Feel The Love Campaign

After yesterdays post about how difficult I am finding it to cuddle my pets regularly and plentifully over the day, I realized how I was not alone. Infact I was far from it!

So many of you commented telling me about how you too struggle to manage the balance like me and I got some wonderful advice on how to “deal” with it.

Like, holding/snuggling even for a short amount of time once a day. That daily interaction is enough to keep your pets occupied and remind them that you haven’t forgotten them. We all like to be reassured some days – pets are like this too.

And knowing that I am not a bad person for not always finding the time to let them all run about in their exercise balls makes me feel slightly less guilty about my scheduling.  We are all human after all and sometimes an hour long cuddle and playtime is not practical.

I talk to them and stroke them if I don’t actually hold them. So I’m doing my best and giving it my all if nothing else.

Anyway, I have strayed off topic a bit here.
I want to put together a picture gallery.
A picture gallery of ALL the loved and adored creatures from the blogosphere!!

Please email me your favourite picture of your furry at gemz59@yahoo.co.uk and in the message part include the following.
If you could tell your pet ONE THING, that’ll they’ll understand and remember forever, what would it be?

I really need all your help for this one guys – it doesnt have to be much, just a sentence is perfect!
I just really want to do this post for all the loved animals, big and small

Thanks
XxxxxxxxxX

10,014 Views, 94 Countries, 186 Posts, 1,616 Comments, 18 Videos And Counting… :D

Looking at my WordPress stat’s page is usually a pretty routine affair.
I check how many views I get for the day, have a secret celebratory dance, and then have a closer look at what posts have been looked at most blah blah blah. As fellow blogger’s you know the drill.

Well yesterday I had a littler more reason to dance than usual.
I have crept over the 10,000 all time views border.
TA-DAHHHHHH!!

So I thought my post today would be dedicated to a few statistics from the Hamster Diaries blog which actually will act as a reminder that my blog is actually quite a hit Blogging everyday is not the easiest thing in the world and takes a fair amount of discipline and patience to get into a routine. Having settled into a pattern (or there abouts after the new-job-time-management-shake-up thing)]

First post date:
Sunday 13th May 2012
 Number of posts:
186
Number of comments:
1616
Total number of views:
10,014
Overall average views per day:
80
Most views on a single day:
132
Number of countries reached:
94
Most country views:
United States
Likes on Facebook:
15
Most popular post(excluding homepage): 
How to tell whether your hamster is a boy or girl
Number of videos on Youtube:
18
Most popular video on Youtube:
Newborn Baby Hamsters
Number of views for this video:
447
Lifetime video views on Youtube:
1118

Writing this post has actually put a smile on my face. Who knew blogging could be so satisfying
Have a fantastic day everybody!
xxxx

Hamster Diaries Meets Facebook

I never thought I would spread the blog over to Facebook, but I feel I have come to the right time to try and stretch my hamster legs over to the dark-side! Hopefully, this will make it easier for my readers to keep up to date with the hamsters and all the fun things I have lined up for the next few months. 

I have set up a little Facebook like box over on the sidebar (over on the left! The left!!) so you can just click like and ta-dahhh you’re done!

I have linked it up to WordPress (I think) so basically the posts will show up on the Facebook page as well as on here, so you dont have to miss a thing! I feel like I am really branching out here, First the Etsy shop, now Facebook! Whatever next!! (Sorry Twitter, I am not going there )

As well as the posts going there too, I can post random pictures that don’t quite fit in posts and all the videos that didn’t quite cut it in the WordPress World. You would be surprised how much stuff I have that doesn’t make it onto the actual blog.

Think of it this way, the Facebook page will include all the BONUS FEATURES the blog doesn’t quite cover.. Its like the Disc 2 of the
Hamster Diaries DVD, with all the behind the scenes bits, all the pictures that don’t make it onto the blog, all the quick stories I don’t have enough of to fill out a proper post and all the EXTRA’s that WordPress just cant include. I intend to keep that just as uptodate and current as the blog without spamming anyones news feed, so click LIKE and you will make my day!

Go on… make my day!
You know you want to!  

Instagram: Am I Missing Something Here?

Hands up if you have a smart phone?
Hands up if you have Facebook?!
Hands up if you have seen the wave of ‘Instagram’ photos on your social media pages??

Oooh I have, I have!!

Where am I going with this? Let me explain.

There is a photography app for smartphones. Its free and its called Instagram. It allows any ole tom, dick or harry to take a plain boring picture and turn it into a retro moody art-piece.

Still confused? Let me try and demonstrate.
Here is a picture of a plant on my windowsill. Such a cute and dainty little plant.

Now after the click of a few buttons, I can transform this boring unartistic into a masterpiece!
Doesn’t it look fancy!!

Okay so again, where am I going with this?!
Now I am a simply pleased girl at heart. I like my tea sugary and my jeans baggy. There’s not much to it.
But this app, it puzzles me. I just seem to be missing the point. By all means touching up your photographs gives them a refreshed feel but then why oh why does that mean taking old-fashioned photos of your daily Costa coffee have to be shared with your friends and family every morning on Facebook?? I don’t want to see your ‘Costa♥♥♥’ every day, let alone see your moody contrasted empty coffee mug with a fancy frame around it. Just no.

I sound bitter; I genuinely dont mean to. I just don’t seem to understand the fascination.

Now social media seems to have gotten mundane over the past few years. The ‘new shiny toy‘ effect is wearing thin and the ‘meme‘ generation is fast taking over which is making socialising over the web more and more illusive. Now it seems I can rarely log into my Facebook account without seeing an arty-farty picture of someone’s new cat.

I even, in vain I might add, tried to take a picture of my happy fur-ball in the true style of Instagram.
Now all I seemed to have achieved here is making my bed sheets seem rank and old. Not retro at all!
Okay, so I forgot the fancy-pants frame on my picture (totally not putting my all into this attempt but you get the idea).

So I may be fighting against the tide here. The application itself has gotten hundreds of millions of users and Facebook has recently signed a deal to integrate the app into the site. Pretty in demand stuff, I agree but just not my cup of sugary tea I am afraid.

I like my pictures vibrant and sharp not old and washed out.
I like some of the pictures take in Instagram’s style, like festival goers for example. They look quirky and suit the style but to take multiple images of your breakfast and then sharing with the world just bores me.

What do you guys think? Do you regularly use Instagram?? Have you never even heard of it?? What do you think of it? I want to know!