A Well Deserved Bit of Thanks

I really need to say thank you. I was a bit of an absentee blogger there for a bit. I can say I was busy, yada, yada, yada, ad naseum - and that'd be the honest truth, but to anyone who reads my blog regularly it's okay to be a little pissed off at me. Usually I'm better about blogging. I swear.

I'm hoping to have a few more exciting things to blog about in the near future, again, I swear. But in the meantime just know my thanks is sincere and from the heart. I just needed to recover from the shock that people keep on reading, even when I've neglected them (and should receive a thousand, nay, two thousand lashings for doing so).

But seeing the people who visit, well it makes me want to give you more to read. So I shall make it a priority to blog this week. In the meantime,

It's you, the reader who keeps me motivated to blog. Sometimes (well not lately) it's the only writing I do. It keeps me from wanting to pull my own fingernails off when I fail to write elsewhere.

So check back this week. I'm going to find some great books to talk about this week and share some good news if things pan out.

Bonne nuit et à demain!

(Good night and see you tomorrow!)



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A Multilingual Show of Appreciation & Other Miscellany

Since I started this blog I admit I've cheated a little. I took material from another blog that I kept and added it to my archives. No one read that other blog because I didn't really do very much with it, so when I see things I've written a year or two ago getting attention, it makes my heart sing.

I don't want to be overly sentimental, so instead I'd like to say the following:

1. Danke schön
2. Merci beaucoup
3. Thank you very much
4. Cheers
5. 谢谢
6. 감사합니다
7. Dank u wel
8. Tak
9. Gracias
10. Grazie mille

to my readers in Germany, France, the US, Canada, Singapore, Denmark, Italy, Spain, Taiwan, South Korea, and Australia.

*Since posting I realised I now have readers from reland and Belgium as well.

You might have found my blog through various search phrases, but here are some of my favourites:

1. Dr. Scholl's
2. Amsterdam
3. Date "La Falaise" was painted by Henri Rousseau (which wasn't on my blog but I found the date. 1894)
4. Carla Bruni
5. Inigo Montoya's backstory

I added a poll to see what you'd like me to blog about, but I also have a few subjects I'll be blogging about over the summer months including a few "series" of posts.

Here Be Maps

A series on the history of cartography, maps of imaginary places, and maps in fictional literature.

Mysterious France

A series on myths, legends, and folklore from various regions of France including Paris, Fontainebleau, and Provence.

A Korean Banquet - Hanjeongsik (한정식)

Hanjeongsik damyang is the ultimate Korean meal once served only to royalty. In this series there will be lots of recipes broken into their various components, as well as covering a bit of the history of Korean cuisine.

I trained for three years in Korean cooking on my own by cooking from 4 am until 2 am every Saturday while in college in order to learn not only how to cook the dishes I love, but also to learn more about one of my two cultures.

If it makes you feel any better it made me hungry too.




Other than that I've been tyring to make a few small technical improvements to the blog to make it more enjoyable to read, but if you do experience any problems viewing my blog feel free to comment about it. Blogger has been especially glitchy lately, but I hope it's only for me. I added an About page recently as well, so I've removed my profile widget as the About page has a lot more spoilers on it.

Again thank you for supporting my blog. It really encourages me to come up with new ideas, inspires me, and gives me a little boost - all things which are helping me to be a better writer.

In other words:

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A big "merci" to my readers!

I checked my blog stats today, not because I am obsessed with having a popular blog, but to see what everyone is mostly interested in so I can keep delivering the goods. I thought my readers might be interested as well.

Firstly thank you to my American readers, but also thank you to my readers in France, Singapore, Denmark, Germany, and the UK! I can't believe that people in Singapore are reading my blog. Despite the connectivity of the Internet, it still seems impossible somehow.

Secondly thank you to Google. One of the reasons why I chose a Blogger account over the other blogging platforms is because Google does a lot of SEO (search engine optimisation) for you. If you're considering a blog I think it's a good idea to get started on Blogger for this reason. For example I discovered if I looked up "femme flâneuse" through Google's search engine, my blog and a few of my entries were the first 4 links.

Now I also, because I am also a big, big geek, have to give a shout out to my readers who use Linux. Granted I'm not such a big geek anymore that I could do much on a Linux operating system (yes I have been corrupted by Windows), it does warm my heart to know that at least amongst my readers that Linux is still your operating system of choice. It would probably still be mine if I hadn't treated my ThinkPad so poorly. Considering my ThinkPad was made by IBM I have probably dated myself, but c'est la vie!

Some of my traffic has to be from my recent application to be a contributor for some other blogs, but it's nice to see that the blogosphere is still a give and take community. By this I mean, I read blogs and I comment on blogs. Sometimes people who read the same blogs read my comments and click to read my blog. I can't recommend this enough for any beginning blogger. Take the time to read what other people are putting out into the blogosphere and maybe some of that comes back to you. Let's call it blarma. We could call it blogkarma but it would be too obvious. Since neither are particularly clever, let's just drop the subject entirely.

It seems my readers really like book recommendations and Henry Miller, so in that case I will keep that bit up. I imported my old blog yesterday that has lots of lists of books I've bought for my library and recommendations so be sure to check my archives from 2008. You also seem to like recipes, so I will happily supply those as well. The only reason why I haven't posted so many recipes yet is because I happen to own a Sony digital camera with a proprietary memory stick that doesn't fit into my new computer, so once I get the proper adapter I will take lots of unprofessional but well meaning photos of what I cook. Just please keep in mind I cook better than I take photographs.

Thank you again . I just made some edible but not as good baked fried chicken and needed a little boost!

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