Bwahaha I found this on Melinda’s blog, and had to share.  I can so see myself in this!!

I attended a cooking evening this evening hosted by Canderel.  It was so much fun, and it was awesome to spend time with bloggers that I know… and to meet bloggers I’ve never meet before (so now I have more blogs to go and explore).

The cookoff took place at Salon de Culinaire in Fourways (they baked Tanya’s magnificent cake at the wedding a few weeks ago).  On the menu was a tomato tarts, then duck with plum sauce and ending with red velvet cupcakes.  There were 6 bloggers that attended, and we were paired to make one of the courses.  And the aim was to use the Canderel Yellow to replace the sugar.

Angie (@miss_luckypony) and I got to bake the tomato tarts.  Oh and they ended up being very delish, after we decided half way through the process that they would taste better with a bit of feta cheese… and thankfully Trevor from Salon de Culinaire had some on hand… and the recipe got adjusted.

I must say that cooking with the Canderel was quite something.  It’s so very light and so fine compared to sugar… and the food tasted as it should have so I’m assuming that it tastes close to real sugar.  And yes, I’ve never actually had Canderel before.

Alida from Simply-Delicious had the most incredible chopping skills!

Angie took more photos than me… was a little funny for me to have so many other people around with so many cameras

Tanya was also there, and got to bake the cupcakes











It was an awesome evening thanks so much to Canderel for inviting me (Tash from Raising Men has her blog post up too, so go see the pro photos taken during the evening).  Salon de Culinaire was awesome!! I would love to organise another blogging cookoff there… was so much fun!  They actually did a lot more of the cooking than we did, and we eventually ended up at the table drinking wine while the team made sure that the baking was completed properly and then they plated the food… Angie and I decided to plate our starter though, which was quite a bit of fun.

And here’s the recipe for the Tomato tarts that we made:

Mini Tomato Tart Tartin

This makes a stunning starter or could be served as a main course with salad. For ease it can be made ahead if required. The tomatoes turn wonderfully sweet and caramelised once cooked.

1 Serving

15 minutes preparation time 

30 minutes cooking time

Save 40 calories

7g fat (per serving of which saturates 3g)

144 calories (per serving)

19g carbohydrates (per serving – of which sugars 9g)

INGREDIENTS

3 tomatoes, cut in half

2 tsp granular Canderel Yellow

A few fresh thyme leaves (optional)

25g/2oz ready bought light puff pastry

Fresh basil leaves for garnish

YOU WILL NEED A 10CM ROUND FRYING PAN

METHOD

1 Preheat the oven to 200C/Gas 6

2 Add the tomatoes to a roasting tin and sprinkle over 1tsp of Canderel Yellow and season with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. Cook in the oven for about 15 minutes until they just start to soften and wilt a little. You want them to retain their shape.

3 Whilst the tomatoes are cooking, roll the pastry out on a lightly floured board to a 10cm round. Put to one side.

4 Now spoon the tomatoes out and sit them cut side down in a small pan along with the thyme if using, then add the remaining Canderel Yellow. Cook for a few minutes until some juices run then remove from the heat.

5 Sit the pastry over the tomatoes, tucking it in and around them. Put in the oven and cook for about 15-20 minutes until the pastry is golden.

6 Remove and leave for a few minutes then invert onto a plate, be careful as the pan handle will be very hot. Garnish with basil leaves.

Tip: If you haven’t got a mini pan, you can transfer the tomatoes to a mini tart tin or oven proof dish before covering with pastry     

A few days ago, Laura asked me how to add Facebook “like” buttons and Twitter’s tweet buttons to her blog.  Instead of replying by email, I’ve decided to blog about it… because I’m convinced that a lot of bloggers don’t know how to do it.

I’m specifically referring to owned domain WordPress blogs here, not the free WordPress blogs.

Before I get into how to do it, here is a list of the sharing links that you HAVE to add to you blog:  Tweet, Facebook Like and Google +.  The others like Stumbleupon are a nice to have but normally Stumblers have a stumbling toolbar on their browser that’ll add your link to Stumbleupon and there’s no real need for a button on the post.

But why do you need this? It’s extra clutter on the page, I hear you asking…

Well, it’s quite simple really, if your article is good, people will want to share it.  The easier you make sharing, the more people will actually send it to their friends.  The majority of my click-throughs on my photography blog (other than Google hits), is from people clicking the “LIKE” button on my blog.

People are inherently lazy online… it’s a schlepp to copy the link and paste it into a tweet… it’s a whole load easier to click on a tweet button, slightly edit the text and press submit.  And there’s an added bonus… you can actually see how many people clicked the button!!

As for Google +, yes I know it’s the new kid on the block, but Google is using it in the search indexing… it’s already made an impact on my blog stats.

OK, so now you know why you need it, and what to add… the last bit is to show you how to add them.

It’s actually very easy if you have a WordPress blog.  All you need to find is a good plugin, if your theme doesn’t have them built in (my photography blog theme has the links built in).  There’s no need for coding at all.

I use the following plugins on this blog:

• 1-click Retweet/share/like - you can choose which sharing buttons to add, and where to put the buttons on the page.  It also includes an automatic feed to social media sites, but I don’t use that because I don’t like publishing all my posts automatically… it becomes spammy.
• Wordbooker - this plugin has added buttons to the top of my post, but I mostly use this one to send selected posts to Facebook.  I like this plugin because I can choose which ones to send, and it syncs the Facebook comments back to my blog.
• Another alternative is Slick Social Sharing buttons which have a slideout version of the buttons

I hope you find this article helpful Now please add them to your blog so that I can share your content with my friends!

How cool is that?! It’s the first time that this blog has got nominated in a competition So I NEED your votes

That Lynda.com prize would be very handy to up my Lightroom skills

http://www.kidzworld.co.za/mommy-blogger-competition.htm

The competition is realy tough actually… and I’m friends with quite a few of the other mommy bloggers, so if you have some time, havea  look at their blogs… add them to your readers… and then vote for me!! LOL!

I went to a baby’s memorial service.  If you follow me on Twitter and Facebook you would know that I’ve been asking for prayers for Shayna for the last while… well, she died during the week, and her memorial service was yesterday.

No mom or dad should ever have to say goodbye to their baby.

Now I don’t ordinarily blog about someone else’s story on my blog… it has always got me into trouble whenever I’ve attempted it… but I feel the need to talk about this.

You see, Shayna and her twin brother Davyn were born at 24 weeks, and he’s doing so very well in NICU at the moment.  The reason this particular story is so close to my heart is because I’ve known their mother virtually for years.  We met on a local online mom’s forum (Babynet), and I’ve been following her struggle for fall pregnant for years.  I was so so very pleased for them when they finally fell pregnant.

And one of the reasons I followed her story so intently, even though I haven’t really been active on the forum lately, and I think we’ve only met IRL a handful of times… because Kim was one of the moms that gave me SO much support when Connor was in NICU.  Her oldest son was also in NICU… so she knew what I was going through, and her and a few other moms gave me such amazing first hand support on BN during that time (and during all my miscarriages before that).

So, I had to make a plan to get to the service.  And although it was dreadfully sad, the minister was so very right when he said that Shayna may have only lived for 48 days, but she touched so many people in that short time… she really did live it to the fullest.

The most beautiful part of the service (apart from the speech by her oldest brother) was when the family let go of the 48 balloons for her 48 days of life.  And if you saw purple, pink and white balloons floating in the sky around South Africa and the world at approx 10:30am know that they were let go from other online moms who were following the story and thinking about Shayna.

No matter how badly my day has been going during the last few weeks, I’d log into their Facebook group (A tale of two tiny tots) to see if there was any news and be in awe of her strength and resilience…. and the family’s amazing amazing strength too… and know that my troubles are really trivial in the grander scheme of things

Anyhoo, I’ll be continuing to follow Davyn’s story on FB and BN, but I’m actually going to send Kim a message in a few days (once the dust has settled a bit) to find out if they’re keeping this story in another way.  It’s going to be virtually impossible to export from Facebook, and I’m sure they’re going to want Davyn to read it in future.  I think they should start a blog, and I’ll quite willingly help them to export the story… so that they can have a proper record of it.

I went to Wolves tonight to meet up with a bunch of bloggers.  It was awesome, and I’ve put some more photos on my photoblog, but I have to add something here.

Firstly, I have to say that I LOVED that there were so many bloggers there that I didn’t know.  I LOVE that there’s a resurgence in blogging locally, and that people want to tell their stories.

But it was also quite an eye-opener for me, and I love that after all these years of blogging and going to tweet-ups etc that I had to explain who I was again.

Let me explain.

The focus of my blogging in the last few years has been my photography, and not my personal blog. My personal blog has been for me mostly, and for my friends to follow what I do.  It’s less about ego than what my photography blog has become. This blog is about my story.

Normally, when I get to meetups, I’m introduced as Jeanette or Jenty the photographer, and everyone knows my photography blog, or has heard about it, or wants to hear about it.

Tonight was different.  When I got there, my name tag had this blog on it… and I quite like that!

Obviously more people read this blog than I realise.  A few months ago I contemplated shutting it down because I couldn’t think of more to write.  But I’m glad I didn’t… mostly because this is where my story is.  I don’t really punt this blog, I don’t get half as much traffic on it as I do on the other blog… and I’m OK with that.

But my ego was stoked tonight when I realised that people do actually read this, and not just my friends who’ve followed me online for years.

So… anyhoo… I can’t wait to visit some of the blogs of the bloggers I didn’t know about before tonight and adding them to my ever expanding reader

I’ve just finished revamping my photography blog (well it’s almost done, the portfolio pages need some work), and after the endless swearing and cursing that was involved I thought this would be a good blog topic.

I’ve been blogging for almost 5 years, and in that time I’ve changed themes umpteen times, and I’ve now used all the options available.  I’ve fought with endless free themes, until I succumbed to buying themes, and for this blog I was lucky enough to win a custom theme.  So in no particular order, I hope this list will help you if you’re on the hunt for a new WordPress theme.

1.  Know your limitations.  I may be quite happy to fiddle around with settings until I get them to work and find plugins to make my life easier, and I’m a google fundi when it comes to finding help, but I’m no code-head.  I can guess fumble my way through HTML and CSS to adjust the colours and the basic layouts, but I cannot possibly write a piece of code that’ll hugely improve the blog… so I need to find a theme whose blog code is stable, and well documented.  And the problem with free themes is that you do end up having to change the code quite a bit to get it to do what you want it to do.  If you’re happy doing that for hours on end, then go that route, it’ll save you money… but definitely not time.

2.  Richness of the CMS/admin section This is almost always non-existant on free themes (unless they’re premium themes, but even then the free theme’s admin sections are basic).  On a paid theme, like my photography blog theme, I expect the admin section (or plugin) to do everything for me.  I don’t want to have to fiddle in the code.  It has to be self explanatory, or very well documented (not one or two lines where you can see that the developer couldn’t think of what to write… it has to be written for laymen).  Now this is where the problem comes in… apart from a few screen dumps on trial pages, you can’t actually play around with the admin sections until you actually buy the theme… this is a massive flaw because you could end up with a blog that’s cost you a bomb and you need to be a code-head to get the thing to work!  Try and look at the sample images to work out how rich the admin section is and my advice is to also go through the support forum to see how to install it before you buy the theme.

3.  Flash headers and slide shows don’t work on iPad or iPhone, so if like me, you’re getting more and more hits from those devices and you don’t want to reduce your users experience of the site, steer clear of themes that use these (where you can’t change it for another type of slide show for example)

4.  Support.  Make sure the support for the theme is good.  I can’t stand having to email someone to get help.  That takes time to get a response, especially if you’re sitting in Africa and the developers are in the US or something.  The documentation online needs to be robust, and if you use Twitter like me, make sure the developers have a Twitter account and use it!!

5.  Flexibility.  Play around with the sample blog.  Make sure it’s as flexible as you need it to be.  Also make sure that you can adjust it in some way so that your site does look unique.  There’s no point spending a fortune on something and then your blog looks generic.    This is particularly relevant for custom blogs where it’s really not a cheap exercise.

6.  Usability.  Again, play with the sample blog.  If you struggle to find our way around it, then guaranteed your readers will too.  Think about how easy it is to navigate around it… a blog may be a personal journal… but it’s online for other people to read.  If they can’t understand how to get around it, then they won’t come back again.

Let me know in the comments if you’ve learnt any hard lessons about blog theme buying recently.

Anyhoo, that was quite a braindump… let me get back to my editing. Hope you found it interesting and slightly helpful.

So, how lucky am I?  I got nominated for 2 awards this week by 2 of my favourite local mommy bloggers, both of whom I met on a mommies online forum years ago, and I’m so very very pleased they’ve been bitten by the blogging bug… so thanks Fiona and Nicci

I’ve been nominated for the versatile one before, and I’m sorry I can’t actually remember who it was that nominated me… but anyhoo, I’ve decided that tonight will be the night to respond

So apparently how this all works is that when one is nominated, one has to:

1. Choose five (or more) other people who deserve this award and pass it on.
2. Tell 7 facts about yourself.
3. Let the people you gave the award to know.
4. Thank the person who gave you the award.

So here goes…

1. Most of the people nominated by other bloggers have been personal/mommy bloggers, so I’m going to mix it up and add a few blogs that I love reading (and in fact, if they know of me, they’re only aware of my photography blog and not this one), and I know they will never respond but it’s always fun to share blogs that you like reading:

• Emmajanenation:  One of the reasons she’s nominated is her latest blog post has cool chains that I think Fiona would like (I’m always shopping)
• Design to Inspire:  An Aussie blog with the most amazing interiors… I dream about redoing my house every day… much nicer than waiting for a monthly decor magazine
• Color Me Katie:  If you haven’t heard about this blog I’d be amazed but I know that new bloggers will want to find gems like this one so I’m adding her to my list.  She inspires me to think out the box.
• Enjoying the small things:  Love how Kelle portrays her life in photos
• Intermittent Blogger: I met her on the same forum as Fiona and Nicci, and she’s a South African who’s emigrated to New Zealand and also discovered blogging fairly recently
• Three Ring Circus:  Because Tiff is simply awesome and the most amazing mom with the most incredible challenges and I’m in awe of her strength and love.

2.  And now about me.  This is tough cos you guys know so much about me… hmmm… what don’t you know yet…

• My photography has to become more focussed because I’ve realised that I’m not going to be able to do it full-time, so I’m going to be picky about what I decide to do.  A blog post will be coming up soon explaining the change to my packages related to baby shoots.
• I would love to have time to spend time with small businesses and photographers helping them with Social Media.  I spent 20 minutes yesterday in the pet food shop explaining to Mel (the person working there in the evening who was telling me about her FB page about animal adoption and how it’s not working as she thought it would) about Facebook and how it’s not the be-all-and-end-all of Social Media, and eventually I had quite an audience.  Was fun… I like that… I do a lot of that at work, but only they  (and the agencies I work with) know how much I actually know.
• I like connecting people.  I realised this at lunchtime today when I went to get some career coaching with a friend.  I love understanding what everyone does… and realising where they need help and connecting them to other people who can make their lives easier.
• I’ve got my photography workload under control again for now anyway.
• I’m going to the zoo tomorrow, and my kids are going to trail behind me on a shoot for the first time… hopefully they behave… wish me luck
• My aim half way through school was to become a metallurgist.  Yip… can you imagine me in a hardhat every day .  My aim when I went to varsity was to study accounting… thankfully that didn’t work out… ended up studying IT.  Strange how life works sometimes.
• I haven’t read a book in almost 2 years. The thing is, I’m not sure I miss it because I have so many blogs to read, and working where I work has made me quite ADD when it comes to attention span.

3.  Not going to do because I know they won’t respond, this was just fun 

4.  Done that in the first paragraph

I don’t like not knowing what’s going on.

Not that that statement is a surprise to those that know me online LOL!

In the last few weeks I’ve been scarce online.  It’s so damn busy at work, and I’m trying hard not to fall behind with my editing, and I’m also trying to get organised so that I can handle more weddings etc, that my online time has slipped.

Well, I have been blog reading and doing research like normal, but I haven’t been keeping up to date with my twitter stream, and I feel like I’m losing touch with my friends .  It’s all very distressing.

There was a short time today where I was able to catch up on Twitter… and man, I had to follow so many trails to figure out what was going on with everyone.  I quickly caught up on the Eqypt debacle, the Mandela health “crisis”, Angel’s dad etc etc yet it wasn’t enough time.

One thing that was handy today, and made me realise again that I’m normally quite on top of what is going on in the world, was today at around 12:30pm.  I was busy facilitating a strat session, and everyone wanted to stop to listen to the Mandela press conference on ETV on someone’s iPad.  Just before 12:30, there was an ad break, and everyone groaned.  I got out my phone, and checked my twitter stream and within a few seconds had found the answer… Mandela was being discharged.  We didn’t have to wait for the TV news… and we could carry on… 

LOL, love it when Social Media helps me prove my case (the other part of my day job )

So…. do you like the new layout?  hmm? hmm?

It was designed by Judith Shakes Designs.  It’s not a local design (if you’re wondering), and it’s a custom layout design done just for me!!

Cool hey?

I asked for something plain.  Didn’t want too fancy, but I was quite specific about a few things.  I don’t think I was an easy client though.  In fact, when I sent her my list of requirements and links to sites that I liked, she replied saying that normally she gets examples that are similar… but she couldn’t find any similarities between the ones I sent her.

LOL! Sounds like me right?  Completely indecisive!

But somehow she got it right.  This was her first try and I didn’t even want one change.  I love the colours.  I love the simplicity.  I love that it’s very different to my photography blog (which is also crying for a makeover).

As for the circumstances around me getting Judith Shakes Design to do my blog… well… I actually won the custom layout on Sarcastic Mom’s blog because of the Weekly Winners challenge a year ago, and I finally got my butt into gear and followed up! LOL!  My blog was in desperate need of a new look.  I’ve been eyeing her designs out for ages though, and wanting something that was me… and I think I got it!