Category: Let’s Discuss

Why I Don’t Write More Discussion Posts…

Posted June 10, 2016 in Let's Discuss, Life / 6 Comments

In case you are unaware, I am an elementary school teacher. I work in the special education room with both SPED and Title students. In our classroom, every day is a new adventure. Even though we have lesson plans, I don’t think we had a single day this year where we actually followed it in it’s entirety. We schedule in a little crazy but this year has been even crazier than anticipated.

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Aesthetic Concerns – Book Covers & Blog Design {Armchair BEA}

Posted May 12, 2016 in Let's Discuss, Reading / 2 Comments

Armchair BEA

To be completely honest, I almost always judge books by their covers. If a book has a gorgeous cover, I am much more apt to read the synopsis. I just love pretty covers.

I love it when the covers in a series match. Often paperbacks get cover redesigns. If this is the case, I always want my covers to match and I will track down the cover I want. If that isn’t possible, I won’t make the biggest fuss. The story inside is more important than the cover.

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Scheduling {Blog Organization}

Posted March 18, 2016 in Let's Discuss, Life, Reading / 12 Comments

Blog Organization: Scheduling

Welcome to the second part of my series on blog organization. The first part of the series was on the plugins I use and this post will be on scheduling.

I used to use exclusively Google Calendar to help me schedule my posts. It was great because I was able to sync between computer and my phone. However, I had some problems with it. I was forgetting to look at it or update it as often as I should.

Now, I use a May Designs planner. I have a months + dots agenda and I will show you how I use it. The months are, obviously, for scheduling and I use the dots to help keep track of reading challenges.

The first thing I did when I got my planner was add a key to each month’s page. My key is as follows:

  • red for Monthy Wrap-Ups
  • green for Reviews
  • purple for Discussions
  • blue for Memes
  • orange for Catholic Liturgical Calendar
  • pencil for personal things or tentative posts

Planner Key

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What Makes A Good Royal?

Posted February 17, 2016 in Let's Discuss, Reading / 4 Comments

What Makes A Good Royal?

This discussion is part of the optional monthly discussions for the Royal Challenge hosted by She’s Got Books on Her Mind.

So, what makes a royal? If we’re going to be all literal, I would have to say that birth is what makes a royal. Royalty and royal blood is inherited in certain families and nothing can change that reality.

However, if we are going to talk about what makes a good royal, then I can list some traits. Let’s keep this in the literary realms and so I will endeavor to find a character for each trait I select.

1. Compassion

A good royal would display the trait of compassion. Compassion is important in a royal so that they can truly care about their people. When a royal looses compassion, they become a tyrant, thinking only of themselves. Compassion prevents a royal from becoming self-centered and egotistical.

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My Top Nine Plugins {Blog Organization}

Posted February 3, 2016 in Let's Discuss / 10 Comments

Blog Organization: My Top 9 Plugins

This is the first post in a series I am starting about how I organize, especially in relation to this blog. Being organized is a rather large portion of what enables me to blog. For today, I am going to talk about the plugins I use. I am on self-hosted WordPress and so there are a plethora of plugins available for me to use. I can’t speak about all of the available plugins but I can tell you about the ones I use.

1. Akismet

Akismet is one of the most necessary plugins. It helps protect your comments from being continually full of spam.

2. Broken Link Checker

I use the Broken Link Checker plugin to scan my site for any broken links. When it finds a broken link, I can easily fix the link if I mistyped it or figure out what went wrong if I didn’t.

3. Comment Reply Notification

This little plugin is great because it notifies commenters when their comment has a new reply. People are much too busy to go check each post they have ever commented on to see if there is a reply. An email sent to let the commenter know there is a reply is very important.

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