I'll return to my regular illuminating posts soon, but now I'm just testing my feed. If you receive notifications about my blog updates through some sort of bog aggregator, would you leave a comment telling me if it updated with this post? I think my feed is broken. Thanks!
Hey all, I updated my sidebars today. I changed my craft books, my music and I've added a ton of links to all of the blogs I read. So if you have a second (or two, or three, or ten thousand) take a look around. Oh, and if I comment on your blog and I left you off, don't feel shy about emailing me to be added! Have a great day everyone!
I had a post started, sitting open on my computer for three days earlier this week, but every time I sat down to finish it Alex had a major conniption fit. I guess he got used to being held last week when he had the flu, and he wanted that to continue. Of course, I can't sit around holding my nearly two year old child for days on end, so we spent a very rough few days--Alex crying constantly, me yelling a lot and occasionally crying, too, and finally sending Alex upstairs to cry all by himself in his room. Yes, I sent my 20 month old to his room. And he stayed! The kid may cry a lot, but he is obedient. You may be wondering why I didn't just blog at night after the kids went to bed. And the answer to that question is that I was majorly obsessed with Heroes this week. Between last Saturday and today I watched all but five episodes. I couldn't stop until it was done. And for anyone who watches Heroes, you know that it is the kind of show that demands your attention. No other projects should be attempted while watching that show.
So, today I sat down to start catching myself up in the blogosphere. I have a lot of blogs to read and comment on. Sorry if I don't get to all of them, because I also have several posts that I want to write, too. And I can't do it all! Unfortunately, I've had a little burst of crochet creativity going on, and my fingers are too sore to type much. So, I'm extending my hiatus one more day. But tomorrow I'll be back in full force. Here are a few pictures of my crochet mania, and a few other things I've been working on.
From this:
To this:
And part of this gift I made for a baby shower I went to today:
Yes, I'm aware that my captions are all messed up, but Alex is currently crying at my feet, and I simply can't bear the thought of listening to it for another minute to fix it. Sorry. I know it's annoying. But, I will suffer for one more minute to say that my creative cup has been filled tremendously in the last few days and I feel so much happier than I have all week. I haven't even yelled at Alex once for following me around crying today. Hooray for creative time!
My blogging goal for this week is to include pictures with every post. They really do make a post more interesting. This means that I'm actually going to have to sit down at my own computer to use Photoshop. No more blogging from the laptop. Aaakkk! I might have to blog during nap time instead of laying on the couch? Oh well. Naps are for sissies! I hope everyone had as fabulous a Sunday as I had. More tomorrow--with pictures!
What the. . . ? This month has been decreed National Blog Posting Month over here. So, I'm going to give it a whirl. The challenge is to post every day for the month of November. Yikes. This does not come easy for me, but I've got to get back into the swing of things. I'm officially so far behind (again) that there's no chance of ever getting caught back up. I have 222 blog posts to read, and that doesn't even include Jenny's and Amie's blogs which my RSS doesn't pick up because they're password protected. And knowing them, I'm dismally behind on thier's as well, because they are prolific bloggers.
So, it's going to be a challenge for me to post every day. Please do not feel like you have to comment on my posts. I probably won't have time to comment on yours. I'm just being really up front with that here and now. But there are a few reasons for my lack of commenting, I promise! First and foremost, I've been busy starting a new business. Yes, you heard me, a business. Recently Jeremy resigned from his position at Doba. All of the founders did. Although he doesn't go into work everyday he still does quite a lot for the company so for now he's rounding up consulting gigs, and working with me to open Paper Crane Bindery. I'm going to be making custom blank books. I have a selection of papers for covers, two different styles of books, and two different thicknesses for each style. Customers can choose their options and I will bind a book to their specifications. We're trying to push our website live by next Friday. It's taking a lot of my time. In fact, mothering, wifing, housekeeping (with everything that that entails) and the business of making samples, taking photos, etc, has taken all of my time. I'm swamped, I'm exhausted, and I'm having a great time.
On top of that, we're starting work on our basement next week. That will be a joy--6 weeks of construction sounds rising up the stairs. But when it's done it will be great. I'll have a huge studio--yes I'm moving my studio downstairs--a playroom and a home office. The bonus room, where my studio is now, will be turned into a guest room with 4 beds. It'll be great for cousins, the sleepovers that I know will begin in the next two years or so, and other sundry guests that may come our way. I can't wait. It should be done in time for Christmas. Merry Christmas to me.
On top of that, I was called to be in the Young Women's organization in my ward. I'm the secretary. So that means every Tuesday night I have activities, I have presidency meeting, BYC, etc, etc, etc. In short lots of my time is now going to the young ladies in my ward--something that, surprisingly, I absolutely love!
Anything else? I don't think so. Oh, yes, one more thing. I was skimming some craft blogs the other day and I ran across a link to this Etsy store. It's the store of Kelli Rae Roberts whose artwork is beautiful and really strikes a chord with me. I will definitely be getting one of her prints soon--I won't tell you which one, though. I'd hate for her to sell out of it! Follow these links. I think it's really worth it.
OK. There you have it. November 1 crossed off the list.
I can hardly believe I'm writing this, but I'm leaving Blogger. Blogger and I have been friends for a while, as you well know. But the impending changeover, whenever it happens, has me more than a little shook up. I went online the other day to see if I could find a hack so that I could customize my banner. (I love the custom banners!) I followed the instructions to the T, but instead of getting my old banner up, I just lost the default banner, and now I can't get it back. Unless anybody is dying to know specifically why I'm changing to Typepad (ask in my comments and I write a post about it) I think it will be suffiecient to say that Typepad offers a far superior product. Of course, you have to pay for that product. I was a little bummed to find out that I had to have one of the premium memberships--8.99 a month--in order to have a customizable blog, but it's worth it to me. I don't think I want to devote the time to trying to learn how to write code, as rudimentary as it may be, in the new version of Blogger--because as far as I can tell, it's not just regualr HTML. I'll also add, that if you've been hesitant to begin a blog because you know nothing about computers or the Internet, Typepad is the way to go. It's fool proof. You can't mess it up and you can still have a really cool blog! You have to know absolutely no HTML, and you don't have to figure it out. The templates and their customization features do everything for you. There are so many ways to add content to your sidebars. The possibilities are endless. Not that I'm advocating a mass exodus away from Blogger, but I would encourage you to sign up for a free 30 day trial for Typepad and check it out. It's great.
OK, so that totally sounded like a sales pitch. Sorry. It isn't meant to be! Although I do love Typepad, I just don't want to be sent into blogging exile because I don't blog with Blogger anymore. So, will you all still be my friends. . .and read my blog. . .and leave comments. . .and invite me to the next blog party? Pretty please? I'd be lost without you!
There has been some concern expressed about the need to change from the Blogger we all know and sometimes love, to the beta version. According to Blogger this will happen--eventually. I've yet to see a timeframe for the switch (and since it took a very long time to test gmail, I wouldn't count on it being any time soon.) It seems like they have a few glitches to work out, and hopefully they will take into consideration comments from their users. I'm not too sure that I love the new version, but I am willing to withhold judgment until it's been fully tested and fixed as much as possible. In the meantime I'm checking out the alternatives--just in case.
So, keep checking. I'll be playing around on Typepad during my free 30-day trial. So far, so good. But I've barely begun to play. I'll give a full review later. The first item in Typepad's favor is the color pallette. It's very nice, the water colors that I can't get enough of these days, but it does cost anywhere from $5 to $15 a month, so we'll see. I'll keep you posted.
