Illegal Use of Your Blog Content

I am always curious how people find my blog and I take a look at the search terms in my statistics to see how it is that they find me. A couple of days ago, while looking at the search terms I Googled one particular phrase that led someone to my page. I just happened to look at the “images” and found one of my photos leading me to a website that was using one of my photos as their own. You might remember this photo from a post I did in March of 2012.

Toby #1

I was astounded when I saw this, and immediately looked for contact information on their site and graciously asked them to remove my photo as they did not have my express written permission to use my photos as is indicated on my blog page. They ignored my request.

So, I next turned to the WordPress Support Forum and the folks that responded to me were most helpful. What I want to share is the information passed on to me by helpful members of the WordPress community.

I needed to find out who was hosting this website so that I could contact them directly. I was directed to this website that can help you figure out who hosts the offending site: Who is Hosting This?

I was also directed to information that would help me with this issue. Here are a couple of links to articles that were very helpful! These articles are chockful of very useful information!

From the site “ManoloFood.com” I was directed to a really good article entitled: Whine Journalism and How to Bring the Splashback

From WordPress, more great information: Content Theft and What to Do

I have been contacted by the hosting website of the offender and had to send them a DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act) notice, which I have done. This is a letter to the web host that you sign under penalty of perjury. It indicates the site illegally using your content and you add in the link to where your content was stolen from. It asks for the hosting website to immediately remove or disable access to “the infringing material.”

Currently, the offending site does not have any photos showing on the page where my photo was illegally used. I am hoping for a quick resolution of this violation.

A huge thank you goes out to Raincoaster, Happiness Engineer MacManx, and TimeThief!

Hopefully my fellow bloggers and followers, this will not happen to you. And if it does, I hope that the information passed on to me and included in this post will help you!

Have a great Thursday and thanks for visiting!

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Triple Crown!

Inspiring is defined as having an animating or exalting effect. I have once again been honored with the Very Inspiring Blogger Award by three amazing bloggers!

Very Inspiring Blogger Award

My humble thanks go out to Susan at Gasm Travels; Julie at Cookie Crumbs to Live By; and to Shlehora at Shlehora!

The rules of this award:

1 – Display the award logo on your blog (top). Done!
2 – Link back to the person who nominated you. Done!
3 – State 7 things about yourself. This and the remaining are below!
4 – Nominate 15 other bloggers for this award and link to them.
5 – Notify those bloggers of the nomination and the award’s requirements.

7 things about myself:

* I love it when it snows!
* My first pet was a toad whom I name Ferdinand Magellen
* I love the patterns found on the Zebra
* I love a good avacado
* On our recent cruise I ate 3 lobster dinners!
* I love to write
* I love yellow roses and white carnations

Now I am to nominate 15 bloggers. This is where I cheat…with less than the 15! Here are my nominations:

Lily Mugford
Sustainabilitea
Julia Bailey
Ruth Nina Welsh
Cindy’s Art Blog

Congratulations to you all! You are very inspiring indeed!

Enjoy your Tuesday and have a great day!

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Love – A WordPress Photo Challenge

This week’s WordPress photo challenge is Love. Love can encompass so many things. It is an emotion that we feel for one another. It is emotion we feel for the animals we keep around us. It is found in the passion we have for living life. It is found in the passion that we have those things we love to do. Real love is unconditional and is boundless.

One of my passions is my love for food! The most important ingredient in everything that I prepare, and leave out of my recipes as it is a given for me, is love! I prepare food injecting it with the love I feel for those I cook for. So this post is focused on my passion and love for food! Recipe links follow!

Cupcakes

Carne Asada Burritos

Asian Beef Skewers

Fresh fruit salad

Gregg’s Italian Chicken

Grilled Ham and Cheese

Hot Sour Soup

Pepperoni Pizza

Pinot Lamb Chops

Pork Loin in Raspberry Pear Sauce

Pork Piccata

Sauteed mushrooms with garlic

Slop

Tequila Lime Prawns

Are you interested in the recipe for any of these? If you are here are the links to the posts that featured these recipes!

Chocolate Chip Cookie Bottomed Cupcakes – A-La-Kat
Carne Asada Burritos
Hoison Beef Skewers
The Salmon Fishing Queen Cooks Salmon
Fruit Salad
Gregg’s Italian Chicken with Orzo
Grilled Ham and Cheese Sandwiches
Hot Sour Soup
Pepperoni Pizza
Pinot More Lamb Chops
Jammin’ with Pork Loin
Pork Piccata
Sauteed Mushrooms with Garlic
Slop
Tequila Lime Prawns

Did I give you enough recipes? Each link gives you the recipe and you can print them too! Check for the print button at the bottom of the blog post.

I love cooking, and thank you for taking the time to read and view my post on Love. Please be sure to check out some of the other interpretations of love in the WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge. Click here!

Thanks for visiting today, and if you try any one of these recipes, please let me know how you liked them!

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Twenty Twelve, Blog of the Year!

I cannot possibly express to you the loss of words that I have, and how overwhelmed I am with emotion to have been nominated not once but twice in the last few days for the Blogger of the Year Award – 2012! I am honored and I am truly humbled!

This is the season of giving and it is also a season to be thankful. My purpose in life is to give to those around me all I have to give. I live this purpose every day. I am thankful for a number of things. My family, my friends, to have good health, and to have a following of folks who want to read my blog! I am also thankful to the two amazing women who have nominated me for this award!

Penny Howe, of The Why About This and Sharla Lee Shults, of Catnip of Life have both nominated me for the “Blog of the Year Award – 2012.” I thank you both, with a bow, for the nominations!

Penny’s site is amazing! And, so is Sharla’s! These women have been an inspiration to me in a number of ways. Penny, with her words of wisdom and her creative influences which have given me a different perspective of life; and Sharla, with her fabulous poetry, which touches my soul with her beautiful words the images those words create. If you have not read her poetry, which paints the most incredible pictures in one’s mind, then you are missing out! Both are truly gifted women who I treasure. I consider myself so lucky that my little blog, Life in the Foothills, has given to me the opportunity to know these amazing women!

My award:

Blog of the Year Award – 2 Stars Earned!

The rules of this award differ from others, and here are the details:

Blog of the Year 2012 Award

Do you know a blog that deserves an award? For me the answer is yes!

Do you have special blogs that you love to read? Absolutely!

Which blogs do you bookmark and follow? I have a huge list!

Would you like to give them an award this year? Well, I told you what my purpose in life is!

Then the ‘Blog of the Year 2012’ Award is for you!

The ‘rules’ for this award are simple:

1 Select the blog(s) you think deserve the ‘Blog of the Year 2012’ Award

2 Write a blog post and tell us about the blog(s) you have chosen – there’s no minimum or maximum number of blogs required – and ‘present’ them with their award.

3 Please include a link back to this page Blog of the Year 2012 Award and include these ‘rules’ in your post (please don’t alter the rules or the badges!)

4 Let the blog(s) you have chosen know that you have given them this award and share the ‘rules’ with them

5 You can now also join The Facebook group – click ‘like’ on this page ‘Blog of the Year 2012’ Award Facebook group and then you can share your blog with an even wider audience

6 As a winner of the award – please add a link back to the blog that presented you with the award – and then proudly display the award on your blog and sidebar … and start collecting stars…

Yes – that’s right – there are stars to collect!

Unlike other awards which you can only add to your blog once – this award is different!

When you begin you will receive the ‘1 star’ award – and every time you are given the award by another blog – you can add another star!

There are a total of 6 stars to collect.

Which means that you can check out your favorite blogs – and even if they have already been given the award by someone else – you can still bestow it on them again and help them to reach the maximum 6 stars!

‘Blog of the Year 2012’ Award Badges

There are six badges for you to collect – you can either ‘swap’ your badge for the next one each time you are given the award – or even proudly display all six badges if you are lucky enough to be presented with the award six times!

Need to know more? Check out the FAQ page. From the same site you can click on the thumbnail for the number of awards you are given! I have two! Again, thank you Penny and Sharla! You are both dear to my heart!

My wish now, and my desire to give, tells me that I need to pass this award on. I am passing this award on to:

One Man’s Meat Conor Bofin has some incredible recipes and I get totally caught up in his lovely narrative! Cooking with humor!

Zeebra Designs & Destinations While Lisa and I live quite a ways away from each other, her artwork and posts are inspiring!

Mike’s Look at Life The title of Mike’s blog fits what he shares. It is a pretty cool perspective, and I am glad that Mike found me, so that I could follow him!

One last one:

Yummy Lummy I never thought that I could ever find anyone who can eat as much as I can, or now hitting over double nickels – could, and then I met Gary! Gary has an amazing appetite, and an amazing blog that is also worthy of passing this on!

Hugs to you all! Again, Penny and Sharla, you are both very dear to me, and I thank you with all my heart! To those that I am passing this on to: Congratulations! You all deserve this award and have kept me entertained with your blogs!

Thank you for visiting today, and please do go check out these amazing blogs! Penny – Sharla — Hugs to you both and thank you for the honor!

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Winner of the Audience Choice Award!

My friend, Lisa, from Zeebra Designs and Destinations pointed me toward the Let’s Be Wild website and their weekly photo challenge. So, I recently entered their contest with the focus being on weather. And I submitted my weather photo. In case you missed this, here is the link to that post:

Wild Weekly Photo Challenge: Weather

Thanks to all of you my readers, that commented on their site about my photo, I am the first recipient of a new award category for them. The award: The Audience Choice Award!

Audience Choice Award

I thank all of you that took the time to go to their site and reply to my entry, which is how I won the award. I received a lovely email from Nick, the Editor in Chief, of this site informing me yesterday of my winning this award!

Here is the link to their site indicating my winning this award, and again I thank you and everyone who commented on my photo!

Winners of the Photo Challenge – Weather

Thank you Let’s Be Wild, and I am looking forward to this next challenge on “Escape!”

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Thinking of You…

A huge thanks goes out to my new friend Janina, from France, who nominated me for the Thinking of You blog award! I love Janina’s site as it is chock full of wonderful healthy recipes! The other thing I like about her site is that it is bi-lingual! Please take a moment to visit Janina’s site: Age-Defying Recipes

Thinking of You Award

The rules of this award are:

1. Thank and link back to the sender.

2. Tell seven things that I love and that I think about daily

3. Pass the award to seven other blogs.

Again, thank you Janina!

Seven things that I love and think about daily
1. Food, food, food!
2. What shall I write a blog post on today?
3. Taking photographs of the world around me
4. My husband and our lovely pets
5. Creating new recipes
6. Reading
7. What today will bring my way!

Next, I need to nominate 7 other bloggers…

Niltsi’s Spirit
The Way About This
Zeebra Designs and Destinations
Greenhousing
See What Eye See
Sunnys Photo Art
Yummy Lummy

Thank you again Janina!

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Very Inspiring Blogger Award

When I started blogging, all I ever hoped for is that someone would read my blog and like it and maybe they would make a comment or two. I have had the honor to be nominated for a variety of awards, and I humbly thank all of you who have nominated me and felt that I was deserving of an award! I have been nominated for yet another award for Inspiration!

The lovely Marcella Rousseau, who writes a blog herself, For Your Good Health, graced me with this nomination, and to you Marcy, many thanks for this Inspiration award. The actual award, my dear readers, is the Very Inspiring Blogger Award!

Very Inspiring Blogger Award

The rules for this award:

1) Display the award logo on your blog. Done!

2) Link back to the person who nominated you. Done!

3) State 7 things about yourself.

Seven things about myself:

* I started blogging on 6/18/2011
* My topics come from where the wind blows me
* I am not a vegetarian
* I love to write
* I love photography
* I love food
* I find inspiration from the constantly changing life that I lead

4) Nominate 15 other bloggers for this award and link to them.

This is where I get to cheat. While I love all of the blogs that I follow, I would rather send you all to one really incredible blog where I am a new follower. I do follow a lot of blogs, but for this award, for Inspiration, there is one blogger in my mind that is very inspiring to me.

For inspiration, which is what this blog award is all about, I nominate:

Christine Sternfels at Be Something Amazing! Please take the time to find the inspiration that Ms. Sternfels gives to us in her series “The Little Things…” and her series “The Re-Discovery of Happiness.” These are inspirational in so many ways!

Hugs Christine! Please take the time to tune in at the first of August as Ms. Sternfels has a family wedding!

5) Notify those bloggers of the nomination and the award’s requirements. Done!

Thank you again Marcy from the bottom of my heart!  And hugs!  Keep your wonderful site going!

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Lasagna Garden Mid-July

It was been a couple of weeks since I shared with you what my garden looks like, so this is an update!

Let’s take a look at how the garden has changed, shall we?

Here is the garden when it was just planted.

The garden beds are done

And here it is today!

The garden today!

Stay tuned for some of this summers bounty!

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Thank You Beyond The Green Door!

I need to give thanks to Beyond the Green Door for nominating me for yet another “One Lovely Blog Award.” Wow! It truly inspires me to be better with my blog receiving an award like this. Without further ado…

One Lovely Blog

The rules:

1. Give credit to the awesome person who nominated you. Thank you again Beyond the Green Door for the nomination!

2. Describe 7 things about yourself.

Hmmm…Seven things, huh?

1) I love cooking!
2) I love eating!
3) I love taking photos!
4) I love living in the Sierra Foothills!
5) I love to fish!
6) I love to write!
7) I love life!

3. Nominate 15 other bloggers. Here is where again I diverge! Another thing about me, I do not always do as I am told…I would like to nominate one blogger whose site I find is fun and who I enjoy following…maybe you will too!

The blog: See What Eye See

Thank you again Beyond the Green Door!

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Dead as a Door Nail

Have you ever wondered where words and phrases originated? During your day, you might hear one or maybe a few of these, and after hearing someone say “Dead as a Doornail” yesterday, I wondered about its origin. So here we go!

** Dead as a Door Nail – One of the stories I found on this phrase was that in colonial times nails were in short supply, and they were frequently stolen when they could be. To prevent this from happening folks would hammer in a nail with the head side on the inside of the structure, so that they could not be easily removed from the outside. They would then bend the nail, making it unusable, or “dead” for use by anyone else! Today this refers to a failed project or situation.

** Bikini – This word came from an unexpected place: The Marshall Islands! The first bikini was sold in 1947, but it was in 1946 that a test bomb was set off in the Marshall Islands. The tests were called “Bikini Island Bomb Tests.” As the two piece bathing suit set off “explosive” reactions, it was decided that they would name the swim suit the “Bikini.”

** Beat Around the Bush – In older days when noblemen wanted to go hunting they sent out their servants to an area where wild boar were to be found. The wild boar were very dangerous and the servants had no weapons to protect themselves. So they would beat the area around the bushes where the boars were to draw them out. This evasive technique became associated with someone who wants to avoid an issue directly, thus the phraseology.

** Pipe Dreams – This one comes from the opium dens. Smoking opium is known to put a person in a dream-like state of mind, where ideas are not realistic. This term was then transferred to folks to describe a unique or bizzare idea that they “dreamt” up.

** Bring Home the Bacon – I just had to get the much loved bacon in this post! A competition that was found at fairs in the days of old, was to grease a pig and the contestants had to catch the pig. As the event involved a pig, and the prize was money, if you won the event, they called it “bringing home the bacon.” Today, it still means bringing home money after working hard.

** Wet Behind the Ears – When an animal is born, they are wet from the fluids found in the amniotic sac. The ears take the longest to dry of any part of the animal. Wet behind the ears came about describing this feature and the fact that they have no skills or knowledge yet, and it was transferred to people who have no knowledge or skills to complete a task they have not done before!

** To Go Haywire – Today this means that something doesn’t work out right. Here is why: In 1828 a machine was created that baled hay using wire. It didn’t always work right, and sometimes the wire would get stuck in the machine, and the wire would get tangled. It was apparently really hard to untangle the mess and from this anything that does not work right goes Haywire!

** Put Up Your Dukes – The Duke of York, Frederick Augustus, son of King George III, loved to fight and named his fists his “dukes.” The phrase caught on with fighters who began calling their fists their “dukes!”

** Green Eyed Monster – Jealousy, right? The term comes from Shakespeare’s play Othello in Act III. He used a green eyed cat to represent jealousy. So Shakespeare coined the phrase, and it caught on!

** O.K. – Everything is O.K., isn’t it? The earliest account of this term comes from an 1840′s dictionary. Whig candidate William Henry Harrison was to be speaking at a rally and wagons were gathered. On one of the wagons was a streamer bearing the words “The People is Oll Korrect.” Harrison’s opponents seeing the popular appeal in this took it for themselves and changed it to “The People is O.K.”

Well, now that I am as dead as a door nail from writing this, so I think I will don my bikini! Without beating around the bush, I will be working on a pipe dream that will hopefully help me to bring home the bacon. I am a bit wet behind the ears as I will be taking on something new, and hopefully it will not go haywire. Later on I hope that I do not have put up my dukes to fight off the green eyed monster’s next door as they gaze at the lasagna garden. Hopefully all will go O.K.! Now, I am ready to start my day!

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