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My Eyes, My Eyes! Big Blog Sale!

Posted: July 23, 2010 | by Kristine | Filed under: All Things Web, WordPress Tutorials

So I got the all-clear that my eyes are healed, yay! For those who are a little late to this party, I recently suffered corneal abrasions on both my eyes that covered the majority of my corneas. They were chemically etched. Yikes is right! After 4 days completely blind, then another week of just ok vision I now have my vision back and eyes are healed. That is a lot to celebrate!

I’m passing on my excitement with a big blog sale! Its my opinion that business web sites can benefit immensely from blogs being incorporated. Any web site for that matter! To celebrate being back to designing and to also help raise funds to cover the cost of expenses related to my eye injury I’m having this sale.

When you purchase a web site design package and add a matching blog design to your order I will take %50 off that matching blog! I’ll design a theme to match the web design you ordered and install it to the associated WordPress blog on your new site! You’ll have a fresh new blog to chronicle all your excited about your fresh new web site.

How do you take advantage of this sale? Simply add your design package using the package picker (Get Started @ top) and check the “Add a Matching WP Blog Theme” option. After you add that to your cart you can use the coupon code: BLOGTASTIC at checkout to get your discount.

eCommerce site owners start here | Informational site owners start here

That’s it, its that easy! So check out the design packages and get your BLOGTASTIC savings on your matching WordPress blog theme.


Do You Care About Your Eye Health? Read This!

Posted: July 11, 2010 | by Kristine | Filed under: That Other Stuff

**Warning, pictures of my eye are shown further down**

As some already know, I suffered eye damage this past week that has basically had me sitting in a dark room studying the insides of my eyelids. As I write this my eyes are still recovering and I am only able to keep them open for brief periods of time. But, this message is far too important to wait though, so I must apologize in advance if it seems a bit discombobulated as you read it.

It all started last Wednesday (the 7th) I was coaching a little league game when I noticed everything was a bit hazy. It felt as though I had stepped into a fog bank and I was looking at the world through a white film. A bit concerning to say the least. I brushed it off to something being on my contact lenses and that as soon as the game was over I’d rush home and take them out. Soon enough, the game ended we all high-fived, said our “good games” and enjoyed the customary Popsicle. We drove home and I rushed to take out my contacts, sure that this would take care of my vision issues. I was mistaken. After taking out my contacts I still could see the white haze but also realized that all light sources also had halos around them.

clear care contact solution We had company over and talking to my friends they assured me it was nothing to worry about, probably sinus pressure or tired. I did agree that being tired probably was the case and I took my leave to bed early. The next morning my vision was still blurry, I went in to work but also called my eye Dr to set up an appointment. By 8:30 I was at the clinic and having my eyes checked out something definitely was not right.

During the examination the Dr put stain in my eyes that would show any scratched or damage to my eyes, the entire surface of my right cornea lit up and about a third of the left cornea. I was told that my corneas were covered in serrations, the same size as my contacts. It looked like a chemical burn on my corneas, but how? Well, I have been using Clear Care overnight contact cleaner for the past few months. Its a hydrogen peroxide type cleaner that uses a special case. When used in the case the cleaner does its job and then deactivates within 6 hours and the contacts are safe to use again. I hadn’t had an issue until now. As far as we can tell, the cleaner did not deactivate fully the last time I used it. It was deactivated enough that it didn’t burn when I put them in but instead damaged my eye over the course of the day.

I was sent home from the Dr’s office with prednisone eye drops and directions to rest my eyes. By late afternoon I was in so much pain that it took all my will not to scream out. I had also lost all of my vision by this time. My husband rushed me to the Emergency Room where I was given 2 shots of a pain killer that did nothing to ease the pain. They told me it was seven times stronger than morphine, I was seriously doubting that claim at the time. They instilled numbing drops into my eyes so that they could pry them open and get a basic vision test done. No surprise, I couldn’t see anything. They stained my eyes again and confirmed that they were, of course, covered in serrations. Not much could be done. The worst of my eyes was patched and I was sent home with more pain killers to knock me out until morning.

Actual pictures of my eye after the jump.
Read More…


New Photography Site

Posted: July 6, 2010 | by Kristine | Filed under: All Things Web, I talk alot, That Other Stuff

My husband has been doing photography for a bit now and finally asked me to create a website for his photos. I spent the weekend finishing the setup and loading a sample of his photos.

Nate Paul Images, PhotographyWhat does this mean for my web design clients? Custom stock photography! We will be slowly building a large collection of images that can be used for stock photography for everything from web sites to advertising. Our goal will be to offer stock photos that will be of use to WAHMs and other small businesses for a reason price, with out needing to buy large amounts of credits to do so!

Eventually we may decide to expand this to product photography to go along with my graphic editing services. You’ll be able to have Web Savvy Mama not only design your website but supply the images to go along with your products! Of course, this is still a bit in the future, but the white box I made my husband build is just itching for use!

In the meanwhile, what would you like to see pictures of?


SEO Services from WSM

Posted: July 6, 2010 | by Kristine | Filed under: All Things Web, I talk alot

A while back I posted that I don’t offer SEO, the reason behind that I feel Search Engine Optimization is a long term relationship between the site owner and the web site. SEO is a process that not only includes the basic set up, but also the continual attention of the site owner. Its not something you can just “do” as a one time thing and forget about. With that said, I’m getting a lot of requests to help with SEO type services. I’ve decided its time to make these services available for those who need a bit more help getting started.

What I’ve decided to offer are starter services that will jump start the SEO process for the web site. I still encourage site owners to learn more about how to optimize their site and work towards reinforcing the optimization with long term efforts. In the Add Ons – A la Carte category of my online ordering area I’ve added some basic SEO services to help get you started.

Some of the services listed include adding meta tags or pages and products, keyword research, full product optimization, site map creation and submission, search engine submission, Analytics creation and integration, social networking setup and integration (including Twitter and Facebook) as well as various WordPress social networking plugin setups.

A few of these are offered as stand alone add ons and the rest are part of the SEO services customized package where you can pick and choose which services to add.

All SEO services are for sites and blogs designed by me, Web Savvy Mama. If you have a site designed by someone else please contact me using my custom quote form to inquire about the cost for your SEO package.