Friday, July 8

4 Months of Blogging

Today, I celebrated my blogiversary again. Which is when I allow myself to play with my template until my heart’s content and write about blogging all I want. I did this last month too. I’ve decided to make it a monthly feature for a while, because it gives me a nice way of referencing information and tools for both myself and for other bloggers who may have been wondering just how to do something in particular.

Click link to continue reading:

It also prevents me from changing my template on a daily basis, and from waxing on and on about silly things like how I manage my Bloglines account. I swear, I almost posted on that very subject, but luckily I saw the light before I published it.

To be honest, I broke down about a week ago and did a little premature updating into my sidebar. I added Kel of the X facta, a lovely sheila from Melbourne, who has a wide array of interests. I also added fellow Austinite, Crystal of poco-cocoa, who has a yummy food blog and journal.

This lead me to create a Austin section in my sidebar, which is just a small, but growing, list of my local haunts containing mostly politics and entertainment. Including In the Pink Texas, Burnt Orange Report, Austin Bloggers Meta-Blog, Austinist, and Metroblogging Austin. I also got a pretty new button for my Austin Weblogring, which is some fun blogsurfing, especially for locals.

I should also mention that I put a Firefox button in my side bar. Honestly, I hadn't heard of Firefox until a couple months ago and I love it. People talk about all the security advantages, but I just think it's more user friendly.

Other new additions include:
  • Potatoes in the Mist by the lovely Bearette24, a fiction writing, vegetarian, ENFP, yogi living in NYC
  • Deep Thoughts of a Country Boy by the one and only Dr. Synonymous, who is an old friend that never fails to put a smile on my face, a mutual friend just recently clued me into his blog.
  • And I Did It Anyway by our restless Gypsy, a relatively new blogger who, as her name imlpies, is all over the board.
  • Sugarfused by deb who seem has similar interests to me, photos and memes. She really captures wonderful photographs.
  • what's in rebecca's pocket? by, you guessed it Rebecca, who literally wrote the book on blogging.
  • 75 Degrees South where Simon tells us about life in Antarctica.
You may have noticed that I made a few changes in to the look of things too. I know, everybody has a white background, but honestly, I think it’s makes things easier to read. After much fussing I figured out how to get a photo background for my header. That photo is one I took of a flowerbed I saw while walking around Town Lake, edited with a focal black and white filter and some cropping. I got my husband to take some pictures of me this evening, so that everybody could see my face, not fancy, but it’s me. I also changed my profile photo around to something a little less sugary sweet.

I’m very excited to announce that I now have an email link. This is something I’ve wanted for a while and I was planning on searching for information on how to do it today, but yesterday Anvilcloud pointed out how to do it. Talk about timing. Also thanks to Anvilcloud’s invite I’ve set up a gmail account exclusively for my blog, which makes me feel more comfortable. I’m still learning to work with it, but I like it. I’m sure that once I catch on I’ll be promoting that too. So there is an email me link in the side bar and one at the end of each post in case you want to comment privately.

That’s all I had time to do today. As always feedback from the wonderful people who actually visit my blog on things I can do to improve the readability and usability of things is appreciated. If something looks eschew, please tell me. I’m always amazed at how different things can turn out in different browsers. I did also add a more obvious permalink to individual posts and take off the email post icon that Blogger sometimes provides at the bottom of each post, because I have reason to believe that it has been confused as a comment link, plus I must admit that nothing I write really is profound or informational enough that a handy email post option is necessary. I want to make things easy to use for non-Blogger users as it can be a pain for people not familiar with their ways. I still entertain this fantasy that someday one of my family members may actually be interested in reading some of my ramblings.

I really had hoped to write a blogging mission statement today, but I need to go to bed. I guess that will be on the top of the list for next month. Happy Blogging and thanks to all for enduring me.

21 comments:

Anvilcloud said...

A blog mission statement?! I think I'm impressed ... or depressed. :) I never know what mine is about.

oceanskies79 said...

Nice template. Thank you for the efforts.

Bearette said...

Thanks for the shout out :) I like your new look! Very nice picture too.

Janet said...

Hello Lora! Whadda ya mean- a photo less sugary sweet?! You are so cute! And so professional with your blog! I've tried to do something with my boring page, since the font suddenly changed and I can't make it small again!

Happy Blogiversary!

Anonymous said...

Happy Blogiversary, Lora! I'm so glad to have found your site, and thanks so much for pointing mine out! I saw your comment on my sister's blog, and now you'll have to watch out, because I plan on tagging you on my next meme... :)

Waterfall said...

Looks good! Seems like it was only yesterday that you celebrated last month's blogiversary. Time sure flies!

Lora said...

I know time just flies by. Thanks for all the cheers.

The mission statement thing is something I've been wanting to do for a while, because I feel things lack cohesion, to say the least. We'll see if it ever happens.

BTW I'm not posting today, because I'm trying to catch up on all the reading that's backed up on me.

Julie said...

happy blogiversary! I like what you've done with the place, looks great over here!

Anonymous said...

Looks great!

Anonymous said...

I wish I had the skill and motivation to update things from time to time....for me it's enough to get the blog post up. Nice job!

Anonymous said...

Your site looks great, Lora! I love the photo background you have as the top banner and I do agree that it's easier to read with a white background. Good work. :)

Jean-Luc Picard said...

Great blog with lots of features.

Michele sent me here.

Catez said...

Hi Lora,
happy blogiversary! I like the white background - it is easier to read, although I had no problems reading it before. I read the X Facta too.
I know what you mean about nearly posting about bloglines. I don't use bloglines but there's beena few things I spent ages on and nearly posted on. I did mention my aggregator - which is like my bloglines. Well it took so much time...

Anonymous said...

I love the new look-the photo at the top is especially beautiful.

Sue said...

Looks great and I love the photo at the top!

The only thing that looks a bit odd to me is that the title is no longer all there on my screen. It just says: ck Currant Jam. I'm using Firefox as my browswer - but if you are too, I don't know why mine would be different. (Ignore the comment if it's intentional that way. I'm no artist!)

Kel said...

G'day Lora

the new look blog looks great
and I'm flattered to be included as part of the scenery

from that beaut sheila in Oztralia

Kel

utenzi said...

Hi Lora. Nice blog! Here's a follow-up to Sue's comment: your title isn't showing up entirely because your CSS is defining your title as the same color as the background. You can therefore see the part of the title that is superimposed over the picture but not the part of the title that has just the white background. You need to either have the title just over the picture of change the color of the title or the page. Or if you don't mind losing part of the name, just leave it the way it is. :-)

Dave.

Sue said...

Ah, yes, that's what it is! If I highlight the title, I see the whole thing. Maybe it's to do with my screen size rather than Firefox as such? I see about 3cm of white space to each side of the photo, but the title starts right over at the left of the screen, with the first four letters in white on top of the white background.

utenzi said...

I see you fixed it, Lora, by changing the background color to black. Is that a test or your final color choice? Just curious!

Lora said...

I am overwhelmed by you responses. Thank you everybody for the feedback and the assistance in making things more the way I want them to be.

Megan Stuke said...

Hey, Lora! Thanks for the link -- I love new traffic! I am actually not a new blogger; I just had to change my site because of some work snafu. (Is that how you spell that?)

Your blog is fancy. I need to learn to do these cool things and make mine more personal. Eventually...