Gourd-geous October (photos)

We went to a pumpkin patch yesterday and they had quite the variety of gourds available along with all the pumpkins. Here are a few of the photos I thought you might like to see. Quite the variety in shapes and colors!

Here a pumpkin, there a pumpkin…

It was a pretty nice farm with a sizable pumpkin patch and many activities for little ones too.

Looks like the pumpkin and squash have bled into the mums! Yellows and oranges…

Too many to count!

October has arrived! Time to think about carving pumpkins, warm apple cider, fun decorations and costume parties*!

Fun to be had by everyone!

Have a great day!

© 2018 – James Sponseller – mindescapes.net

[* – As an Amazon Associate site, mindescapes.net earns money from qualified purchases made through the provided links. It is a great way to support this blog at no additional cost to you. Thank you for your consideration!]

Open for Business (poem)

Open for business, come on in,

Have a look around…

Smell all the roses, walk a spin,

Here the wind chimes sound…

We’re glad to see you, sit a spell,

Take the time you need…

Want some assistance, give a yell,

When you go, Godspeed.

Tried to capture the quintessence of the old family store.

Word of the Day Challenge: Quintessence

© 2018 – James Sponseller – mindescapes.net

I Tried Reading “I Tried [this]” Stories Every Day for a Week, Here’s What Happened (rant)

OK, that isn’t a true statement, I actually did not try to read those types of stories every day for a week. I’m afraid my psyche would not have survived the experiment, hence the crazy “after” pic. I have, however, noticed a trend of those types of ‘stories’ popping up in MSN.com headlines much more frequently. Since I use outlook.com as a free email service, each time I log out I am dropped onto the MSN main page where I generally briefly sift through the headlines and roll my eyes at those ones.

I just don’t see what those types of stories are supposed to offer. They aren’t anywhere near being scientific experiments and I certainly wouldn’t consider them enthralling. The “results” are completely subjective and the stories are generally accompanied by a set of side by side photos that are apparently supposed to show some before and after difference. The most recent one I noticed was supposed to reveal some until now unknown effect that drinking a gallon of water each day for a week would have on skin quality. It was a week! Why there was some appreciable change expected to happen in that time frame I’ll never know. I am sure she peed more, probably a LOT more, though I don’t see how knowing that is at all beneficial. The before and after photos have different hair styles and different lighting and possibly even different make-up so how they are supposed to show any change or not is beyond me.

Anyway, I guess no harm, no foul. I am certainly not forced to read any of them. I just find the entire format to be laughable at best. I suppose they work as filler for slow news days at least. I’ve just been annoyed by the increase in this trend of completely unhelpful annecdotal fluff.

Are these types of stories showing up places other than MSN? Do they annoy anyone else quite so much?

[End rant]

Word of the Day Challenge: Enthralling

Special Thanks to slightly_different for the base crazy face picture!

© 2018 – James Sponseller – mindescapes.net

Valuable $$ Content and You! (5 blogging tips)

One of the biggest factors to how large of an audience your blog will attract is how valuable your readers find your content to be. Everyone is aware of the adage that Time Is Money and few people will want to invest time in reading your content unless they feel equally rewarded or more for doing so.

With that in mind, here are 5 tips to help you improve the value of your content to your readers:

  1. Focus on what you want your readers take away from your posts

  2. Make your content easy to absorb

  3. Invest yourself into your content

    • Posts written on a whim will look like posts written on a whim. If you haven’t committed any time to your readers, why would you expect them to commit time to you.

  4. Read and Re-read before publishing

    • So many times a post does not end where you intended when you first started writing it (this post included). Re-read your posts thoroughly to ensure you are delivering exactly what you set out to and revise as necessary.

  5. Respond to your readers

    • With informational posts especially, readers often have follow up questions. Encourage them to share those questions with you and respond promptly with the best information you can provide. These are “value add” opportunities and help improve your relationship with your audience.

With these steps and a willingness to improve, you too can increase the value of your content!

Increased Value, Increased Audience

If you have any questions about these tips or want me to elaborate more on one you feel in particular you want to know more about, just leave a comment below and I will gladly respond!

© 2018 – James Sponseller – mindescapes.net