Very Inspiring Blogger Award

I have been nominated for the very Inspiring blogger award, I really want to give big thanks to the wonderful Marisa from Wear Your Vitamins for nominating me I really appreciate it, please go and check her out she has amazing and very informative posts plus a cool YouTube Channel. Now for this award you need to:

• Display The Award logo on your blog.
• Link back to the person who nominated you.
• State 7 things about yourself.
• Nominate other bloggers for this award and link back to them.
• Notify those bloggers of the nomination and the award requirements.

So my 7 random facts:

1. I’ve always wanted to have long hair since I was a kid (and this year is happening), my mom even saw a wig for me using old sheets, it was kind of a small hat with two long braids I just loved them.

2. I’ve been using glasses since I was in middle school, and I am totally blind without them. I seldom wear contacts but cannot handle them for long.

3. My name is Japanese, my great-grandfather was Japanese, and although my dad says we have family in Japan I’ve never been there (it is in my bucket list though).

4. I am learning to cook, believe it, I am 28 years old and I am not the greatest at the kitchen. But I can cook the yummiest lasagna (it’s my signature dish).

5. I am not a gardening lady, at all, I love flowers and plants but I do tend to kill them (even if I follow instructions), the only plants I am able to keep are bamboo’s I have one at work and one at home and they are simply beautiful.

6. I hate voicemails, there is something about voicemails that make me cringe, if you call and I don’t reply send me a message, because if you send a voicemail I will not listen to it.

7. I just discovered audiobooks, and freakingly love them now I can listen (read) while going to work or working, dang at this rate I will be able to read much more books this year.

And now for the nominees:

For polishing your blog, writing skills & more:

Write With Warnimont

Excellent DIY’s:

Zim on a Whim

Cool Reviews and fashion:

A Thunder Heart

Makes me want to visit Japan:

Japanamanda

Great stories that make me want more:

Shortstoriesby

Learn about downsizing beauty products:

Barely Organized Chaos

Thanks again to Marisa for her kind nomination and please go and support her blog and channel 🙂

Until Next Time

xoxo

Why Having Categories in your Blog Matters?

Has this happened to you?

You are at WordPress reading what’s in the blogosphere and discover an exciting new blog, you read a post that caught you and you want to see if the blogger has other similar posts. This happens to me more than 2 times a week and while I can find categories in some, others just don’t have it.

Having a categories section is a strong tool in your blog, because odds are people will find your blog due to the one of your most read posts. But, if they liked that post they might come for more, and if they can find them easily this will give you kudos.

Amazingly adding categories in WordPress it’s very easy, and there is even a widget you can add in your blog page for your viewers to find what you write about. If you are starting your blog and don’t have too many posts I would strongly encourage you to go now and start your Categories section.

“Using widgets for your WordPress blog is a savvy move”

In my case I did have some categories since the beginning, but as my blog started growing and the topics I write about started diversifying I needed a more structured plan.

Something these past 2 years of blogging has taught me is that if you want to have an organized blog where your viewers can find all you write about you need to put some brains in planning your categories.

For instance, you can see that I do have some main niches in my blog, but from those “main niches” come smaller branches that are more specific to the topics I write. Maybe Jane* subscribed because she loves reading my makeup reviews, so whenever she wants to go and check more she can just go to my categories and check out all the reviews I have done, or maybe Joe* likes my Personal Development posts, well he can just go and click my Personal Development category and he will have a lot of reading to do.

It takes some work but it’s worth it

When I first started thinking about giving good order to my categories was basically last week, after 250 posts, so in this case it did took me longer to achieve the results I wanted, but as I said before if you are just starting invest some time in doing it because you never know when this might be handy.

Do you use categories in your blog?

xoxo

*Jane & Joe were just names I used for the example. But if they exist hi! And thanks for stopping by.

What New Year Means to Me…

Hey everyone, first of all happy new year to all of you, I hope that you had a great time the last day of 2012 and that you are having a wonderful time right now. Today as the first day of the year I am here sitting with my laptop and pajamas because well I didn’t have to work today and I am enjoying the last drops of my winter vacations.

I was also reflecting about what I did accomplish this 2012 and what I am aiming for this 2013. Truthfully I was analyzing what my goals were and here are my results.

The first thing was to lose weight, yep as the millions of people who propose themselves to lose weight for an entire year I sailed in that boat, so what happened? Something amazing, I have not reached my goal yet, but I am in progress. And I do think that I made the biggest progress I could ever imagine. Let me explain you a bit, my first plan was to diet (‘cuz truthfully I hated doing exercise) but that did not work so I had to start working out. You could not believe but at first it was hard for me (this comes from the girl who hated gym class at high school). Somehow as months passed by this started changing so instead of resisting it I joined the boat of the gym people. So I started going to spin classes, I love spinning so much, and it really helped me. Not only with my weight but my entire me, I mean I felt more energized and in some point I discovered INNER PEACE. I could sleep better and was in a better mood. And the most important thing is that I am that compromised that I just joined a gym for an entire year. So 2013 will be full of work outs for me. I think this is great because literally I would go now and spend more than an hour working out instead of being home sitting in the couch eating junky food and watching TV.

Another Goal that I had was writing more, well I think I did score that one, I mean I dedicated much more time to writing and found that I do really love it, I enjoy the times that I spend writing and creating stuff. I don’t think that I need any proof but for posting around 200 posts for 2012 was a big accomplishment in my life, even in the times were I felt that I was too tired to write I would do it makes me feel proud of myself. I am also thankful of all my followers and great friends, I mean today I woke up and saw that I have 131 followers how great is that? I could not wish for anything else.

I know I didn’t reach my goal of getting freshly pressed, but I did receive several awards during the process which made me feel really happy and motivated to keep writing. I also think that to be freshly pressed you have to write something that inspires you a lot and has feeling in it. Most of the freshly pressed posts I have read come from people who had great common sense, were funny and the most important thing is that their thoughts come from the heart.

Next, I also decided I would take a course of something. And so I did, I took a makeup class, my first one, let me tell you this was a great experience and helped me a lot to define my blog, I discovered that I love makeup and beauty, I don’t know but I do think that is something extraordinary and you can create a lot of things, making up my mind in learning something new also helped me to see that I can learn anything that I want and that the sky is the limit.

Something else that I didn’t even planned but started doing was YouTube videos, I don’t know why but this thought came to me, do you want to die knowing that you didn’t do something you wanted only because of what everyone else would think? That was my big push over doing this, I mean I love talking about beauty, if not ask people around me, I remember spending some time talking with a complete stranger in the dollar store about nail polish. So I decided to compliment that love and knowledge and use it for my videos, I love doing videos and I think that they have helped me with my confidence as well, there are very nice people out there, but there are also people who are a little mean, but those comments are the ones that help you grow and keep moving forward. And my little channel is growing step by step so I am very proud of that.

All in all I do think that this year was great I mean I learned a lot of stuff and somehow I feel really proud about myself and much energized to keep going. Strangely I think that this is the first year I start with the right step, not depressed and very happy of what I am doing.

xoxo

Celebrating 200 + Weekend Haul ^_^

Hello everybody, so today I am very very excited, because I have reached to my post numero 200 Yeiiiiiiii, so I just want to take this time to thank ALL OF YOU for your wonderful support, for following this blog, and for leaving your nice comments, I can assure that I have met wonderful people thru the WordPress community on these past months, while doing what I enjoy the most…Writing.

So while celebrating, why don’t take a seat for a while and enjoy one of these yummy cupcakes!! (You won’t gain weight, I promise…)

And why not take a cup of Tea or Coffee? Now that is getting colder!!

But that’s not all, as I promised in my Fun Fun Weekend post here it is my video haul, for the things I got.

Until Next Time,

xoxo

Twitter…Was I the Only One Without an Account?

-As I write these words, a lot of thoughts come to my mind, but the most resonant is. Really, was I the only one that didn’t have a twitter account?-

Let’s face it, in today’s society our level of responsibilities and activities have increased, and added to that having a lot of social media to handle at once takes lots of time. I mean I do have a full time job, a house to take care of, family to spend time with, payments to do, and yet I try to keep as neat as possible my blog, YouTube, Facebook, Pinterest, e-mail, etc. Don’t get me wrong, I do love spending time on them, I love writing which was the first reason why I created my blog, and I love sharing what I know, learn and find, which is why I created my You Tube channel.

We do choose what to have, but yet if you don’t have a profile on one of these sites you are outdated (which is how I felt when I didn’t have Facebook) and you miss what is new, or the most recent events even in your family lives. True story, before I was on Facebook one of my cousins was getting married, her sister, organized her a bachelorette party, but sent the invitation thru Facebook, my surprise was when she told me why didn’t you come, and I was like I never got an invitation (…silly me waiting a piece of carton saying “You are Invited”) she was very surprised that I didn’t have Facebook (…so I ran and created a profile immediately). Now that I am at Facebook I do love it, I mean you can find lots of interesting things and love watching what people post on their walls. And I do find it useful because that’s the way I can communicate with my parents and siblings.

Then Pinterest came, my brother in law told me about it and he just said “You are gonna Love it”, as I sat skeptical in front of my laptop I was like -oh no this won’t convince me- Well he was right and I was dead wrong. I love this thing; Pinterest was one of the greatest things that happened in my social media life. Lots of ideas and whenever I need my creativity to start flowing Pinterest has just what I need (It’s like Paulo Coelho’s quotes when you open one of his books). But I do have to be careful or else I will spend an entire Saturday afternoon sucked in.

Now it would seem that I am digressing, but I have a point I kid you not. This is the story of twitter, the other day I was talking with a co-worker (who writes as well (check him out here), and he was telling me how he got a twitter account, I mean everybody has twitter now right…well um…I didn’t because before of this I just thought that twitter will make me lose time, (as another friend told me the other day –I do not think I can keep up with another social media as Facebook takes all my time) time that I could invest in Pinterest (jaja). So the other day I gave up, I had to try it, besides if I didn’t like it I would just delete my profile and erase my app. So I am still trying to understand how it works and get confused by the # and @, I kid you not I feel like an old person introduced to this new technology. But while I play with it and mess things up in my profile I can say that “I have twitter now” and I could say follow me, but I need to know what the heck I have to link to my twitter logo (which I already got…mhm). But that’s how things work.

Now if you’ll excuse me I need to go and Tweet about a Pinterest picture I found over at Facebook and publish a post on WordPress.

Until Next Time,

I am at Hellocotton

Hey everybody happy hump day, so yesterday catching up with the blogs I discovered about something called Hellocotton , this is a community that allows you to follow women bloggers out there. This site also allows you to comment, vote and share it all with your friends.

So after a while of checking out their site I was sold and decided to create my profile. I really liked the overlook of this site, and I would recommend it, there are A LOT of inspirational and different posts about DIY’s, beauty, makeup and so much more, that can really get your inner creativity flowing!!.

Am I not posting today?

Hi everyone, so today I just wanted to talk about what rambles in my mind whenever I am being away taking a “break” and not blogging for a bit. Have you had these once in your life time?

Things writing has taught me

Today I sat at my desk and started thinking, how many years have I’ve been writing? I have a little bit more than a year since I started my blog here at WordPress, but I have been writing for more less than 14 years. Being aware of that number inside my head scared me a bit, I mean it’s been more than a decade since I’ve been writing on and off, but still going up.