Where in the world are you from ... and why are you here?

No, Claudette is not getting all existential. She really wants to know where my readers hail from. And we are completely comfortable with dangling prepositions, thank you. That's so far down the list of spelling/grammatical faux pas - certainly way below unnecessary apostrophes.

Ahem. We also want to know why you stopped by today. And maybe why you pop in daily or on another fairly regular basis.

You may or may not have noticed that there's a little thing called Sitemeter at the bottom of the page. I know I've mentioned it before. I am pretty e-challenged in general, but I was able to figure out how to add that to the blog so I could have some idea of how many people stop by every day. I'm able to rather non-scientifically connect increases in traffic to the days I post a link on Facebook. And dips in traffic when I miss a day. I can see that I have had visitors from California and South Carolina and Missouri and Florida and also from Sweden and the U.K.! (Plus all over Michigan.)

I just have the freebie Sitemeter gadget so I cannot get really specific on traffic and other metrics. Or maybe I can but I don't have the time, skill or inclination to go that deep right now. So you can be an anonymous lurker and chances are I'll never know. But wouldn't it be more fun if we could all interact more? If you had a role in shaping the content of Shiny Things?

Some may remember that a few months ago (see November 2009 posts) I attempted to generate ad revenue here and over on Tuna on Wheatley to help my daughter with school. And in my zeal, I, uh, unwittingly violated some rules and the ads were removed. I just heard back from the rule-makers on my appeal: It was denied. Sigh. But some positive things came from the experience:

• I got in the habit of writing (almost) daily
• I gained readership I wouldn't have otherwise
• I learned that some dear friends and family members - and some of their dear friends and family members - were willing to try something new to help with my little project 
• I learned to read all of the print on things I e-sign - fine and otherwise

While I'm still smarting a little from the finality of the denied appeal, I can now move on to Plan B. It's always good to have a Plan B.

So I'm asking for some input/assistance with developing my Plan B. Will you please help by answering just four little questions in the comment section?

1. Where are you from? 
2. Why do you read Shiny Things?
3. How often do you read Shiny Things?
4. What keeps you (or would keep you) coming back to Shiny Things?

Feel free to share any additional comments ... you know I LOVE comments.

Thank you, dear readers ... have a great day!


HOW TO COMMENT
I've been asked to regularly include how-to information for commenting. I'm going to add to the bottom of each post until I'm able to find some other way of putting this on the site (or, ideally, find an easier way for people of all e-abilities to comment). Please COMMENT and let me know if this was helpful! 
1. Directly below the "You may also like"  images just below each post, to the far right of the text that begins "Posted by ..." is text that says "xx comments." Click on that text. It will open up a comment box. I promise.
2. Enter comment.
3. Click on Post Comment button below the box.
4. Select Name/URL. You can enter your name or whatever name you want to be known by. If you have a blog or other Web address (URL), go ahead and enter (then curious commenters and others can go visit yourblog)  ... if not, leave URL blank. You may also select Anonymous ... but it's much more fun to make up a name and have an e-persona than be known as Anonymous, don't you think? 
5. Click on Continue. Sometimes, your comment will publish right away.  Sometimes, the system is stubborn and you'll see some text that says something like "Blogger was not able to publish your comment" or similar. So click on Post Comment again. It will take ... or it will bring up a box with squiggly letters. If your comment appears on the page - you're done!
6. If you get the squiggly letters, enter them in the box. This is protection against spam. I think you'll be prompted to click "Enter" or something similar. Your comment will appear on the page, and you are done.