An Unschooling Life

~ learning ~ exploring ~ creating ~

Archive for June, 2007

We Do Follow

Published by Joanne on June 28, 2007


Most blogs come with ‘nofollow’ tags built into the comment area. This was originally supposed to be a way to deter spammers because their links wouldn’t be indexed by the search engines.

So, if a search engine (like Google or Yahoo) sees a rel=”nofollow” tag on a link, they will ignore it. They don’t follow the link, and they don’t count the link in the site’s rank (the site of the person who posted a comment).

Some bloggers got together and created the “I Follow” movement and it’s built up a lot of momentum. Blogs today have the ability to control the comments on their blogs (either through various plug-ins or moderation) so the ‘nofollow’ tag is not really needed anymore.

I removed my nofollow tags from this blog because I want to allow anyone who leaves a comment, a real link in return. In other words, by removing the ‘nofollow’ tag, a search engines will be able to find the link that you leave in a comment or when you link to any of the posts here at An Unschooling Life, or my adoption blog and you’ll gain a backlink on the the search engines as a result.

What about you?
Are you going to share the love (the link love that is) and join the “You Comment, I Follow” movement? Check the bottom for a loooong list of other Do Follow bloggers. :-)

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13th wedding anniversary

Published by Joanne on June 24, 2007

Billy & I celebrated our 13th year married this month. :-) It’s been a wild ride but we hung on tight and never fell off.

These pictures were taken on our wedding day under the Verrazano Bridge (in Brooklyn) at Cannonball Park (formally known as John Paul Jones Park).

Our wedding

Our wedding

Here’s to the next 13 honey! :-)

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What My Girls Are Reading

Published by Joanne on June 18, 2007

My two girls enjoy reading much more now that their unschoolers and so much more then when they used to go to school. Both of them (Shawna who just turned 12, and Jacqueline who is almost 9) spend hours reading and the nice thing is…it’s their choice. :-) Being an avid reader myself, I love that they choose to read. Here are some of the books (and a magazine) they’ve been enjoying. Some of them were read by both, others by one or the other.

Into the Land of the Unicorns
On the Banks of Plum Creek
Stealing Thunder
Giant Book of Pencil Puzzles
Get a Grip on New Physics
The Complete Grimm’s Fairy Tales
Albert Einstein: Young Thinker
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Chicken Soup For The Horse Lover’s Soul
Charlotte’s Web
Dancing Shoes
Tips & Tricks Magazine

This post is part of the Lets-Build-A-Summer-Reading-List.

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I’ve been tagged: 8 things About Me

Published by Joanne on June 18, 2007

Dharma Mama tagged me to tell 8 things about myself. If you’re interested, I was also tagged at my adoption blog Forever Parents and I wrote eight things about my adoption journey.

1. I’m a second generation American. My grandparents were born in Sicily, Italy. I’m Italian on both sides actually. I closely identify with my heritage and speak a little Italian. My father spoke it fluently but not much around me, except the curses. lol

2. I’m a native New Yorker, from Brooklyn (Bensonhurst). Yes, I’m the typical Italian girl from Brooklyn. Fugedaboudit! Think Sopranos meets Goodfellas, minus the killing. lol

3. We moved to Florida about four months after September 11th. Not for that reason though. We had planned it before that day. I documented our experience during September 11 and the aftermath in a website called I Love New York. We lost two friends, and countless neighbors and aquaintances that day.

4. I’ve been a vegetarian for over 20 years. Back when I started, I was the only one I knew. lol

5. I was a punk rocker back in the day. Mohawk and all. Some of my favorite bands were Black Flag, The Sex Pistols, The Dead Kennedys, Bad Brains, The Dead Boys & Generation X. I’ve been to CBGB’s more times that I even remember and loved every minute of those days. I met a ton of great people and have very good memories. :-)

6. I’m still a head banger. Metallica, Godsmack, Sevendust, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, Anthrax etc. I’ve been a big Ace Frehley fan since the 70’s and had the pleasure of hanging out with the spaceman a few times. :-)

7. I was raised Roman Catholic (kinda ties in with the Italian-Brooklyn thing) but I’ve been agnostic my entire adult life. I’ve recently become interested in Buddhism and enjoy reading Thich Nhat Han. He makes me feel calm, which I need. lol

8. My husband still takes my breathe away when he kisses me. :-)

I’m going to go through the list of participants from the last Unschooling Voices and see who hasn’t been tagged yet (don’t want anybody to be left out) so watch out for me to tag you!!

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Changing Template

Published by Joanne on June 13, 2007

I’ll be changing the template here so things may be missing or a little weird until I get it all fixed. Some or all of my blog rolls may be missing until I copy the code.

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