Up, Up and Away!

Well, let me tell you how much of a relief it is that, finally -after six months of being broken - my reader is now up and running, and doing quite nicely too after that hiatus!

In case something like this should ever happen to you, let me explain how easy it was to fix it -once I actually found someone who could give me and answer and was willing to give me the answer in a way that I understood!

Not that I didn't have some blogger friends who tried to figure out what was wrong because there were some who did try -Vic Grace and Michelle -were two who tried very hard to figure out what was wrong, how to fix it. And to them and others who may have made a suggestion here and there, I thank you too for your moral support during those long difficult hours/days/weeks/months that I watched, helpless, as my stats kept dropping as readers dropped by the wayside apparently thinking I had dropped by the blogging wayside or maybe even off the planet.

I should thank the Google Forum too I suppose because it was there that I finally did get the solution. But, I think I will temper my thanks to that group since my posts -and there were several -asking for help went unheeded until finally, yesterday, one gentleman stepped up to the plate and explained what was wrong.

Initially, what caused the Reader to fritz out is something that is still an unknown. Just that it occurred the same day that Google went wacky and marked numerous blogs as being Spam -a move that was incorrect for the majority of those bloggers and which, from what I've observed on the forums, still has a few scattered bloggers trying to get re-established, re-approved, etc. Whether my issues were directly or indirectly related to that event -who knows -but it does appear that there were many others who, like myself, did have reader issues that day so possibly these two events may have been related in some way.

Mine became complicated initially then as I decided I was going to try to set up a Feedburner account then. Let me advise anyone trying to do something like that if you do not understand every single word, every single step -completely -in the directions provided, stop and go no further with your attempt! The odds are you will do like me and misinterpret some stupid little English word that has a whole different context apparently when used in Computerese and you will then be screwed!

The problem with my reader was that somewhere I either interpreted things this way or perhaps someone told me to do this but ya know on your blog, when you are looking at the dashboard, you can chose a couple ways to work on your blog. One of those is the "settings" place and on it, there is a little topic called "Site feed" and on site feed, there is a place where you are to enter your blogfeed url -or that is how I interpreted and actually, I believe that is what I read someplace on one of the reader help instructions too, come to think of it.

Well, it turns out that I should not have put ANYTHING in that box! Just leave the freaking thing blank!

And, for those of you who have Google Reader installed, if you have your own blog shown on your subscriptions on your reader, and if you click into your own blog and pull it up, you will see on the far right side of your screen, where it says "Show Details" and if you click that open, it will show you information about your blog reader subscribers along with the url indicating if this feed is an atom feed or rss feed. It will also tell you how many people are subscribing to your blog there too.

The only thing that confuses me still is that if I click details on my blog on my reader, if it is showing it via rss feeds, it says I have a big fat zero subscribers but if it is showing my details via atom feed, it says I have 52 subscribers. Wonder which it is?

But anyway, the bottom line now is that my reader is fixed, running quite nicely too I might add. And Sandee -the reason you saw my blog begin to update yesterday afternoon (when we first saw a glimmer of hope for it being fixed) apparently was at a time when I didn't have anything in the post redirect box for a short period of time. I didn't get that information to keep that box blank till after about 10:30 last night so the changes didn't take effect until probably about 11 p.m. last night then.

Now a little side note here too on my post yesterday about the weekend getaway -sad to say, that was just a dream! At least for now anyway. No vacations in the near future for good old Grammy J! But, if ever I can afford one, that is a place that would have some potential for proximity as well as a little bit on the semi-affordable side too. North Carolina IS afterall, within driving distance of Pennsylvania and I do have a cousin down within range -a couple hours maybe -from there who I could stop and pay a short visit to him and his wife then. But, as I said, it is still something that is totally a dream right now. Never can tell though when something might happen to free up a few bucks and a little bit of extra free time too for an escape!

Maybe this summer, I can manage a quick trip that doesn't involve driving far at all and make a run to a very pretty state park about 12 miles from here with a pretty beach and can take a book or embroidery or knitting/crochet project with me and manage to suck up a couple of rays so my legs are totally death white for the umpteenth year in a row now. Another little tidbit though about the "beach" at this particular park is that I have not gone there to swim for well over 20 years now. The water there from the shore and from the road as you drive by looks black as coal and the stream that feeds this dam is called Black Moshannon. However, there is a substance in the water -probably a bit of pollution from another nearby stream or old mines or something but if you swim in the Black Moshannon, when you exit the water, it leaves a bit of a reddish-tan kind of film on you from sulphur content or iron in the water -I forget now which is the culprit there. But, it's still a very pretty park, very nice place to go for a picnic, rent a canoe or paddle boat and glide along the dam on the other side of the highway or go fishing. There's also a nature center there to take children to see and help them learn about the animals that inhabit the region, as well as a campground for tenting or rvs too and cabins for rent.

That's just my mini-sales pitch for the Black Moshannon State Park near Philipsburg, PA.

Last night and all day today too, we are having very -and I do mean VERY -windy weather! High winds created havoc last night throughout central Pennsylvania and are still doing that today -gusts up around 50 miles per hour! I saw on the alert thing I signed up for with our county's alert system that about 5 miles from where I live, two local fire companies were called out this morning for electrical wires being down in that region and also, a little later, one fire company was called out for more electrical wires being down in the little village adjacent to Grassflat (that would be Lanse). Plus, around 1:30 a.m., there were three fire companies called out for a fire in another nearby village -Forest, PA! Just my version of reporting the news because the odds are this information will never make it into the local newspaper since this all took place in the area here referred to as the "Down River" area of the county. We in this region are sort of the step-relatives to the county in general or to the newspaper -or so it seems. (Just one of my (many) little bitch things about life here!) As a general rule, The Progress is not all that progressive when it comes to reporting happenings/news from the Down River region!

And now, I do believe it is time for me to get the spareribs I'm gonna have for supper tonight ready to slap into ye olde crockpot and get them to cooking. Maybe we'll have some scalloped potatoes or even baked potatoes to go with the ribs for supper tonight. I got the ribs on sale yesterday at the local grocery store in Kylertown, where I usually get the bulk of the meats I buy because although this store is much more expensive for other items -canned goods, pastas, flour, etc., when they have meats on sale, very often the prices are very reasonable. The ribs are currently on sale for $1.18 per pound for the western-style country spare ribs and since I bought themyesterday and on Wednesday, I also get a big 5 percent senior citizen discount too, well this package of ribs that was marked at $3.61 then only cost me $3.43 instead! Hey, it may not seem like much but my total bill yesterday was around $73.00 but with my discount, I only paid a little over $69 in all! Every little bit of savings helps ya know! (I'm hoping that perhaps next week they will have ground beef on sale as we are almost out of that commodity right now!)

Catch me later, folks! And if you are new and like what you read here, you can either "follow" my blog or you can subscribe to it using either Atom or Rss to add my blog to your reader! Can't beat that now with a stick, can you?