You seemed intelligent enough, so I’ll put this gently. It’s Jordan. I used to get Jordon a lot. I’ve gotten used to that one. I know the girl on American Idol spells it Jordin. Heck, the girl working at the grocery store spells it Jordyn. My great grandma made me a piggy bank when I was born and spelled my name Jorden.
And yet, it’s Jordan. Like in the Bible. And the River Jordan. And the sovereign state. It’s been in the top 100 most popular girls’ names for 18 years (top 100 boys’ names, 25 years). Better yet, the English form is from the Latin Jordanus. LATIN. Do you know how old that language is? Yeah, it’s thousands of years old. Spelled with an a.
So, for future reference, it’s probably safe to assume that it’s spelled Jordan, no matter what happens on American Idol.
Sincerely,
Jordan
Dear One Third of the People I Have to Introduce Myself To,
Jorda? You seriously thought I said my name was Jorda? What is that, some sort of speech-impaired version of Georgia? JordaN. N. Now I don’t even care what vowel the lady at the dry cleaner used; this is a major consonant here! In fact, it’s an entire syllable of my name that you didn’t even come close on.
Did you get bored halfway through my terribly long and uninteresting name and decide to tune me out? I know it does take nearly one second to say my name. I apologize.
The thing that really baffles me is that I don’t say ‘Jorda-n’ and you’re just missing the last part. If I’m really honest, I think this is how I say my name:
That question-mark-looking-thing isn’t a vowel; it’s a glottal stop. (It’s the non-vowel sound in ‘Uh oh.’) It means that I cease to vibrate my vocal chords. It’s the opposite of a vowel. And then I go straight to the ‘n.’ No vowels in the second syllable.
Maybe you are Catalan. If that’s so, you must already know that Jordà is Catalan for Jordan. That must be it.
Since last week I covered motherly chores that I like and don’t like (and since we’re in serious need of more Hayden pictures here!), here’s six chores that Hayden likes.
Six chores Hayden hates Diapers. We have something in common! Getting dressed. He does like it, however, when I let him walk around naked (diaper-clad) in the middle of getting dressed. Lately he’s started standing up, giving me a sly smile, waving bye bye and heading for the door. Post-meal face washing. ‘Nuff said. Vacuuming. Actually, he really likes me to hold him while I vacuum, but he can’t decide whether he’s thrilled or terrified. Following Mom around while she does chores. What about me, Mom? Can I help? Can I have your duster/vacuum/broom/hands/attention/every waking moment? Errands, although he does like his new big boy car seat:
Half a dozen chores Hayden loves
Sweeping.
Dishes.
Dusting.
Bathing.
Watering the lawn. See how he’s standing in the sprinkler path and has water all over him?
Laundry. Sorry, no pictures of him pulling the clean clothes out of the basket or getting caught in his hamper. Okay, okay, scroll down to the third picture in this post to see Hayden trapped in hamper.
My house should probably be a lot cleaner than it is with a little boy so obsessed with instruments of torture tidiness.
At the recommendation of a bookstore manager, I picked up a book the other day. I recognized the author’s last name as the maiden name of one of my church youth group leaders. Turns out, not only was the author the mother of my youth group leader, but my former leader had been instrumental in editing that book for publication. I really enjoyed the book and marked several passages to delve into further on MamaBlogga.
How many times have I told my tantruming toddler, “Life is rough—and then you die”? At least a few. But is this something I really want him to internalize?
Marilynne Todd Linford takes aim at this popular teaching in her book We Are Sisters:
To say that life is difficult or suffering or filled with unyielding despair is as erroneous as saying life is easy, carefree, or filled with continual bliss. (132)
Yes, life is rough, but it trivializes all life to say that all of life is suffering. I make no secret that I think thatmotherhoodisdifficult. (Frankly, anyone who thinks otherwise is probably crazy or should be having (more) kids, because they’re obviously doing better than I am with my one.) But, like life, motherhood isn’t endless drudgery (at least once a baby can start responding to you, in my opinion) and pain.
Life is not just rough. Unlike C-3PO, we are not made to suffer. While some suffering is our lot in life, it’s not the be-all and end-all of our existence. After all, as the Apostle John quoted Jesus Christ, “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly” (John 10:10).
Linford continues:
Does it matter, then, if you think life is difficult? Yes, because it is a half-truth, and by acting on a false foundation we build on shifting sands. When you realize that life is not difficult but made up of opposing forces, the precious gift of agency becomes even more crucial. (133)
Yes, life is sometimes rough, but I need to remember that we can choose to look at the positive or dwell on the negative—and dwelling on the negative aspects of life won’t bring happiness. I need to remember to highlight the good things in my son’s life—and mine.
RSS is an important acronym in the blogosphere. It’s usually interpreted as Really Simple Syndication, so we’ll start with the really simple and work our way up. I think we have something for even the most seasoned blogger here.
Basic
First, an excellent explanation of the easiest way to keep up with dozens (hundreds!) of blogs from Common Craft:
Also under “basics,” your blog generates an RSS feed automatically (unless you’ve disabled this feature).
Novice FeedBurner “burns” your blog feed for you, making it easy for your readers to subscribe in any feed reader. If you click on the green “Subscribe” button in the sidebar, you’ll be taken to a page to choose your feed reader.
FeedBurner can also add a lot of cool features to your feed. You can add information at the end of messages in a feed reader like copyrights, number of comments, social bookmarking stuff—there are more than 100 “FeedFlares.” FeedBurner can also track visitors to your site and show you how many subscribers you have.
Intermediate
Many people use only partial feeds for their sites, sending only excerpts or summaries to their readers. There are a few reasons for this; among them is the legitimate concern about unscrupulous people republishing your blog with zero effort—and making money off your hard wraught writing.
However, the benefits of full feeds outweigh the risks. [UPDATE: the full story on full feeds] Also note that many people publish excerpt feeds believing that more people will visit their site to read their full posts—but FeedBurner CEO Rick Klau says they’ve seen no evidence to support that. See Partial Feeds Don’t Draw Visitors at Marketing Pilgrim for more on the subject.
In Blogger, you can switch from excerpts to full feeds by going to Settings > Site Feed. From the pull down menu, select “Full.” (If you’re in Advanced Mode, the second and third options are at your discretion.)
In WordPress, select Options > Reading.
Under “Syndication Feeds,” for the option “For each article, show,” select “Full text.”
Advanced
Make sure your readers find your FeedBurner feed (instead of the default, less user-friendly feed Blogger, WordPress or Typepad creates). You may have to code it into your site. For example, in Blogger, go to Template > Edit HTML. In your code, find the line:
<b:include data=’blog’ name=’all-head-content’/>
Delete it and replace it with the following (after you’ve customized it):
<meta content=’text/html; charset=UTF-8′ http-equiv=’Content-Type’/>
<meta content=’true’ name=’MSSmartTagsPreventParsing’/>
<meta content=’blogger’ name=’generator’/>
<link href=’http://feeds.feedburner.com/YOUR FEEDBURNER FEED NAME HERE’ rel=’alternate’ title=’YOUR BLOG NAME HERE RSS Feed’ type=’application/rss+xml’/>
Total pro
If you’re comfortable in Apache, consider Daniel’s strategy for making sure that your subscribers are using the correct feed even if you leave FeedBurner (from Daily Blog Tips). (To tell the truth, I can only vaguely understand this one.)
Also, look at another post from Marketing Pilgrim (and no, this one’s not by me, it’s by Jeremy Luebke) on why you should not use click tracking on FeedBurner (read on the comments to see how to fix that).
Anybody out there quite proficient in MT/Typepad? I started on Blogger and had to learn WordPress for work before I made the switch to WordPress here on MamaBlogga. If anyone can give some pointers on the same issues on TypePad, it would be appreciated!
UPDATE: A big thank you to Jen once again at Semantically driven for explaining how to set your feed to full posts on Typepad. She had got screenshots and everything. Man, I should’ve thought of that. I’ll have to fix this. Screenshots added. Thank you, Jen!!
