April 05, 2013

Socialize me!

Whew!  This trendy internet social networking thing has my head spinning!  This week was all about trying to wrap my head around Twitter.  At first, I was baffled by even the purpose of the hash tag.  Now, look at me!  I feel like a social network superstar!  Even though I am married to the computer guy of computer guys, when it comes to doing anything internet-savvy to support my knitting frenzy, I am usually adrift on the sea of internet overload and clinging to a piece of cardboard.  In other words, my non-mathematical, non-spatial, non-html brain has to figure it all out.  Good thing I am a quick study! (And by quick study I mean that it usually takes under a week to figure something out.)

See that cute little Twitter birdie in the top right corner of my blog (subliminal message:  click on it and follow @Zibelineknits!)? Under the FB link (subliminal message:  click on it and follow Zibelineknits!)?   The new adventure this week was Twitter.  I felt like Fred Shay in Suburgatory (minus the dopey hat, skate shoes, and need to have discs put in my ears of course), as I tried to figure out how to use the account that I created months ago but was too baffled by. Many a former high school student used to complain about how much vocabulary they were forced to learn each week in my English class; but given the vast amount of social networking vocabulary that I have had to learn this week just to be able to type a tweet, I am bemused by their angst.   So now I know how to tweet or whatever, and I have a grasp of the hash tag, which I have been using probably way too much, and the @ before the names/titles, and I am both a follower and one of the followed.  I even managed to connect my Etsy shop to Twitter, so now my visitors can click to follow me on Twitter AND FB.  But the Pièce de résistance of the week is ... drum roll ... I linked my Twitter account to my FB page!  Why is this so amazing and why would millions of teenagers and twenty-somethings be rolling their eyes if they read this post?  27 megamillion web page sets of "linking" instructions later, I learned that I was doing it all backward!  Apparently, when the tag line of  a post says "Linking FB to Twitter", what you are supposed to read into that is "Linking Twitter to FB" because you can't link FB to Twitter, only vice versa.  That only took me two days to figure out.  Again, very proud of myself.

And, lastly, I am now also a trade member of Craft Network ... still figuring that site out, though. Like I said,  I have been awash in social media this week, and I think I'm about to reach overload.

But you know what's REALLY been a handy discovery?  Well, I used to be a Google Reader.  But they've become totally out of touch with the real world and have decided to do away with Reader. (insert expletives).  Feebly to the rescue!  Said "good-bye" to Google Reader this week and now I only ever use Google, really, for email and searching the internet since they sucked up my favorite online photo editor, Picnik, and mucked that up when they created that wonky Google+.  If you use an Ipad or an Iphone to stay abreast of your favorite blogs, the free Feebly app ROCKS!!  I mean it. 

This week was also tax week.  I hate tax week.  I mean, really hate tax week. After the third look this week at the numbers in the boxes and my 900th time answering all of those tax software questions, I feel like my brain is broken.  Not just a little broken, either.  Really broken.  Taxes are the absolute worst aspect of owning a business.  Everyone complains about having to keep track of receipts and mileage, but, seriously, how difficult is that compared to trying to understand the insanity of the United States Income Tax system?  Have you ever tried to get a definition for one of those acronyms on a tax form?  All government definitions, I'm convinced, are written by spin doctors.  You can read a 200 word paragraph and still not have an actual definition.  So frustrating!  April is my least favorite month of the year because of taxes.  It helps not at all that comprehension of mathematics and accounting completely elude me.

Of course, absolutely none of this has anything to do with my forays into the world of knitting and, sometimes, well actually often, frogging.  Thursday was one of those days when you step outside and wonder what happened to the 7 months of warm weather you were looking forward to and how did we get back to November?  From the 70s and sunny (and 1st sunburn of the year) weather to cold rain and 40s over frickin' night!  Thursday, however, was a rockstar kind of day for knitting, and I was able to knit ALL day.  To look at my projects, though, you wouldn't think that 6 hours went into knitting those 4 inches on Aribella or the 1.5 inches on my secret cable sweater.  That cable sweater involves a considerable amount of planning and counting, which often leads to some necessary frogging, especially when you are home with a child and it is spring break and it is cold and raining outside. But that's where I am.  Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures for you of either project--you'll just have to wait and see--but I do have this lovely picture of the first tulip of the season in my flower bed, and I think it might just be my inspiration for one of my new silk noil colorways (hint, hint).





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