“mahalo”…to my followers…

Posted on August 30, 2014 by hugmamma

Hawaiian for…Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

It always amazes me when another “follower” hops aboard hugmamma’s mind, body, and soul.

No kidding!

There are millions of awesome writers and photographers on WordPress. Capturing even a fraction of them with a post or two is mind-boggling. To have them sign up for more than that is beyond comprehension. Truly…beyond hugmamma’s comprehension.

I’m not sure how others with as many as a thousands followers…or more…even begin to repay all the visitors to their blogs. That alone could be a full-time job. When do they have time to live?

I tip my hat in homage to those who can keep one hand permanently affixed to their keyboard, while fulfilling all their other obligations with the other hand. I’m not one of them. Never will be.

Taking time out every now and then to thank those who consider my writing worth reading is what I can manage without totally upsetting mine and my family’s pineapple cart. That and including as many as WordPress will allow in my community of photos in the left-hand margin of hugmamma’s mind, body, and soul. BTW…if you click on a photo, you’ll be magically transported to that blog site…for more personal stories.

One other thing I try to do faithfully is repay visits to those who click “like” on my posts and/or leave comments. I figure if they take the time…so should I. It may take me a while, but I try very hard to keep this promise to myself. Even as family and pets call my name…”Mama! Mama!”

In further appreciation, I’ll remember all of you in a collective prayer.

…for you…hope, joy, and peace…always!

………hugmamma.

mahalo…from my heart

Posted on June 5, 2014 by hugmamma

With 2014 well under way, I’ve been remiss in failing to thank all who have made this journey with me. As mentioned in my recent post nurturing thursdays: choices…changes…part 2, I hope to continue writing and blogging for a long, long time.

As one of hundreds of thousands…more probably millions…of baby boomers “coming of age,” I don’t take my life on earth for granted. Not for one minute.

So before I breathe my next grateful breath for being alive, I’d like to hug each and every one of you for following me…for “liking” me…for leaving thoughtful comments.

Writers care that they are read…and I am no exception.

…from my heart…to yours…with love and gratitude…

………hugmamma.

for always being there…

Posted on July 30, 2013 by hugmamma

…A GREAT BIG THANK YOU!!! Yes, yes…I mean you!

Whether or not I’m all present and accounted for, you seem always to be there…hovering…waiting…poised to pounce…when finally my fingers hit the keyboard once again, and my postings fly fast and furious.

I’m only one of millions of bloggers who thrive on having our voices echo throughout cyberspace. Without visitors like you, storytellers like me would cease to exist.

So please…take a bow…pat yourselves on the back…lift a glass of vintage bubbly, or chug-a-lug that amber draft…admire your magnificent reflection in the bathroom mirror…nibble on that sinful, chocolate-covered strawberry, or savor the delicate flavor of Russian caviar. Whatever makes you happiest…please…indulge.

It’s my turn to…honor you…for your…

…staying power…god bless!!!…

………hugmamma

housekeeping…don’t put off til tomorrow…

Posted on September 10, 2012 by hugmamma

While I’m in the neighborhood of stuff to do with my laptop, the internet, and specifically Word Press, I thought I’d mention a couple of things.

Until just yesterday I’d been having blogging withdrawal, partially owing to the fact that my site, hugmamma’s mind, body, and soul, looked somehow different. I don’t mean what you the reader can see, but what I see while writing my posts. Or rather, what I wasn’t seeing anymore.

Having established in my previous post that I’m an “old dog learning new tricks,” or at least trying, when something, however subtle, changes…I’m flummoxed.

I’ll continue doing what I always do, for some time in fact, all the while feeling like there’s a mosquito buzzing around which I tend not to silence. Too busy. Can’t take the time. Maybe it’ll revert back…on its own.

Perhaps all the faldarall with not being able to download pictures from my camera finally got me thinking about the subtle, but disturbing, difference in the writing of my posts.

I’d asked Word Press Support about my concerns earlier. In fact I inquired a few times. Responses came quickly, always asking me to take some kind of picture so that they’d know exactly what I meant.

You must know me by now. I hadn’t a clue as to what they were asking me to do. So I gave up…and moved on.

What was no longer visible to me were the statistics to do with visitors to my blog, the list of my subscribers, or the pictures offered for my use by Zemanta. While none were essential to my blogging, they definitely enhanced the environment in which I did my writing. Like having “all my ducks in a row” before I started the process.

Some of you may already be smiling, knowing what I’m about to say. And you’re correct if you guessed that I’d not heeded the warning from Word Press to update my search engine status.

Of course I’d asked my husband every time the message blinked across my laptop screen. Since he has no clue about Word Press, he told me to ignore the icon. So like the dutiful wife that I am, I did.

Well, Word Press knew what they were saying.

Yesterday my husband finally agreed to help me upgrade my search engine status after I read another blogger’s comment elsewhere in the Word Press community. I wasn’t the only one having issues.

Logo used from the start of the Chrome project until March 2011 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Upon the excellent recommendation of that fellow blogger I am now using the Google Chrome internet search engine. As promised, the visuals are far superior to what I’d experienced with EI, Internet Explorer.

And as the lyrics to the song go…I can see clearly now…

The end result of all this being…I can once again view the statistics of visitors to hugmamma’s mind, body, and soul, as well as Zemanta’s pictorial offerings, and best of all…the subscribers for whom I am deeply grateful. I thought I’d never again know who you are.

Too many to list…

…heartfelt thanks…to each and every one of you…

………hugmamma. (The only thing I still have to figure out is how to do “smiley faces” again. Any suggestions?)

aol and wordpress…failure to communicate

Posted on September 29, 2011 by hugmamma

Image via Wikipedia

Have been in touch with WordPress Support Staff who tell me that the problem has been resolved for some bloggers. Unfortunately I’m not one of the lucky ones.

macmanx wrote:

It looks like the fix only worked for a few folks. We’re still looking into
this.

Read this post on the forums: http://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/all-emails-from-wordpress-showing-up-blank-in-my-email-and-my-subscribers-emails?replies=5#post-708502

Not sure if the issue originates with AOL, my web server, or WordPress. Other Internet servers are not experiencing this communication hiccough…as far as I know. Facebook readers continue to read my posts, as do visitors from within the WordPress community. So too do those from Stumbleupon.

designsimply wrote:

Thanks for reporting this. We’re looking into what may be causing the trouble
and we are working to get it fixed. It’s not spam. It does seem to be limited to
AOL or even Internet Explorer users.
Please also see http://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/blank-email-for-posts?replies=8#post-707277

As an AOL subscriber, I can’t even read messages from WordPress. The messages arrive in my email, only to show nothing when they’re opened. I’ve been getting lots of blank email messages in the last couple of days. They are constant reminders that there’s a problem. Very frustrating, especially when I’ve no control whatsoever. How and why the glitch occurred is a mystery to me. It seems to be something of a mystery to WordPress Support as well. They’re still scratching their heads for an answer.

Image representing AOL as depicted in CrunchBase

Image via CrunchBase

AOL subscribers won’t be able to read this, obviously. If they’re not Facebook users or Google searchers then they’re left out in the cold.

BET I WOULD HAVE LIKED TODAY’S, BUT THEY STILL AREN’T COMING THROUGH. SYLVIA

Not a comfortable place to be, nor one to which I would want them subjected. But until WordPress Support figures things out, I’ve no suggestion for those affected. I can only hope that they’ll chill in other wonderful ways…

until hugmamma’s mind, body, and soul…returns for their reading pleasure…

………hugmamma.

youtube…”to go, please”

Posted on July 2, 2011 by hugmamma

Image via Wikipedia

Have been having trouble adding YouTube videos into my posts for some time now. Thought it had to do with the fact that I wasn’t a subscriber, and YouTube was “cracking down.” No matter that I continued to do what I’d done before, following WordPress instructions. Something changed it seemed, and no one told me.

Thinking it might make a difference if I was a subscriber, I spent a couple of days recently trying to become one with YouTube. It was like trying to break into Fort Knox! Because I’d started on Google’s blogger.com, I already had an account. But I couldn’t remember my password. It’s been over a year since I went there. I guess YouTube is Google’s, so since the “big G” didn’t let me in, the “big Y” said “Sorry…no trespassers allowed.”

Determined to work at the obnoxious task before me, I kept jumping through the hoops. I even left my laptop, and went into the basement family room, which I dislike because it’s so dark, to see if using the computer where I’d signed up for Google made a difference. In fact, that was one of their prompts. No go. No amount of jumping through the same hoops down there made a difference. So I returned to my laptop, and jumped through one final hoop…and presto! I got lifetime membership into YouTube via Google. Don’t ask me how I did it. I couldn’t repeat it if I tried. And truth be told, I wouldn’t try it again if YouTube offered me a singing contract.

Thinking I now had the problem of inserting videos into my posts solved, I confidently tried to do just that. You guessed it! I still couldn’t get those little movie boxes to cooperate. They just didn’t want to come over to my blog, no matter how I tried to entice them. They didn’t care how well I wrote, at least to my way of thinking, nor did they care about all the great photographs keeping them company. Those YouTube videos just wouldn’t budge…so help me.

Funny how the old saying comes to mind, “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” I think, perhaps, that it’s not so much the inability to learn new tricks, it’s probably that one needs to empty one’s mind of how the tricks were done in the past. You know “Out with the old; in with the new.” So intent was I on trying to add YouTube videos the old way, I wasn’t really reading their current directions about the new shortcut. I thought I was, but obviously I wasn’t. My brain assumed that the words in front of my eyes, said what they’d said the last time I read them.

Image via Wikipedia

Guess who got me to read what was in front of my eyes? My roommate…better known as my hubby. It may be that WordPress has become second nature to me, that I think I know everything about it. I know I’m kidding myself, but I like to live the fantasy. So when I ran into this technical “brick wall,” I asked my husband to tinker with the problem. Mind you, he doesn’t know WordPress from a bench press. But clear thinking has always been his forte.

Image via Wikipedia

After taking him to a YouTube video of Michael Jackson’s career altering moment when he moonwalked for the first time in public, at the Motown 25th Anniversary celebration on TV, my husband figured out, after some hemming and hawing, that rather than copying the “share” URL for the video, he copied and pasted the URL at the top of the screen. The reason being, he said, and which I confirmed, was that the “share” URL spelled “youtu.be,” instead of the usual “youtube.” That period between the u and the b made all the difference in the world. Lightbulb moment!!!

My husband thinks the “share” URL might bring too much excess verbage with it that WordPress would prefer not to have clogging up its system. Makes sense to me. But as I explained to my daughter, I can mimic what’s being said. I can follow instructions…to some degree. Obviously not always. But I don’t necessarily understand the why-fors, where-fors, and what-fors. Or else I’m too impatient to get started, to get on with it, to check it off my “to-do” list. Thank goodness I’m not the breadwinner in my house.

Image via Wikipedia

…we might be subsisting on bread and water…not a bad thing since we’re always fighting the battle of the middle-age belly…hugmamma.

appreciate your loyalty…big time!!!

Posted on June 25, 2011 by hugmamma

Almost a month has elapsed since I spent my days blogging away contentedly. I must admit my neck, back and shoulders got a much needed break from the long hours I’d spend hunched over my laptop keyboard. If your eyes have been glued to your computer screen in recent days trying to digest my thriller about bedbugs, then you’ll understand my long absence from hugmamma’s mind, body and soul. Let’s just say I was out making memories, however forgettable I wish they were. At my age you’d think I’d have enough life experiences not to need more to feel like an adult. I thought 61 years was a pretty solid foundation upon which to rest my laurels. But apparently not.

Since my daughter’s apartment, both of them actually, were in total disarray, and because we were faced with the overwhelming task of moving her furnishings out of storage, and sanitizing everything before moving them into her new place, blogging was the furthest thing from my mind. Besides which we tried not to spend more time than was necessary where the bedbugs resided, the old apartment. Unfortunately, that’s also where the internet was still hooked up. Not until a new desk we’d purchased was assembled and in place, did my daughter want to relocate her computer and cable connection. All this to say I couldn’t blog even if I’d wanted to do so. I’m sure you’ll understand when I say…that was the last thing on my mind.

Image by Cat Sparx via Flickr

When I finally did sit down to log onto hugmamma’s mind, body and soul, I was very surprised, and very delighted, to find that my subscribers had remained loyal. I was certain the list would have dwindled alongside my dwindling posts. As other bloggers will confirm, “site stats” are an important indicator of a blog’s viability. While views declined as I expected, it was indeed humbling to see that I’d picked up another few subscribers, while hanging on to past subscribers. It reiterated, for me, the words of my Blogging 101 instructor, Cat Rambo. “Write something of value, and readers will come.”

So I thank each and every one of you who continue to make me feel my words are of value. I’m unable to publicly recognize all, for there are those who subscribe via particular posts, and friends and family who subscribe via email, neither of which I’m capable of reproducing below. But know that I include you, about 90, among the following WordPress subscribers whose gravatars I am able to show.

	estherlou http://estherlou.wordpress.com/	2 days, 20 hours ago
	Blogging Blueprints http://generatemasstraffic.blogspot.com/	1 month, 2 weeks ago
	carvingoutavoice http://carvingoutavoice.wordpress.com	1 month, 3 weeks ago
	Blogging Blueprint http://qtwt.us/2ift	1 month, 3 weeks ago
	nuvofelt http://chittlechattle.wordpress.com	1 month, 4 weeks ago
	frizztext http://flickrcomments.wordpress.com	2 months ago
	OneAngryBytch http://oneangrybytch.wordpress.com	2 months, 1 week ago
	easylifestyles http://easy-lifestyles.blogspot.com	2 months, 2 weeks ago
	littlenavyfish http://givemestories.wordpress.com	3 months ago
	dogear6	3 months ago
	carloscollazo06 http://carloscollazo06.wordpress.com	3 months ago
	Redneckprincess http://redneckprincess.wordpress.com	3 months, 1 week ago
	Marion Driessen http://mariondriessen.wordpress.com	3 months, 1 week ago
	Beneath The Tin Foil Hat http://tinfoilhatman45.wordpress.com	3 months, 1 week ago
	HaleyWhitehall http://haleywhitehall.wordpress.com	3 months, 2 weeks ago
	sagechronicles http://sagechronicles.wordpress.com/	3 months, 3 weeks ago
	jeanne http://nolagirlatheart.wordpress.com	3 months, 3 weeks ago
	Jackie Paulson Author http://postadaychallenge2011.wordpress.com/	3 months, 3 weeks ago
	CMSmith http://randomthoughtsfrommidlife.wordpress.com	3 months, 4 weeks ago
	literaryescape http://literaryescape.wordpress.com	4 months ago

	Isabelle http://myenglishthought.wordpress.com	4 months, 1 week ago
	hakea http://hakea.wordpress.com	4 months, 3 weeks ago
	Steph http://coolbluedudette.wordpress.com	4 months, 4 weeks ago
	Northwestgimp http://northwestgimp.wordpress.com	5 months, 1 week ago
	Keith Kamisugi http://keithpr.wordpress.com/	5 months, 2 weeks ago
	mecwrites25 http://mecwrites25.wordpress.com	6 months, 2 weeks ago
	fussymissy	7 months, 3 weeks ago

..how can i go wrong…with so many friends who…”have my back”…hugmamma. 🙂 …mahalo nui loa…aloha from the bottom of my heart!!!

for letting me “overflow,” huge thanks

Posted on April 28, 2011 by hugmamma

It’s been awhile since I’ve reached out to thank faithful readers of hugmamma’s mind, body and soul. Views have surpassed any number I would have imagined possible for me, a 61-year old wannabee writer wanting to give voice to my thoughts, feelings, and opinions. Any blogger will tell you, as any author of books would, that readers are an important part of the equation. I take that back, they’re actually an essential element for any blogger or writer’s success. At least that’s my opinion. Others may feel they do just fine in isolation.

In July I’ll have been blogging a year. If I felt my readers were done with listening to what I say, I might decide to take it down a notch and pursue other avenues for my passion. My WordPress experience has been the best by far, having started on Blogger.com with no comments to the 35 posts I wrote, after which I was on Oprah.com where I felt well received, and where joining community discussions was easily accomplished. But with her transition to OWN TV, Oprah‘s blog became more like a stepchild. Hence my transition to WordPress.com.

I want to thank all those who have subscribed to my blog, whether by email or rss feed or any other avenue with which I’m technologically unfamiliar. Following are those who I know for sure who subscribe.

The WordPress bloggers include:

	frizztext
	OneAngryBytch
	easylifestyles
	littlenavyfish
	dogear6
	carloscollazo06
	Redneckprincess
	Marion Driessen
	Beneath The Tin Foil Hat
	HaleyWhitehall
	sagechronicles
	jeanne
	Jackie Paulson Author
	CMSmith
	literaryescape

	My English Thoughts
	hakea
	Steph
	Northwestgimp
	Keith Kamisugi
	mecwrites25
	fussymissy

I congratulate all of these bloggers who are also following their own voices. Family and friends have also subscribed, but where I once knew who you all were, I no longer seem able to identify you as that capacity seems to have been removed from my blog. But you know who you are, and I thank you all for supporting me all this time…from the bottom of my hearts. The same applies to all, and there are many, who have subscribed by rss feed who are not within the WordPress community. I thank you as well, for wanting to stay connected.

I hope I’ve kept you entertained while I’ve satisfied my need to unload all these words which would otherwise have exploded like magma from a volcano.

mahalo for letting me overflow into your lives…and let’s see where life takes us…hugmamma.