Me-OWWWWW!

Ok. I can't help myself. The truth is. . . I'm just totally into this season's Bachelorette. I've been routing for Jesse forever. I NEVER thought he'd make it this far, but I'm SO GLAD HE DID!!! I totally love Jason too. Sheesh girl, whatever will you do. Who are you rooting for?

PS- SO GLAD creep-o-licious got the boot. . . what was his name again?

My 2 Cents: Google's Blogger.

Warning: this is going to be a big load of bla bla bla, so proceed if you will and hopefully you'll find it helpful.



Ok, so it's high time that I did a review of my blog service of choice, Google's Blogger.

First let me give you a splash of history.

I started Pics and Kicks back in June of 2007 . . . 6 days later my little brother Gavin (21yrs) passed away unexpectedly in his sleep. Clearly I took a blogging break. I bounced in and out of the blogosphere until about September/October. Things picked up slowly to where I was posting about 1-3 times a week, then by December/January I'd become pretty near a religious daily blogger. At this point the blog was "just" a blog. Not necessarily photocentric. That picked up around late February early March.

My numbers:

Just to give you an idea, according to my analytics back, in February when I really made the push to blog daily I was getting around 90 unique visitors a day.

FEB 15, 2008: I had 137 visitors.
Fast forward 2 months:
APRIL 15, 2008: I had 1,050 visitors.

The climb has been rapid, steady and pretty much jaw dropping. I know that for some that's not really even mentionable, but I've got ants in my pants I'm so happy with it. . . It's been growing consistently and my average is getting higher and higher with each passing day of steady readership. SO THANK YOU for coming and coming! I truly am SO GRATEFUL! Hopefully I'm adding value to your life. . .that's the goal. :)

NOTE: If you are a professional of any kind trying to
manage a blog for business, you can't NOT have a tracking system.
Check out Google Analytics.
There are others as well, but this is what I use. . .
because, well it's GOOGLE!

Why did I choose Blogger?

Well, honestly because it was the only thing I'd ever heard of. I didn't know a dang thing about blogging. . . no clue. NONE. So I went with Blogger because it was free and because I'd heard of it. Last June I was a tiny little budding photographer with a dash of experience and a load of enthusiasm and no CLUE where I was headed. A blog sounded like a good idea, so I went for it. I am SO THANKFUL that I did. My blog has been SUCH a blessing in my life, both personally and professionally. It literally held my hand through those months after Gavin died when I just didn't know what to do with myself. It's helped me get my name out there in the industry and helped me connect with friends new and old alike. It's part of my daily grind and I love it.

Why I love Blogger?
1. Well. . . it's free. FREE! That's pretty remarkable for a service of this magnitude. Not a penny, not a dime, not a nickel, not a quarter. WOW. I mean yes, there are services you can pay for, or so I've HEARD. I haven't had the need for any of them, so I don't really know. If you're wiser than I in this arena, please by all means comment below and enlighten us.

2. Getting started is a breeze. It's SO USER FRIENDLY. Your grandma could get started with a blog in under 10 min. I'd wager a pretty penny on that.

3. It's GOOGLE. Google. People, if Google hasn't proven their superiority to you by now, you've been living in a cave.

4. It's SO fast and easy to post, comment, moderate and manage posts. . .


What don't I dig about Blogger?

1. Well, I'll be honest. I don't love what it does to my pictures. They do not look "right" when they're uploaded. They look SOOOO much better on my computer before uploading and SOOOOOOOOOO much better in print. But that's because I can compare them side by side. A client will dig what they see on the blog because they haven't seen the original. So this really isn't an issue in most cases. . . it just really gets the perfectionist in me all up in a tizzy. . . but they say there are pills for that. ;)

2. The outside advertising platform. I'm not trying to make money off my readers. You'll notice there are NO ADDS here on Pics and Kicks. . . if I ever do decide to start advertising. . .it will only be for products that I TRULY think you'll benefit from and if that ever happens, I'll probably have to switch to another system, because correct me if I'm wrong, but with Blogger, I don't think you can choose specific companies to advertise on your blog. I think Google just assigns them to you... to me, well that's tacky. If I'm going to advertise something to my readers, it's not going to be random, it's going to be a relevant product that I feel like I can get behind 100%. The end. No debate. PERIOD.

What you should know:

Picks and Kicks will be staying with Blogger for the long haul. Well, at least as far out as I can see at this point. I am working on a custom blog right now that will showcase my portfolio and be more of a client base. BUT don't you worry, Picks and Kicks isn't going anywhere. There will ALWAYS be an arm of Natalie Norton Photography that is purely dedicated to photographers, aspiring and professional alike.

Stay tuned for a follow up post on resources you can use to make your blogger blog really shine. If you have any resources you'd like to share for the post, please email me at natalienorton{at}gmail{dot}com.

Stolen from The Coterie.

I love the hip blog The Coterie for so many reasons. Today, I love The Coterie for introducing me to this rockin' corduroy bag from Moop's Etsy Shop. I need one. Right now.

Super Dad to the Rescue!

If there's a place for pride, then this is it. I am SO PROUD of my Richie! I watched him get up for seminary this morning (knowing he'd had a particularly late night imputing seminary attendance and preparing for a seminary teacher training he was giving this morning) and I just had this surge of grattitude to him for everything he does for the boys and I.

Let me tell you about his days, every morning he gets up around 5:30 and heads off to seminary. Every morning I wake up with his alarm and roll over SO GRATEFUL that I get to go straight back to sleep. Most mornings he comes home around 7:30 and plays with the kids so that I can get some extra sleep (especially since I've been teaching that 9:00 yoga class and come home at 10:30 raring to go and don't fall asleep until around 2). He has set up his life deliberately so that he is completely accessible to us at any hour any day. His office is adjacent to the house. He got a great PDA so that he can work from the park or the grocery store or the car. . . Every day feels like a Saturday at the Norton house, because dad's always around. It's wonderful. Often he'll have to meet with clients throughout the day, but he's always glad to make a family outing of it. He'll meet with the client while we play at the park and then we're off for family fun! Then he comes home and often has meetings with clients in the evenings, so he'll help me get the kids off to bed and then he's out the door. But his day isn't over yet. He usually comes home, PICKS UP AND DOES THE DISHES FOR CRYING OUT LOUD and hops on the computer to catch up on his email. It's no wonder he crashes sitting up on the couch every night. He's like the energizer bunny, he just keeps going and going until there's absolutely nothing left and he crashes!

With all that, he still takes the reins and leads us in family prayer, insists on FHE etc etc etc. . . what do they need me for?? Seriously??

I promise I do make small contributions to the family as well. . . the greatest of which? Marrying super dad!

Redhead and Balloons

The Coterie recently featured up and coming artist Sami Jackson, so I stopped by to get the scoop.

You absolutely have to check out this amazing piece, Redhead and Balloons, here. If I had a redheaded daughter, you could count on the fact that I'd be buying her a copy for Christmas!

Bowls? Yes . . . bowls.

I have a set of FAVORITE mixing bowls from Pampered Chef. Seriously, anyone who mixes anything . . .EVER. . . should own these. They're no skid and they have this nifty little thumb hole so they're super easy to manouver while you're mixing! They even have lids and, get this, internal measuring marks. . . and I know you think there's nothing that could make them any more wonderful, but watch out! They also have pour spouts! I love them! And you can never be too sure about these things, but I'm pretty sure they feel the same way about me.