Entries Tagged 'Home Ec 101' ↓

I have to share.

Home Ec has had over 1 million unique visits according to Google Analytics. Sure it’s been bumpy, but the general trend looks good to me. I’m hanging on.

4 chapters to go.

A friend of mine video-ed the recording he made of my appearance on Lowcountry Live. I thought I’d share it here so extended family could get a giggle.

Found a sitter? Yes, two

Have a ride? Yes

Food for the family? Taken care of

I guess I’m ready.  Do not get worried if I don’t check in on Wednesday or Thursday.  There, look at my ego grow, assuming those of you who wander by are that invested in my well being.  There is an Invader Zim cartoon where Zim says “More organs means more human.”  I suppose by Wednesday afternoon, I’ll be a little less human.

Wait, I just thought of something.  I am completely out of books; this will not do.  No, not at all.  Am I the only one who is embarrassed to go back to the library after amassing a fee?  As if somehow I am unworthy to return to the library for misplacing a book for a week.  It’s probably a symptom of my own twisted neurosis, but I build all of these little incidents into these overwhelming tasks and put them off.  Eventually when I get around to finding the courage, time, and energy I wonder how I could have built it into such an overwhelming task.

I hope my fear of interviewing is like this.  I sent out a press release to the local morning shows.  Maybe something will come of it, maybe nothing will.  It’d be nice if we could promote Home Ec in that manner.

I’m not even referring to my new haircut.

Thank you Dan, Ivy and I really appreciate the piece.  You did a great job of making it look as though we know what we are talking about.

I’ve been researching marketing while I try to figure out how to expand the reach of Home Ec 101 without throwing away cash.  Social media is extremely useful and as I watch our numbers grow, I think we are doing at least a few things correctly.  Ivy and I are patient, so we can deal with building readership in a slow and steady manner.

What baffles me are the plethora of self described social media marketers, SEO specialists.  There are probably thousands of these sites I have wandered across all with the same content, just small variances in tone and word arrangement.  It feels like the Amway of the Intertubes.  What I have yet to figure out is exactly what these people are selling.  Through the noise certain words pop up over and over contacts, client lists, expand your customer base.  Yet, I never see exactly what it is these people are selling.

Additionally whose idea was it to sell these crappy e-books?  I haven’t bought one, I’m just assuming from the general level of the associated blogs that the e-books contents are along the same lines.   (There may be some good ones out there, I just see no reason to buy an ebook on say drinking water daily for $7)

These people are definitely enthusiastic and excited, I just have yet to figure out what it is all about.

All of this said, we’re plodding along, trying to build a resource people will enjoy and return to not only for Home Ec questions but for interaction with others struggling along the same path.

Oh and I have to boast a little.  We launched just over 10 months ago and other than hosting, some art, and of course our fantabulous t-shirts, we haven’t spent anything. I’m sure if we hired professionals it’d have been less stressful, but I truly love what we are doing. Slowly we are finding our way and as we go, we’re meeting a lot of people.   I’m excited about ’08, there will be conventions, both in April and October.  It’s going to be a lot of fun.

We hit 100k visits on New Year’s Day.  Hopefully it’s just a sign of things to come.

It’s been a long, long time since I’ve had that much to say.

We’re hosting a contest at Home Ec 101.   Submit your favorite kitchen disaster story and our favorite will win a $45 GC to Outback Steakhouse.

Spread the word, there will be plenty of link-love for all entries

Yep, it’s shameless self-promotion time.

If you are the praying type, please keep Mr. Ivy in them today.  For the nonprayers, general good thoughts are being accepted, too.

Hang in there Ivy, it’ll be over before you know it.

I think Ivy and I are doing well with Home Ec 101.   Last night we hit a milestone, not too shabby for five months.

I’m working on a new project for Home Ec 101. I spent hours fiddling with a joomla template yesterday, finally had everything fixed exactly how I wanted, except for one text thing, but I was ready to just let that go and live with dark grey vs black.

Then I asked my husband to load the page on his computer so I could verify that the grey text was tolerable. You see, my husband is one of those strange creatures that actually likes Internet Explorer. Here I was excited that I had been very productive with the day’s programming and in the five seconds it took to load all my little hopes were crushed. IE hates my page. The objects are all over the page and I’m furious.

Why is it I can tell Firefox and Safari that a cell should be 20 pixels wide and they will listen, but not Internet Explorer. Oh no, apparently telling IE that a cell should be 20 pixels wide is the same as saying it should be 50 or 100.

Today I’m going to unload all I’ve done and reload from scratch. Thankfully I don’t have to remake all of the objects.

I think this is why I didn’t major in computer programming.

I’d like to thank Jared for letting me pester him with the occasional question.