Tag: social interaction

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Author Insights

Author Insights 07: Ways to Follow

authorinsight

Email is the best way for me to follow a blog, because it reminds me that I’m even following a certain blog and when I’m not in the mood, I simply delete the message or come back to it later.

WordPress is a community of bloggers and blog followers, and the follow feature is built in, but you can still customize it. If it’s a blog I know I really don’t want to miss, I’ll set up a daily or weekly digest for my email. Other than that, I make a point to visit the WordPress Reader a few times a week. WordPress is ideal because it lets you see who’s following you and others can see if you are following them.

Networked Blog is great if you’re already using it to follow other blogs. I also like it because I can see the people who are following me and they can see that I’m following them.

For Blogger, Google Friend connect does this also, but I find that it’s sometimes not the best way to follow to actually receive content. Again I can see who’s following me and they and see me.

Ah, Feedly. I heart Feedly. It has become my go to blog reader. Most blogs I follow, I actually follow twice, unless I do an email subscription. I try to follow as much as possible using Worpress, Networked Blogs, and Google Friend Connect, just so my little face is there smiling at my favorite bloggers, but I find that if I’m actually reading and commenting on that bloggers content, it’s because of Feedly. Feedly keeps me from having to go to all the above mentioned places to visit all the blogs I follow because they are all in one place.

Now, there’s Bloglovin. So, for once I’m really late on something I already knew about but didn’t realize. Let me explain. I follow a few fashion blogs. I got into the habit because of my sister Tori who loves fashion and is constantly teaching me a thing or two about it. I follow all my fashion blogs through Bloglovin and for some reason figured that’s all Bloglovin was for. How silly of me.

Sooooo, I guess I’ll be playing around with Bloglovin and Feedly to see which suits me best, but knowing me, I’ll probably end up using them both.

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Thank you for taking the time to read this post. If you like it let me know and share it with others. See you next time, Toi Thomas. #thetoiboxofwords #cursescanbebroken

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Day in a Life

A Day in My Life: July ’13-Fashion Films and Contemporary Art

dayNlife

Do you have a MOCA near you?

MOCA- the Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art hosts many wonderful gallery shows throughout the year, but the one I went in July was very special. It was part of special Fashion Films series. For the price of 1 admission, you could view all the current galleries on display as well as participate in the fashion films fun, which meant watching an iconic fashion influencing film, having your movie snacks, a participating in the costume/fashion contest.

On July 18th, the featured film was Pretty In Pink and yes, I dressed up, but don’t have a picture to share.  While of course the costumes, snacks, and film were wonderful, the art show pretty cool too.

Brian Dettmer’s Elemental exhibit was magical. What he did with those books, yeah that’s right BOOKs :D, was amazing. I felt like that exhibit had been featured just for me.

Then there was Stacey Steers’s Night Hunter exhibit. I still don’t understand it all, but it was beautiful. I almost missed the movie wanting to stare at it longer. A combination of video animation, sculpture, poetry, painting, and more, I was taken aback.

It was a truly entertaining and enlightening evening.

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Thank you for taking the time to read this post. If you like it let me know and share it with others. See you next time, Toi Thomas. #thetoiboxofwords

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Day in a Life

A Day In My Life: June ’13- Birthdays

dayNlifeYou may or may not find this surprising, but as a writer I’ve never been much of a journaler (I like making up words). I’ve always kept writing, sketching, and poetry notebooks, but I’ve never really liked writing about myself. This monthly post is my attempt at rectifying that and is an opportunity for me to get a little personal, as I share a single event from my life.

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June 5, 2013

My husband and I refer to June as Birthday month. For instance, today is my nephew’s and his father’s birthday…but wait there’s more. So far this month, Tim and Ben, two other brother’s-in-law of mine had birthdays and so did my sister Tori, but that’s not where it ends. I still have cousins and friends birthdays to acknowledge along with my dad, Dennis, my husband, Eric, and my father-in-law, Sam. I’m pretty sure there is someone else I’m leaving out, but oh well.

In the end, I guess the existence of birthday month is the reason I made my character, Mira, born in this month.  Anyway, because of all the birthdays and family tradition, all my local family gathered together for our monthly family dinner/birthday celebration. It was a really good time. I do love my family!

Thank you for taking the time to read this post. If you like it let me know and share it with others. See you next time, Toi Thomas. #thetoiboxofwords