Learning Curve - Wordpress and AdSense

A lovely mist lay over the countryside here early this morning. The air is warmer than the earth for a few days at least. Strange weather for November, but I'm not complaining.

My early morning walk with the dogs was magical, the grasses were laden with dew, the mist clung low to the ground rolling slowly eastwards with the light breeze. It felt as though we were in an old black and white film with fog machines.

The neighbour's farm

The hayfield and woods smelled like wet grass, freshly turned earth and cedar.  The dogs could smell rabbits in the woods but a half-hour's rooting through the undergrowth turned up nothing.  We saw deer tracks along the paths in the cedar wood and a lovely golden hawk sitting high in a pine.

The hayfield

On our way back we found this spider web.  A lovely bit of Ariadne's weaving.

I spent the afternoon reading a book called Wordpress 24-Hour Trainer by George Plumley.  I have already set up my website and have hosting. I have written about 25 pages but they are mostly text, I haven't added photographs or other media yet. I have found the learning curve with Wordpress to be moderately difficult but I am getting the hang of it.

At first I used the Help menu and then I discovered the Wordpress forums.  Most of the time it was easy enough to enter a search string and I found the answer to my questions within the first two or three answers.  But there were enough frustrations to send me to the bookshop looking for a basic Wordpress book.  I bought two: Wordpress for Dummies by Lisa Sabin-Wilson and George Plumley's book that came with a DVD in the back.  I have found them both useful, but I find the Plumley book has a little more depth.  I have yet to use the DVD, so far the text is self-explanatory, but if you are visual learner it might be helpful.

If I am going to make money with my website I'll eventually have to put in some advertising.  So I've been reading up on that too.  I looked through about five books and chose The Adsense Code by Joel Comm.  In addition to covering how to set up your site, apply to Adsense, and place your ads, he also has a great section on Adsense rules and regulations, so that you won't have your account closed down because you made a beginner's goof. 

At 4:00 I stopped to make a late lunch.  We had lamb-burgers, with mashed sweet potatoes and green beans.  The recipe is easy and yummy:

Lamb Burgers

1 lb. of ground lamb
1/2 onion, diced small
1 garlic clove, minced (optional)
salt and pepper
4 small slices from a log of goat cheese

Put the ground lamb in a bowl.  Add the diced onion, garlic, salt and pepper and mix well.
Divide the ground lamb into 3 or 4 portions.
Divide each of these portions into two thin patties.
Place a slice of goat cheese in the center of one patty.
Place the second patty on top of the goat cheese patty and meld them together, encasing the goat cheese inside.
Continue making patties with the rest of the ground lamb and goat cheese.

You can grill the patties on a barbeque but at this time of year I simply put them in the frying pan for about 6 or 7 minutes per side on medium heat.

I serve them on soft Italian buns with fresh lettuce and tomato.

Lucy on the sofa

Nico snoozing

 The dogs, wiped out from their romping slept away the afternoon, waking briefly to supervise the making of lamb burgers, of course.

Tomorrow I hope to revise a few more webpages and start inserting photos and video.  Right now though it's time for a cup of tea, Earl Grey preferred, and an hour or two to finish my book: The Occupied Garden, A Family Memoir of War Torn Holland by two sisters: Kristen den Hertog and Tracy Kasaboski.  Here's a review from the Globe & Mail:

"The tiny, mundane details of these very ordinary lives are brilliantly interwoven with the colosssal events and backwash of all-out-war that move the story relentlessly sometimes breathlessly, forward...As in a painting by Seurat, the masses ('dots') of  information meticulously build up, slowly, vividly, revealing the many personalities and the devastating time."

 I hope you have a great weekend.