Lots of love: I'm back, some prizes, a few new blogs and a tip

Well, since the last thing I said here was "See you tomorrow if all goes well" and I didn't see you then, I'm sure you figured out that the internet DID get turned off. As they say in France, C'est la vie...Such is life. It's ok though. It's all over now and I'm back :D

On with the post...

I received a couple of ummm not really prizes but sort of prizes just the same while I was gone. I was so happy to get them! The first was an apron from Foodista. Here it is:

They are having a contest right now that I have entered several of my recipes from my cookbook into and because I submitted so many, they sent me the apron. Isn't it nifty?! I love it!

The second thing I received was a cookbook from all*you . Here it is:

I do a review for Cooking Light magazine and this cookbook is published by the same company (Time, Inc.) so I imagine that's why I received it. I think it's an awesome cookbook!

As I eluded to in my title, I've found some new blogs to follow. A couple of them are people I already know (one is a family member) and all of them are worth the time to visit...

Billy Coffey

Learning to Cook

My Wife Has Agoraphobia!

We Are Scoopy Doo

And finally, I promised you a tip. I thought today I would tell you about Site Meter. Site Meter is a cool way to keep track of who visits your blog. As a matter of fact, you can see who visits you, where they are from, how they got to you, your page ranking and even your visitors IP address (which is good if you have a stalker....yes, even Blogland contains stalkers!). If you've looked at any of my sidebars you've seen this:

That's my Site Meter.

First, sign up. (Just click on the link above...where it says Site Meter the first time...) As you know, I only use free stuff and Site Meter is free. You can pay for it and get a few more perks, but I'm completely happy with the things they offer without paying.

When you first get there, it looks like this:

See where it says Site Meter Basic? Click "Sign up" and follow the instructions from there. It's all pretty simple but I'll tell you just a couple of the tweaks I use...

At the top of the page (after you have your account set up...) it says "statistics", "manager" and "logout". Go under "manager".

Almost to the bottom of that page it says "Customizing your account". You want to ignore your own visits (unless you just want to bump your numbers up by visiting your own page 5000 times LOL....of course, if you DO want to have a higher number there is a place to start your counter at a higher number. It will still tell you how many REAL visits you've had even though it tells everyone else the FAKE amount. I'd rather stick with the real even if it's a low number...).

You also want to set the privacy level of your meter. I keep all of mine set to "medium". If you have it on "normal" then anyone can view your statistics. If you have it on "high" then no one can see your statistics but you also won't be listed on any public lists which most people want to be listed on. So "medium" works out well. One note about "medium", if you are logged into your Site Meter account and someone clicks on your Site Meter then they can see everything so be sure to log out as soon as you're done checking out your stats!

Well, that's all I have for you today :) I WILL see you tomorrow!