{a comment revolution}

All right. It is time to start a revolution. 

My dear Bloggers and Bloggeresses: as you all know, the primary function of a blogger to write about things. Anything, really! Their lives, life in general, movies, books, school, dancing....writing, blogging, cooking...the list goes on an on.

It is also a well known fact that we write first for our own enjoyment but also for yours. And here's the thing: it's hard to keep up a vibrant, happy, healthy little blog without what Show Biz calls "Audience Participation."

I am as guilty as the next person of sometimes looking at my update feed, reading the posts, and leaving the page without leaving a comment. Heck--sometimes without even clicking those little reaction buttons. And a favor not bestowed is a favor never returned--why am I surprised when checking the comments on this blog to find very few, if any? We do love all of our followers, but the truth is, it's so much more inspiring to write for your group of followers if they appear to be alive...not just grinning little faces labeled under "Followers." ;)

Lately I have been challenging myself to actually leave comments. To go through the laborious and eye-bending task of filling out those "Captcha" doohickeys and doing the whole shebang. And not just a "great job!" comment--a real comment!
By now you're looking at me with your eyebrow raised. "Rachel you're sounding a bit...well, I hate to notice but...a bit revolutionary!"

What I'd like to propose is a 30-day challenge for each person who reads this blog. A 30 day challenge from this last day of August through the last day of September. A challenge for each of us to comment on 50% of the blog posts you read. I know it doesn't take that long to type up a comment and leave one. Truly.

So let's make a pact? One-half of the posts you read for one month? Deal? Who's with me on this? If you *are* with me, leave a comment (!) and tell me, and then take the meme I made up there and spread it around! Love you all and hope you have a fabulous Friday!
                 -Rachel

Button Swap

I have the pleasure today of taking part of a very fun blog event organized by Miss Bree . My name was paired up with the (then) unfamiliar name of Blythe. It's been very fun to get to know her and to start a new bloggy friendship! So without further ado, here's my interview of her!

Hey there,

  My name is Blythe which means cheerful and I try to live up to that,I'm a 17 year old German and Irish country girl who enjoys many things,to name a few; ministry,photography,music,

hair,running barefoot,bug free evenings,walks in the backyard,atv riding,blogging and I shall not bore you any longer about myself cause,but one thing you must know about me is that I love Jesus with all my heart and one day I hope to find a godly man who does also and wants to be involved in a ministry.

 - How long have you been blogging at Raindrops? a little over 2 years.

-What are you favorite topics to blog about? Photoshoots, pinterest photography inspiration.

-What would a perfect day for you look like? Uh...hmmmm... I meet a guy fall in love and start courting...lol,jk even though that would be nice someday,but let me see the perfect day would be waking up to a sunny morning eating a gf donut with orange juice then going out with friends (roll down the windows and listen to some music.) to a 4-wheeler race tracks and racing around,then going off shopping with a $500 shopping spree buy a whole new wardrobe, go eat lunch at chipotle then go to the mall had out gospel tracks, then fly to Ireland for the evening and night and just sit on the coast with my friends and have a photoshoot. Hey,I can dream can I. :)

-Are you more of an extrovert or an introvert? An Extrovert most definitely!

-Do you play an instrument? yes, I do,the violin.

-Dark or milk chocolate? Oooo,milk. Yuck to dark it reminds me of a chocolate flavored medicine I had to take as a kid.

-How long have you been interested in photography, and why do you do it? For about 3 years I only really got into last year,this year I bought my first dslr. I do as an inspiration and a thrill of it I guess.

-What is one of your big dreams for your life?  To meet a godly young man and get hitched. :)

-Tell us 3 random things about yourself. I love adventures,I never paint my nails,I rambling (and not the amusing rambling,but the annoying kind.)

-What is your rank in your family? (age wise) I'm 5th,right in the middle. (4 older and 4 younger.)

-List one of each: your favorite singer/musician, your favorite book, and your favorite movie?

Singer: My favorite singer?? Uh,don't have one sorry.

Book: The Bible.

Movie: I don't have one of those either, I hate choosing cause I have different favorites depends on my mood and who I'm watching it with (I hate watching a movie with a group and I'm the only one who finds it amusing....awkward...)

Well there you have it! :) Thanks so much Blythe, for doing this interview with me! Everyone else make sure you pop over to Raindrops and check out more about my new friend! :) 
(and here's her interview of me: )

-Sarah

A Dissection of Commenting

Hello! I was racking my brain for any sort of brilliant, clever, comment-raking-in post I could do, and obviously, did not find one. Then I began thinking of what gets some blogs so many comments.......Here I recount my official findings ;)

There are two sorts of blogs: those who have it and those who don't. Ours used to have it. For some reason, it now tends toward the doesn't side of having it. ;) I went on a mental quest to find out just what the it-possessing blogs have that we don't...and here's what I came up with:

• Catchy Blog Names (Our Family View From Us Two is a mouthful ;)
• Wonderful graphics (We are html challenged over here! Besides- our officious filter blocks everything and its brother so we can't usually even see our own background! :P)
• Familiar Blog Administrator names (Who can resist peeking at a blog owned by a person named Jo March?!?! :)
• PICTURES!! (Oh we have the cute kids in our family. We have the wonderful pictures...we just can't post them here unless we go to a closed blog! :)
• Weddings (Um......not seeing that happen anytime soon! :D )
• Blog parties (We host contests, but it doesn't have the pizazz that Scraps, for instance, has!)

I can only come to two conclusions, as I am not a Sherlock Holmes- either we have lost our touch for writing commentable posts, or life is simply busy for our followers too! :)
Sure Blogger added a Stats page, and our stats are passable, but I raked up some statistics myself that only bloggy people could notice:

• Saturday is D-Day (Dead Day) Nobody is on, no one votes on any polls, or comments on any posts. You had better just not post on a Saturday
• Polls don't tell you anything if people don't vote on them! ;)
• People like the weirdest, randomest, strangest things- try to please them, and you don't, post about how you pickled frogs' ears and played the banjo, and they'll leave you 12 comments! ;)

Anyway! This is the bent my blogging mind ran on this morning! Hope you don't mind so very much! :D -Rachel

A Comparison of Our Blogs To Others

Alright! I have a question that has been bobbling around my head for some time now: How on earth do some blogs get so many followers?!?!?! It makes me rather jealous sometimes! ;) I'm kidding, but really- we have 35 followers. Respectable for the first year of blogging. But how do other people get so many? Here are some reasons I can think of:

Excitement: say you are engaged, or going to Europe, or something like that, and they'll come flooding! (So what's a girl to do who has no fiancee or funds?)

Pictures: Everyone loves seeing pictures of you, and your family. (We have discussed this, and the only options are: (A. leave you with seeing only our hands in select pictures of things we are doing (B. close this blog and invite you, and then show you pictures of us! But that doesn't do much for the follower issue, because once we are closed, not too many people can find us! :)

Style: Have one of those really fancy blogs with a great header, background, and a music playlist. (Um...our filter blocks most backgrounds, and we never hear playlists even when someone has them, because I guess it blocks it too! :P)

Genius: Say really smart and amazingly insightful things. (We are simple people, and not too many brilliant ideas come our way! ;)

Wisdom: Write posts about what you've been reading in your Bible, and thinking on, etc. (There is room for improvement in this area, but this is also a blog about our family, so we can't devote it entirely to that topic with nothing else thrown in)

Follower-Friendly Blogs: These are the ones that are constantly having contests, tags, awards, etc. (We do some, but if we aren't getting tagged, how can we tag someone else? And how do you make those award things?)

So as you can see, we try to have an interesting blog, but it seems that we lack all the stuff the "big bloggers" have! :D Thank you to each and every one of our 35 followers, and especially those of you who comment often! You are what keeps blogging fun! :) And any people out there who read this blog but don't follow it.... could you pretty please join up just to make us feel better? :) -Rachel

"O The Iniquities Of The Tongue!" :)

I thought that now, on the brink of World War IV, I should post about something that I learned very early on in this blogging-venture: "It is Excessively Easy To Be Misunderstood In Writing".
Yes. I was one of the prime instigators in that memorable World War III, better known as the Battle of Blue and Gray. ;) I only meant to have a fun debate. It turned...slightly sour. I had never really considered how much facial expressions assist people understanding eachother correctly. I mean, I have witnessed over and over again how sometimes I'll leave a comment on a blog, and it will be misunderstood because people can't see my mischievous sparkle in my eyes, or that I'm smiling. So I have learned to be really careful with what I put online, and how I phrase things. If you are being funnily sarcastic and saying, "I love broccoli", and I couldn't see your expression, I very well might believe you. Now, that is a weak example, and but you get my point? I think of the verse in the Bible: "Where many words are present, sin is not absent".
This wasn't supposed to be a preachy post, but an explanation, and, if you were caught in World War III, I didn't mean anything that might have offended you! So lets all be friends and happy and get along like bumps on a log! ;) Just kidding! Have a nice evening! -Rachel