Ostranenie

4/28/09

Migrating from Blogger to Wordpress

I recently had the unique opportunity to migrate from Blogger to Wordpress easily with some help from someone who knows how to do these things. It was a chance to edit the blog as I have a lot of posts about preparing for law school and other things that aren't part of my life at the moment. I'll still leave my old blog up here at blogger, so those people who find that info useful can still access it. The process of migrating from Blogger to GoDaddy hosted Wordpress was a tad confusing so I'm posting this to help anyone else who may be considering it. Here is the new blog: Black Guidebook.

Get a domain & hosting - here are a full set of instructions "How to Launch a Blog for Under an Hour for Super Cheap"

Install Wordpress - There has been a lot written on how to do this so I won't go into this here. Either google how to do this or have somebody do it for you. For me, the main barrier that prevented me from doing this a long time ago was this intimidating step. Serendipity struck when I met Johnny B. Truant who setup wordpress, installed my plugins and theme and everything for me FOR FREE. He will do the same thing for you through the end of the month in order to drum up interest in his website. There is no catch, I just have to pass on the good karma by thanking those who helped me by recognizing them. So thanks Johnny, you're awesome. The guide I linked to above has instructions on how to do this, but it is so much easier to farm this out. Then you just login and it works like blogger with a dashboard and everything ready to go. His website is Learn to Be Your Own VA.

Move over your posts and comments - This is the perfect time for me to start over so I'll be editing out a lot of my old content. I'll leave it live on the old blogger space. There is something to be said for starting over, but I have some items that I want to keep. To actually do this just go to www.yourblog.com/wp-admin/tools.php then Import. Select Blogger from the list and enter your login information. Hit the magic info and it brings over all your posts and comments. I did manage to delete 4 posts that I didn't mean to when editing through the old ones to refocus the content.

Fix all your internal links. If somebody clicks on your old website post links you want them to go to the post located on your new website. To do this: Login to Blogger. Go to Settings. Select Publishing. Click the top link, “Custom domain.” They will try to sell you registration here so you have to go to Advanced Settings. Save your new address. Now all your links will transfer automatically to your own domain, but you’ll need one more step to transfer your blog home page over. Make sure you do this AFTER you transfer all your posts.

Transfer your Google hits by redirecting direct visitors. Login to Blogger. Go to Layout. Go to Edit HTML. Place the following code anywhere after <head>: <meta content='0; url=http://YOURNEWURL.com/' http-equiv='refresh'/> This sends visitors to your blog homepage directly to your new address.

Transfer your subscribers/feed - Sign up for a FeedBurner account. Set up a feedburner feed for your new blog. Login to Blogger. Go to Settings. Go to Site Feed. In the Post Feed Redirect URL box, enter your new FeedBurner address.

Total cost $80 for a year of hosting an domain registration. Total time spent, including editing out old posts 4 hours. Minimum amount of time needed to get up and running, 1 hour.

4/24/09

Have a Travel Mug of Green Tea

This Wednesday was Earth day so for this Friday's tea cups I chose these cute succulents planted in china cups As of yesterday, artist Rebecca Marshall of The Cat Bird Nest is selling them on consignment at Flora Grubb Gardens in San Francisco. Of course today I'll be having my tea in a travel mug on Alaska Airlines.

Going green while traveling is hard, but I have made a few little travel green steps:

I bring my own empty travel mug. No Starbucks cups or plastic beverage containers onboard for me. If I forget my travel mug I hold onto my cup through the entire flight for refills so I don't go through more than one.
I pack a travel pashmina to throw over myself. Its more snuggly than an airline blanket and cuts down on their laundrering. I similarly don't use the airline pillows, many of which are thrown away after only a few uses.
In the comments section of my hotel reservation (there is always one) I tell them to remove all toiletries from the room. I bring my own, which I refill over and over and that saves me from having an allergic reaction to Marriott soap and saves a plastic bottle from biting the dust for my 1 night stay. Still haven't figured out how to save the other 8 towels in the room.
I only use carry-on luggage and I try not to bring things I don't need, this saves pounds of CO2 from being released carrying my stuff around.
I bring my own reusable purse sized tote with me. Its so easy to accumulate little plastic bags from everywhere without it. On the trip home I used to use the drycleaning bag from the hotel for my laundry, now those items go in a little tote as well.
I have my flight carbon offset (which doesn't make me feel unguilty and many have said isn't effective, but I do it anyway to support local renewable power sources)

So happy Earth Day, happy Friday and enjoy a cup of tea while plotting ways to be green this weekend.

The succulent tea cups are on sale at Flora Grubb Gardens (1634 Jerrold Avenue, San Francisco) for $24.95. Rebecca Marshall also has a line of handmade jewelry for sale; learn more about her work at The Cat Bird Nest.

4/23/09

Carry On for Weekend Trip

Tonight I'm off to Florida for a weekend meeting. I have 3 evenings to myself and my hotel is inside Disney World. We'll see if I can look up a friend who is nearby and spend some time hanging out. Simple weekend trips call for a 4-wheeled rolly bag and a handbag big enough for a few magazines and possibly a laptop. I love this leather bag from Lovegrove & Repucci. It is inexpensive and has a cute detail of the key ring.

Vegetable tanned leather. Red nylon liner, inner zip pocket, magnetized closure. Saintly ring attached to red cord to always keep things close by.

8 3/4" x 10 3/4"
$49.00, Buy it here.

4/22/09

Earth Day Discount

I like free stuff. I bet you do to. So here is a freebie (plus shipping) for you. Click on the image above to go to their website. The coupon code is EARTH09. I just tried it and its still working. I love the Butter London polish. I have posted about it before when I was loving their Take Me to Bed Red color.

4/21/09

Monthly WW Update and Inspiration

I haven't moved a muscle to exercise in almost a month. No, I didn't give up on WW. I had foot surgery and have been unable to do more than situps. My one month surgery milestone falls on the same day as my next flight, the earliest he would let me get back in the air. I did find it interesting that:

"The British Government has declared war on obesity, and among its first targets are drinkers. According to British government intel, 'The average wine drinker consumes an extra 2,000 calories a month - the equivalent of 184 bags of crisps.' This comes via The Telegraph, which further notes: 'Few middle class drinkers realise that a couple sharing a bottle of red wine a night are both consuming the equivalent of a Snickers chocolate bar in alcohol.' Appalling. You'd never see the French government release such data."

So my inability to have even an occasional glass of wine because of my meds is saving me a snicker bar every time. Of course, wine is actually ok for you in moderation and as long as you plan it into your overall day. Speaking of planning, I have been tracking and trying to hit my points every day, but with the complete lack of exercise I'll be happy to have a maintenance when I go back next week for weigh-in. I did find the above photo very inspiring. She's exactly my height (5'6") and got down from 211 lbs to her current weight using weight watchers and yoga.

4/20/09

Spring Cure: Week 4 & 5

The Apartment Therapy Spring Cure hits week 5 this week and oh my goodness they picked our worst room, the office. I never did our week 4 post so count this one for both.

Week 4 To Do List:

Deep Treatment (Living Room):

Clean up living room and related closets.
Repairs are being taken care of this week.
Declutter books and all media.
Cancel 75 percent of the catalogs you receive. - Catalog Choice let's you unsubscribe en masse.
Empty outbox this week. - Freecycle is so much more convenient than driving to the Salvation Army.
Confirm what you need to increase or decrease color in each room.
Identify what you need to increase or decrease softness in each room.
Cook three meals at home this week.
Send out your invitations to your post Cure Party.

One-Room Remedy (Laundry/Workout Room):

Begin shopping list and enter all prices into a spreadsheet. - We're trying to do everything ourselves without buying too much new. Hubby has asked for a circular saw so he can make me a bench himself and spend less than the $249+shipping that the bench I want costs. His hope is to use it on enough projects versus buying new items to ultimately justify its cost.
Decide on the total scope of work to be done. - Breaking the room into 3 seperate areas: landing strip, laundry and workout spaces.
Consider hiring a professional organizer. - Nope.
Visit a paint store this week to find samples. - Sherwin Williams thought it would be cheaper to give me a fan deck than to keep giving me paint sample strips.

Week 5 to-do list:

Deep Treatment (Office):

Take care of repairs this week. - Closet doors fixed.
Clean office area and related closets.
Vacuum, dust and mop throughout.
Declutter files.
Tackle the cord octopus.
Try a one-day media fast.
Buy fresh flowers.
Choose at least one hard or soft thing to add or subtract.
Cook three meals at home this week. - Chicken Parmesan, Zucchini Strand Spaghetti, and Pizza, it's been a very Italian week.
Go to bed early and read before sleep. - It's like an extra weekend day.
(Optional) Look into wireless technology. - We're totally set up wirelessly with our router. I would like to also get our printer setup to wirelessly print from our laptops, but that would cost money that isn't in the budget right now.

One-Room Workout (Laundry/Workout Room):

Order from your shopping list. - We hit up Lowesfor coat hooks and to look at counters and organization for the laundry area, we'll try and make the rest ourselves.
Try paint samples in the room and finalize paint choices. - Choosing the right shade of green which was both energetic for exercise and calming at the same time was hard. I'm still not sure that what we have is right. From time to time it looks like mint chocolate chip ice-cream instead of zen green, but maybe after the room is finished we'll feel differently.

4/19/09

Pacific Plans

Red Junk, originally uploaded by wenzday01.

I wrote about planning our 5th wedding anniversary trip recently in my post "Daydreaming of Europe," well there has been a change of plans. I have been invited to a conference in Singapore the 16-20th of July. So rather than being apart, I'm bringing him with me instead. We'll be crossing the Pacific instead of the Atlantic this summer. I'm going to miss going to Amsterdam, but I'm excited because this will be our first trip to Asia together. Singapore itself isn't really going to fill a week of our time so we'll have a long layover in Hong Kong first. I am just now starting the planning for the trip. I have two fresh Moleskine books which I will distill all of the guidebook and internet info into. I like to make my own guidebooks. They are smaller to pack and more relevent than carrying a huge guidebook. I have now spent over 15 hours looking up things to do and experience. I have a feeling that unlike Paris or London, which really do have a Top 10 list of must sees, we'll be spending a lot of time wandering around.