Congratulate Me….Haha!

I did it. Finally reached 5,000 followers today. And since it is hard to penetrate WordPress if one’s content is not really worth-reading, this is simply an achievement for me so I congratulate myself for it🥰. For some bloggers, this might be nothing. It encourages me though to write more. I now have a total stats of 693,003 the last time I’ve seen it.

This is it🙂

Although only a few engage in my posts, I am still happy finding online friends here from all over. I haven’t counted my followers in my other blogs, I cannot open the last one, I don’t know what happened. You may visit it though, a continuation of this one. It’s called Dreams Never End. ( https//:moredreamsandescapes.wordpress.com )

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It’s Been A While

It’s almost five days when I last posted an entry here. Come to think of it, I got so lazy the following day after my visit to my new doctor/endocrinologist. Imagine waiting for almost five hours since I left the house. Her schedule says she has clinic hours from 8am to 12am. She arrived at 10am and it was just a ten-minute consultation. I showed the results of my lab tests and she explained everything to me. Her words were: medyo okay pero pababain meaning that at my age, my FBS seemed okay but it needs a little more lowering down to a level more comfortable. She has requested more tests in three months. Yes, I will have my next lab tests before the end of June, eight in all- FBS, HBA1c, Crea, CBC, NA, K, ICa and PPBS. I don’t understand them all so I have to make an online research. She is more thorough than my previous doctor. My main problem is, my medical insurance will expire on June 30 so I will have to shell out cash for further check-up and lab tests. Life nowadays is going back and forth to the doctor but at least the interval is getting longer.

I haven’t visited WordPress for quite a while, I am not even updated with blog posts from my friends here. Presently reading a series of Julie Garwood books about highland life. They are stand-alone stories about those lairds and their clans. I have always been fond of historical novels. I remember I almost completed reading Diana Gabaldon’s works years ago. I can imagine those horse-drawn carriages and those people who used herbs to cure ailments. The vista of clear and green fields that run from end to end…precious.

Checked my dasboard, short of 20 more followers to reach 5,000 and my stats showed a total of 691, 074. Not bad at all.

How are you finding the Jetpack switch?

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It’s Been Fifteen Years

Earlier on I received this notification from WordPress :

15 Year Anniversary Achievement. Happy Anniversary with WordPress.com! You registered on WordPress.com 15 years ago. Thanks for flying with us. Keep up the good blogging.

And that ‘s accompanied by the familiar logo of WordPress. 15 years and I have about 5,451 blog followers and 796,589 stats in all of my five blogs. The four ones are updated occasionally though. My main focus is on DREAMS AND ESCAPES. If I were to add up my blog posts in all five, that’ll be close to 5,000.

Before WordPress, I started with Friendster then moved to Multiply back in 2007. Between these three platforms, I loved Multiply best, I had a premium account there with my youngest brother Noel paying $20 a month to maintain it. I was able to upload several of my favourite CD albums and photos all in high-res. Except for a few posts on our road trips and some poems, I did mostly political blog posts at the time when Gloria Arroyo was president. Since I cannot reblog them at WordPress, I started with one lone poem 15 years ago. Friendster and Multiply have closed years ago. And since I didn’t know how to customize my new site, it took me more than a year to add something. I learned to navigate, choose a theme, upload photos and customize eventually. I chose a theme which I am still using on my main blog until now. I love its clear lines and the easy way I could update it. WordPress has been changing its algorithms over the years and I have to adjust and learn more.

15 years writing at WordPress and through the years I met several blogging friends worldwide. The earlier ones have come and gone but there are several who remain loyal to my blog, regularly liking and commenting on my posts. I love the exchange of ideas and we have become a community of bloggers.

15 year and I’m still writing.

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New Followers

Oh, I wonder if I should be glad for having so many followers lately. When I check and look at their sites, either there is only one follower or just one or two with one blog post. Some are even blank.

I don’t want to be choosy but I want someone I could interact with or someone who comments on my blog posts. Come to think of it, they follow you but there is nothing there that would let you know whether they like your posts or not. I always acknowledge those who follow and read their posts too and I click ” follow” when I find their sites interesting.

I click Discover every now and then and I visit the blogs of those who interest me. Lucky to find them following me back.

I’ve used the Jetpack prompts three times already and I earned lots of views on the very first one I wrote about. Not all topics are worth-writing about. I earned sizable views yesterday (439 total) when they looked and read a previous post I wrote back in 2011 entitled Happy Hearts Day. Curious about love day? It does not mean that the V-day is only for lovers, it’s a celebration for everyone who loves life – friends, siblings, grandparents, grandkids and every one in the family.

I started writing daily since the year started. WordPress says I am on my 16th day this month of February. Hooray to blogging❤👨‍💻💐

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Enthusiastic About Blogging

WordPress says it is an eight day streak🥰

Yes, I’ve been blogging for around eight days now with sometimes two or three blog posts a day. It is my coping mechanism to what is happening with my health at the moment. There is something about writing that brings me to a time of silence, alone with my thoughts and words. There is something about writing that is so fulfilling. There is something in writing that makes it worthwhile sharing to the world with friends who are religiously commenting and liking my posts. They may not be that much but I am not complaining. One thing is, I am able to share my aches and pains to those friends who take time to read my posts. I am grateful🥰

I’ve set aside reading for a while since I opted not to participate in this year’s Goodreads reading challenge. I am liking the ability to read slowly and post my thoughts in my new journal. Maybe twenty books this year would be enough.

I wonder where the other bloggers who have been active before got to. I miss reading their posts. Hopefully they will reach out again this year through their blogs.

Still and all, blessings for a healthy, successful, happy and a truly remarkable year ahead😍❤🙏

L

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Hello, Help Please

There is this gal by the name of Caissa Mae Ramirez who recently followed me. When I tried to view her site, it’s my blog Dreams and Escapes that appears.

Her site is http://caissayap.wordpress.com

Google says that: a secure URL should begin with “https” rather than “http”. The “s” in “https” stands for secure, which indicates that the site is using a Secure Socket Layer (SSL) Certificate. This lets you know that all your communication and data is encrypted as it passes from your browser to the website’s server”.

Any take on this friends? For those of you who are so good on how “www” works? Will my blog be compromised? Thank you!

P.S.

Viewed it again, WordPress says the blog now doesn’t exist. But I just checked a while ago, it is still there.

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Blogging Woes

I am having an intermittent headache. Been taking pain reliever for two days now. It has stopped a few minutes ago.

I was trying to read some of my earlier posts back in 2011 when I joined WordPress’ Post A Day Challenge. How I was able to blog every day back then was such a big puzzle to me. The endurance of thinking of what to write about every day without fail. I wonder where my badge got to, it was lost somewhere when I tried to change my blog format. Those were the times I got so many visitors although commenting and liking was unheard of. There were words of encouragement though from WordPress, inspiring words at the end of each entry and the total number of posts you have written since you started blogging. They got lost somewhere along the way. There are so many bloggers now. There are new ones who post a few entries and then suddenly stop writing. Some maybe disappointed by the slow rise of followers and readers.

No matter how good your contents are if your tags and categories are not, you can’t expect people to follow you right away. You build your blog slowly. It always takes a number of years before you can be recognized as a seasoned blogger. There are followers who never take time to even like your posts. Some are there who are bold enough to say that we should follow their blogs too. You don ‘t need to tell me that I should follow you back because if I like what you write about, I will follow it.

I wonder why I could no longer see my dashboard since I started using my tab. It always shows that I have to log in but when I do, it reverts back to the same log in option.

As I have always said, blogging has become a way of life.

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When Do You Follow Other Blogs?

I just wrote my  2,525th post a while ago. From time to time, I visit my dashboard  and clean spam comments which are filtered by Akismet (just so blessed Akismet is here to classify those unwanted comments in our blogs).

How do you find bloggers that you follow aside from those who follow your blogs?  Some are followers of our blogger friends who probably read our exchange of comments and decided to visit and read a few lines. Some probably appeared at the bottom of your post because they had posted similar subject like you did. Anyway, no matter how you found them, aren’t you glad that you did? Lately, I visited and thanked those who followed my blog the past few days, reading some post and comments and liking those that are wonderfully written.  Sometimes, I return the favor and follow back.

Are you that kind of blogger who looks for seasoned writers with thousands of followers and statistics in their blogs?  Or do you take a chance on those blogs  with not even a hundred followers  but their writings are interesting and they have lovely contents? I am one of the latter I guess. Photo journals are lovely, blogging about farm life is interesting too but I love garden blogs. I love those flowers which normally don’t grow in tropical countries like ours. I love blogs about family and faith.  I am mesmerized by those photo blogs featuring countries like Italy, France and some exotic places in Asia.  I’ve found memoirs featuring these countries and read them with gusto.

Just received a comment from a blogger promoting a product.  And this was approved by WordPress because it was nicely worded. Sorry, I am not into it.

Blogging about blogging, anyone?

 

 

 

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No Subject

I am so wary of opening e-mails that simply say, No Subject. I feel as if I am threatened and subjected to something that I don’t really want to know. Sometimes though, I feel that certain curiosity and open them just the same just to be confronted with just a one-line link which I simply delete and put to trash. Even when it comes from relatives and close friends if the link  looks suspicious, deleting it is the only option. Why compromise your inbox with unwanted e-mails? I have experienced that before with my Twitter account and I have to change my password so many times just to be on the safe side. The downside is, I seldom visit my Twitter account now since I need to check on my journal first before checking tweets because I’ve written a long password complete with characters and numbers. I just feel lazy sometimes to check it with that long, long password.

One of the things I like about blogging at WordPress is their strict monitoring of spam mails. Come to think of it, there must have been more than ten thousand spam mails since I started blogging here three years ago. It’s kind of annoying that I see them everyday and they are the first thing I delete  when I open my dashboard to check my stats.  They’re getting bold. How would you feel if  you blog on some reflections about life or about religious things and you suddenly see ads with some “sex things” written on them? It is offensive.  One thing I am wishing is, if it is a spam mail, why  do you still need to show it, why not just delete it so bloggers won’t be clogged with unwanted e-mails? After all, who would want to have his blog inundated with such trash?

More than a year ago, I encountered a site which copied  one of my blogs and there was never a link back. They just substituted a few words and claimed it as their own.  The only time they stopped visiting my blog was when I boldly blogged about the site in my title page and reported it at WordPress. That’s why now and then, I check with Copyscape. It may not be one sure way of protecting one’s thoughts and writings but it helps in tracking down some unwanted sites from sabotaging what you have painstakingly wrote.

My own take is this, if it is not originally yours, put the link or source where you got it from. That’s common courtesy in the blogging world, I think. And don’t just open something with a No Subject.

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