUpon.  Feel free to ask away!  However, please remember that what I’ve said here today is based on MY experience with SU.  So many of you repeatedly tell me that you see no benefits from SU, but the thing is, I can’t make SU work for you, you gotta make it work for you.  Okay?

Previously in this series…Writing Tips, Blog Promotion and Social Networking

©2009 Playgroups are No Place For Children. All Rights Reserved.

For what felt like the 50th time, I raked leaves into a big, jump-able pile.

“If I rake these leaves for you guys, you better do cute stuff for Mommy’s camera!  Promise??!!”  I half negotiated, half begged.

“No way,” Ella answered with her standard reply.  Carson just rolled his eyes at me.

Suckers.

©2009 Playgroups are No Place For Children. All Rights Reserved.

One of the reasons I purposely had babies 18 months apart was because I hoped they’d be close friends and playmates growing up.

Ella has never really had the chance to be a princess loving girly girl. Her favorite things are tractors, trains, and monster trucks, just like her big brother, Carson. Really, I think it’s a good thing that they like the same things. So far, they are the close friends I wanted them to be.

Of course, Ella has had to learn to be tough, having Carson as her brother. Helmets, when playing with Carson, are usually a pretty good idea.

(Not pictured: Carson pushing Ella into a bush, running full speed.) (Also not pictured: Ella getting right back up and begging Carson to do it again.)

©2009 Playgroups are No Place For Children. All Rights Reserved.

“Mommy?  Why didn’t they come over?  I wanted to play with them,” confused, Carson asked as tears began to fill his eyes.

I wanted to say, “Carson, I’m so sorry, sweetie.  I don’t know why some people are assholes.  They just are.  They are the type of people we should throw rocks at.  The next time they walk past our house I’ll scream ‘HELLO!  HELLO!’ until she replies like a civil human being.”

Instead I hugged him and told him that they probably didn’t hear us saying “hello.”  Carson looked up at me with an expression on his face that told me he wasn’t buying it.  (Because seriously, we were standing at the end of the driveway saying “hello” and waving.  There was no way we went unheard or unseen!)

“Well maybe they were in a hurry to get home or maybe they were really shy,”  I explained again.   Quickly I tried to redirect his attention to shiny, happy objects so that he wouldn’t cry and so that I wouldn’t let it slip how I really thought we should chase the lady down and ask her what her damn problem was.

People who can’t return simple human courtesies, such as saying “hello,” completely confuse me.    Sadly, it’s not the first time it’s happened.

It broke my heart to see my son look at me with such excitement to see potential playmates! in our neighborhood! walking right toward us!, only to be completely ignored.  How can you ignore two adorable little kids waving and saying “hello???”  What is wrong with people?

Oh right!  Some people are just assholes.

(These are the people we’re supposed to pray for, right?)

©2009 Playgroups are No Place For Children. All Rights Reserved.

I needed the two cups because I got up VERY EARLY to go running.

I got up VERY EARLY to go running because I have big, beefy thighs and I’m tired of carrying around the jelly donut that’s strapped to my waist.

Not only am I motivated! to exercise!, I’m motivated! to improve ALL of myself!  Why not start now!

Writing:  I’m doing this whole NaBloPoMo thing to try and reset my love of writing and blogging.

My marriage:  I don’t like Tate about 75% of the time and I’m trying to cut that number down to about only 10% so I’m reminding myself to stop being a dick to him.  I’ve also been listening to Focus on the Family marriage related podcasts (while I’m running) (which are kinda weird to listen to, but also kinda good.)

Health:  Did I mention I’ve been running?  Well I have been!  And I’ve been drinking more water, which is almost harder than running because I can’t ever remember to actually drink it.

Parenting:  I’ve given up yelling for Lent.  Who cares that Lent doesn’t start until February?  I can give it up now.  It’ll be good practice because it’s going to take that long for the not yelling to actually stick.  Also I’ve been reading some parenting books on topics such as “how to keep your head from exploding when your child throws a tantrum in a busy restaurant” and “exorcising demons from toddlers.”

I know “experts” say that people are “supposed” to make small changes when trying to achieve their goals, but if I do that, I’ll be 350 lbs, divorced, dehydrated, hoarse, AND my blog will suck even harder by the time I get around to fixing all that needs fixing.

©2009 Playgroups are No Place For Children. All Rights Reserved.

“Tate, there better be enough of that ham left for the kids’ lunches this week,” I said in my well-practiced irritated voice.

His face registered shock and fear as both of our eyes looked down upon a nearly empty package of just purchased honey cured ham.

“TATE!  I JUST bought that!  It was supposed to last the WHOLE week!”

End scene.

Replace ham with any food that has been specially purchased for the children and has the potential to create MELTDOWNS! and HAVOC! if we were to run out.  Despite my huffing and well-practiced irritated looks, Tate continues to leave ONE granola bar in the box, that of course I realize seconds after promising TWO children their own granola bar for snack.  Or he’ll leave *just enough* orange juice for a flea.  He’s even been known to eat the last two cheese sticks I’d promised our children for their snack.

“How was I supposed to know you were saving that?!”  he’ll reply, while I stand behind him holding a fake knife, making stabbing motions.

Look.  I know I’m being petty.  Of course he has as much right as anyone in our family to eat.  Poor wittle Tate, I don’t want him to go hungwy!

I just want him to be able to read my mind and realize that I have plans for certain foods and that his eating said foods will make me want rip out his toenails.

©2009 Playgroups are No Place For Children. All Rights Reserved.

You know all those kids who are way too old to be trick or treating that come to your door?  They just stand there holding their pillowcase open, reeking of Sense of Entitlement, without even saying trick or treat?  Yeah.  THOSE kids.

I gave them all the crap candy we didn’t eat from Halloween three two last years ago.

************

Well, actually it didn’t exactly play out that way seeing as we had a total of seven trick or treaters.  Thanks stupid rain.   But!  If we had had any of those annoying teens, I so would have given them the stale Whoppers and rock hard Tootsie Rolls, teaching the ill-mannered youth of today a valuable lesson.

On the bright side, that candy will be really ready to give out next year.

©2009 Playgroups are No Place For Children. All Rights Reserved.

Holy cow, I can’t believe how much has changed since I originally wrote this post over a year ago.

Today we’re going to discuss two areas of blog promotion…Sites where you list your blog and social networking sites.  I’m looking at these two areas differently, as I’m going to call those places where you go and sign up your blog, and basically your blog is added to a list, Blog Promotion Sites.  Those sites where you can interact with others and add contacts, I’ll refer to as Social Networking Sites.

I’ll begin with Blog Promotion Sites.

When I first began blogging, I signed up with every blog promotion site I could find, HUNDREDS of them.   It took me hours to find the sites, add my name, confirm my request…and most of that work was for NOTHING.   With a few exceptions, I never saw any traffic generated from the majority of those sites.  Also, some of the sites claimed to be very exclusive and rejected my blog for various reasons including “lack of quality content.”  What.  Ever.

When I wrote this last year, I listed a few sites that I felt like were worth the time and effort it takes to sign up.  Now?  I don’t believe that any of them are worth your time.  Don’t bother.  A few examples include TopBlogArea, BlogTopSites, Alltop (I’m sorry Guy Kawasaki!  I think you’re fab, but I just don’t see traffic from Alltop!), The Good Blogs, and Blog Flux.

The bottom line:  Sites where you simply list your blog don’t actually generate traffic or relevant/quality followers.  Seriously.  Don’t waste your time.

Sheesh, to think of all those sites I signed up for and so few were even worth the effort!  I could’ve written a novel or painted the Sistine Chapel in the time I spent signing my blog up on those sites.  I am curious, though, if anyone has had luck with any blog promotion sites? Please share with us those sites that you feel have helped your blog.

Moving right along to social networking sites…

With any social networking site, I think that you get out of it what you put into it.  There are only so many hours in a day, so I recommend choosing just a few to devote your time.

1. Twitter

I mean, duh, right?  There are SO many things I enjoy about Twitter, like the ability to talk about myself in 140 characters or less!  (Self-absorbed much?)  Also, I enjoy reading others’ SUPER hilarious tweets.  It’s fun to be a part of many different conversations, sort of like being able to flit from person to person at an uber cool party!

Twitter alone can be very overwhelming.  I recommend using some sort of application to manage all of those you follow.  There are so many.  TweetDeck, HootSuite, Seesmic, Twhirl….  It makes following conversations INFINITELY easier than hitting refresh over and over.  I don’t know about every Twitter application, but I know that with TweetDeck, you can set up groups, making it far easier to follow the people you have a connection with.  Also, I know that some applications not only work with Twitter, but with Facebook (etc.) as well.  Please feel free to share your favorites with the class in the comments section.

So how does can Twitter help promote your blog, you ask?   Well for one, you can promote your new posts via Twitter.  For example, you can say something like, “Blog tip sharing post at my place!  You bring the beer!  http://playgroupsarenoplaceforchildren.com…”  Also, if you’re a WordPress user, you can install a plugin that does this for you.  I know that I use Twitter more than my Google Reader these days to read new blog posts.

Also, Twitter is a great way to become friends and communicate with lots of other bloggers.  Being a part of the blogging community is, I think, VITAL to blog promotion.  Twitter is one way to get yourself out there.  With that said, Twitter IS NOT the place to solely promote yourself.  Only tweeting your own blog posts is, well, annoying and sort of asshatty.  For a complete list of Twitter Don’ts, check out Scary Mommy’s Twitter Etiquette post.  (Please note that I do think that people have every right to use Twitter in any way they want to, but am sending you to the Twitter Etiquette post to highlight some things that do annoy lots of users and can inhibit the effective use of Twitter.)

With the prevalence of Twitter, I really feel like I’m basically preaching to the choir.  For those of you who want to know more about interacting on Twitter, check out The Smart Girl’s Guide to Twitter.  Everything you could ever want to know about Twitter is in there.

2. Facebook

This one is sort of tricky.  First of all, you may use Facebook for your non-blogging identity and want it completely separated from your blog persona.  Or maybe you’re like me and have both blogging and non-blogging Facebook friends and don’t want to overdo it on Facebook with the constant “LOOK AT MY BLOG!!” chatter.

Facebook does allow you to place filters on certain groups of friends that you don’t want nosing around your blog.   That way you are able to have your feed sent to Facebook without worrying.  (Though I did have an entire filter completely disappear the other day, so…you still have to be very cautious if your blog is mainly a rant about your four-times married sister-in-law with seven kids and a Marlboro habit.)

All of my blog posts can be read via Facebook, I also have my blog listed with Networked Blogs.  I use the Selective Twitter application so that when I want something I’ve said on Twitter to also post on Facebook, I can add #fb to the end of a tweet and it will post both places.  I occasionally will promote specific blog posts via both Twitter and Facebook, but I try not to be annoying to long lost elementary school acquaintances.  I’ve considered completely removing my blog from Facebook, but I do see fairly significant traffic and I don’t think I can separate my blogging and non-blogging life.

Again, I feel like I’m saying things you already know.  If you have any other Facebook questions or thoughts, please discuss in the comments section.

3.  NING groups and Blogger Communities

I feel very unqualified to speak about most of these groups.  I very rarely participate in these groups, though I have a suspicion that those who are actively involved have found a place they enjoy hanging out that also brings in quality and returning traffic to their websites.

NING groups are forums devoted to a certain topic or area of interest.  A few examples include, Mom Bloggers Club, Thirty-Something Bloggers, I Heart Faces, and many others.  I’m certain that if you were interested in finding a group of people with your similar interest in collecting pink flamingos or circus clowns, you could find a NING group for you.

Forums and message boards in general can be HUGE traffic generators.  My problem with forums and message boards is that I don’t have time to devote to really being a part of the community.  (I devote most of my time to my own blog, Twitter, and reading other’s blogs.)   I think it’s pretty uncool to join a forum or message board and start a topic of discussion with the sole intent of simply promoting yourself, without actually participating in any other discussions.

There are many blogger communities that I hear a lot about.  I often hear about Momdot and the Momdot forums, the SITS girls, or The Secret is in the Sauce, and Twittermoms.  Of course there is BlogHer, which has lots of great content.  (But, shhh?  Don’t tell, BlogHer’s site completely confuses me.)

I’d love it if those of you who are active with any of these groups could please talk about your experiences in the comments section!  Please share with the class!

4. StumbleUpon

Technically, StumbleUpon is a social bookmarking tool, not a social networking site.  However, I’m putting it in this category because it’s a place to interact with others and add contacts.

There is SO MUCH I have to say about StumbleUpon, that it’s going to have to be a post unto itself…next week.  Here’s a little teaser, though.  As a result of some of my posts being stumbled, I’ve received as many as 25,000 views of one post. 25,000 views.  On one post.  Now I realize some of you reading are yawning and thinking, “25,000 views?  So what?  I get that many in an hour.”  Others of you are messing yourselves from the excitement of the possibility of 25,000 views of a single post.

I’ll talk about this next week, but if you are new to my Blog Tips series, I recommend that you download StumbleUpon’s toolbar.  It will make what I’m going to talk about next week easier to understand.

Have I missed anything, you guys?  Please feel free to ask questions or correct me or add to the discussion.

(Previously in this series…Writing Tips)

©2009 Playgroups are No Place For Children. All Rights Reserved.