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In this installment of “Fix My Site”, I am going to address some of the Pinterest tech questions that I have received from readers and clients. Note, that I’m primarily focusing on how to use Pinterest from a tech perspective in this post. Even though Pinterest is the biggest social media referrer for this site and I took a “Pinterest Pin Perfection” workshop with a community manager from Pinterest last year, I haven’t really focused on this social media platform to grow my business. That is changing though and I will be focusing on learning Pinterest (overall) in February. I’ll share a second post at the end of February. If you are a blogger or business owner, below are 10 tips on using Pinterest from a technical standpoint.

1. Set up Rich Pins. Rich Pins show metadata (descriptive information) right on the pins. There are currently six types of rich pins – app, article, movie, place, product and recipe pins.

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I read a book from cover to cover! Pre-2015, my excitement over this fact would have been laughable. I was the girl who “always” had her nose in a book. Up until last year, I was also the woman who was constantly reading. It was one of my favorite things. My love for reading was contagious…both of my sons love to read; my husband Reggie developed a love for (non-academic) books last year and I take great pleasure in helping friends learn to enjoy reading by matching them up with just the right book. With all of that love and history with books, 2015 slipped by and I did not read a single book from start to finish except the Bible. While I listened to several audiobooks, it’s not the same. That is why one of my minor goals for 2016 was to read at least 12 books. I thought that it would be easy, but it was actually a little challenging to pick the habit of reading books back up.

I’m glad that I started my book reading challenge with Shonda Rhimes’ Year of Yes: How to Dance It Out, Stand In the Sun and Be Your Own Person book. Ms. Rhimes is a very talented writer. The 15 chapters of the book were funny, vulnerable and easy to read. To stay focused, I jotted down notes for each chapter – including my favorite quotes and any particular reactions that I had to her words. There are certain subjects that I think differently about than she does but overall, I felt challenged in a good way. At the end of the book, I asked myself, “Will you say yes to everything that scares you for a year?” My answer was a conditional “Yes”. As long as the things that scare me don’t jeopardize my top 3 relationships (God, husband and kids), then I’m all in.

There were so many nuggets of wisdom in the book, that I’ll just share the things that especially stood out to me:

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I decided to do a weekly “Fix My Site” series to help answer some of the most commonly asked questions that I receive as a website and blog developer for bloggers and small business owners.  I will start with one of the easiest things – how to easily make a custom WordPress favicon.

What is a favicon?

A favicon is simply the icon that viewers see displayed beside your site’s URL when it is typed into the address bar of various Internet browsers. Favicons also show up next to your site’s name when it is in a bookmark list.

Why should you change the favicon?

While you don’t have to change your favicon, it just tends to make your site look more polished. When your favicon complements the look and feel of your site, it shows an attention to detail.

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I tried…

Yesterday, I went to donate blood as an act of service for Martin Luther King Day 2016. (January also happens to be National Blood Donor Month.) After filling out my paperwork, I had my finger pricked in order to test my iron. Unfortunately, my iron was too low for me to donate. I’ll admit that I was sad-happy to hear that – sad because I really wanted to donate but happy because it tends to be difficult for my blood to be drawn.

Nurses have a really hard time drawing blood from my mom, my son Sean and me. It usually takes several needle pricks before they are successful. Before the nurse on the New York Blood Center’s bloodmobile checked the iron in my blood, she said, “Show me your arms.” I turned my arms so that she could see them and she said, “Oh, I see that you have bad veins.” Alrighty then!

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For the last decade, blogging has been such an unexpected gift for my family and I. The income from blogging has allowed me to remain a work from home mom for the last decade. That is no small thing since my family lives in NYC and my husband is a (great!) teacher. We have also been offered so many amazing opportunities that we may not have been able to experience financially due to the fact that I chose not to return to my job in corporate America after the birth of my first son. Friends, family and readers often share that they want to have a blog and I definitely encourage it. Personally, I think that everyone should have a blog – for fun and/or for profit. There is something special about having your own little corner of the world wide web. You can do whatever you like with it!

If you have ever considered starting your own blog, try it. It’s not brain surgery…if you don’t like something, you can always go back and change it. 🙂 If you are a “do it yourself” type of person, you can even set up your own site. In this post, I will show you how to start a Genesis Framework blog in only 5 simple steps. Let’s begin.

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Do you have plans for this Saturday, January 16th from 10am to 2pm? If not, consider attending the Grand Opening party for A-GAME SPORTS, a brand new 25,000 square foot sports facility space for children, teens and adults in New Rochelle. (It only takes about 20 minutes to get there from Manhattan or Queens.) My family will be there along with Westchester County public officials, professional athletes, community leaders, authors and media personalities.

The climate-controlled space is now open seven days a week and offers a variety of training programs (baseball, soccer, lacrosse, softball, strength and conditioning, speed and agility and more) for kids of all ages and adults. All of the trainers at the facility are professional athletes who have either played in college or have professional experience. Birthday party rooms are also available. Come to the grand opening so that you can see the space for yourself. You will get the chance to meet the A-GAME SPORTS team and there will will also be fun games, competitions and several chances to win prizes.

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I’m a big fan of words of the year (my word for 2016 is “Greater”), vision boards and setting goals. Today, I want to share how my thoughts on setting goals have shifted over the years.

SMART Goals

Initially, I was a fan of SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-bound) goals. Then, I learned how to make SMARTER (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time-bound, Ethical and Recorded) ones. Over the years, I have tended to achieve between 7 to 9 (of my 10) SMART-themed goals each year. That’s not too bad.

Michael Hyatt

At the end of 2014, I listened to Michael Hyatt share about his “Best Year Ever” program. Although I chose to enroll in his Platform University community for a few months instead of purchasing that course, I still learned a lot. For me, the most important question that he asked was “How do you want to be remembered?” That question was especially poignant in my planning for 2016 since we buried my husband Reggie’s mom in November. The truth is that if I died tomorrow, I would be happy with the legacy of love that I would leave for my family and friends. They are the ones who actually show up for your funeral anyway! That question also helped me to come up with the four principles that would guide my goals for 2016:

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The Last Three Months

Since I listened to the audiobook of Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less, I have been taking a day every few months to reflect on the previous months and to plan for the next few months. You can read about my previous one on the MY PERSONAL QUARTERLY OFFSITE post. In it, I shared my focus for the fall…

My TOP THREE priorities for the fall were the following:

1. Adjusting to life changes – settling into a new church ministry as a family and helping the kids adjust to middle school and third grade

2. Focusing on my personal fitness – exercise and nutrition

3. Focusing on financially profitable business opportunities – including new product creation

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I attended an advanced media screening of the new movie Joy earlier this week. It is a really great movie. It starts off a bit campy with some soap opera integration in the movie. Hang in there though…it makes sense after a while. One of the main things that I took away from this movie was that it’s so important to have people in your life that believe in you. Joy’s immediate family was a mess. Her mother, father and step-sister did not build her up at all. Rather, they tore her down and really used her in a lot of ways. The mother was so needy to the point that Joy was taking care of her mom instead of vice versa. Although taking care of your parents is a great thing when they are really in need, that was not the case in this movie! Joy’s father had his issues in the movie too. (Although I love Robert DeNiro as an actor, his character Rudy was not a very good father in this movie.)

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