Sorry I have been MIA this week! My mom and I were in New York City for a few days of shopping and girl time while Scott is in Ireland. My awesome mother-in-law stayed with the kids. We got back tonight and we had a great time. I’ll be back tomorrow with my Weekly Winners, and I’ll post more about my trip later.

By the way, does anyone know what is going on with my Flickr badge? While I was gone I noticed that there were 5 boxes instead of my usual 4. The first one had no picture in it, and the 5th one was on its own row. I edited the code so that there are only 4 boxes, but now the first one still doesn’t have a photo in it. Any ideas??

I just added this cool new plug-in. I don’t get that many comments (I’d like to get more ) but sometimes I want to respond and I am not sure how. Should I reply in my comments so everyone can see the comment? But then I wonder if the commenter will ever even see it. I usually end up just emailing the person back, but then it doesn’t make for a very good conversation in the comment section. This plug-in lets you respond in the comment section and also automatically emails a copy to the original commenter. Pretty cool, huh? Now if I could just get a few more comments…….

I saw this on a friend’s blog and thought I’d try it too. Maybe some of you who read all the time but never comment will leave me a memory

1. As a comment on my blog, leave one memory that you and I had together. It doesn’t matter if you knew me a little or a lot, anything you remember! Since this is our family blog, feel free to leave a memory about any of us.

2. Next, re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you. I look forward to the responses. If you leave a memory about me, I’ll assume you’re playing the game, and I’ll come to your blog and leave one about you.

A while ago I discovered a new (to me ) blogger. Now, I can’t stay away from The Pioneer Woman. She is an awesome photographer and a Photo Shop diva. She posts all kinds of Photo Shop tutorials, which I love. She also has a cooking blog. She posts recipes that look amazing with awesome photography to go along with them. I am definitely not the gourmet cook that she is, but some of her recipes look GREAT. I think this salad looks yummy. It might be good for one of my book groups. I always struggle with what to make if I host. Or this lasagna looks to die for. Anyway, I am loving her blog. Check her out if you want, not that she needs any more traffic, she is already ultra popular

I just read “Over and Out” on Kerflop.com. I am really hoping that it is an April fools joke, but I don’t really think it is I will really miss her! She is definitely one of my favorite bloggers. (And if I am going to keep writing these short posts I think I might need to add a sideblog to my blog….)

I feel like I am in a blogging slump. I have had a hard time coming up with things to write about lately. So, instead of writing yesterday I decided to make a few blog changes.

When I first changed my site, I added my Flickr photos. I wanted to have 4 in a square like they are now, but I didn’t know how to do it. Thanks to Cathryn from Pondering Parenting, I now have them the way I wanted them. Thanks Cathryn for your help!

I also changed the font and the color of the titles on my sidebars. I have wanted to do that for such a long time, but I never knew how to do it.

I also finally figured out how to fix my post titles. Some of them were showing the first letter of the title on it’s own line. Thanks to Jessica from Kerflop for all her help. I really couldn’t have done any of this without her!

Anyway, the changes were small, but I think that it looks better.

Hopefully tomorrow I will have something profound to say

I have still been thinking about what to do about the privacy of this blog. I went to one of my favorite reads, OMSH today and she posted her solution to the photo issue.

Should you notice my little copyright graphic/watermark thing-a-ma-jig, please don’t think I’m getting all cocky. I realize 98.9 percent of my readers would not ever take a photo. And you should know, if I ever take a photo you can’t live without, just email me and I’ll send the original right over. Hot linking and/or saving an image found on my website and uploading it to yours? Not cool. I will no longer be uploading full resolution photos to flickr – just these sweet little 500px photos with the watermark. It’ll look the same to you – just with that annoying little “c” displayed and my gentle reminder, “Do Not Steal.”

Before I even read this I had been thinking about making some kind of a watermark for my photos. I emailed a few people to see what programs they used to make them. It seems like most people just make them in photoshop, which I already have. I just have to figure it out, and see what I can do to make the process easy. If it takes a long time to put the watermark on each shot, I will probably post fewer pictures, and I don’t really want to do that.

I also like the idea of only uploading small files to flickr. I may have to look into that, and see what I can do about changing my existing photos. I am mostly concerned about my kids photos. I am not too worried about my other shots. I know that I have gotten better at photography, but I am not really concerned about anyone stealing those shots. There are plenty of better shots out there of most of the things I have photographed.

I am still mulling over what I want to do. But, one of the things that worries me the most is the shots of my kids. I think that if I knew that the photos of my kids were safe, I would probably feel ok with having all the rest of the things I post public. I still haven’t made any decisions, but stay tuned

I have been toying with the idea of making my blog private. I have been reading more and more about people being nervous about sharing so many details of their lives with the internet. A friend of mine works for the Federal Public Defenders office and he tells me all kinds of scary stories about crazies using pictures of kids that they get off the internet. Yesterday my brother had an issue where someone hacked into his email and sent a message to the CEO of his company about some things in his private life he didn’t want to share with his employer. I find myself censoring what I write, so that I don’t offend anyone. It all just got me thinking a bit more.

I started looking into plug-ins to make my entries private. People could still see my blog, but I would have to give them permission to read my posts. That way I would know who was reading my blog. I am not trying to block any of my current readers, I would just like to know who you are. I keep looking at my stats and I see that I get between 30-60 hits a day. Only a handful of people ever comment, so that leaves me wondering who all the hits are coming from.

I found 2 plug-ins that will do this for me:

Angusman

Hidepost-plugin

If anyone has any experience with either of them, can you let me know what you think of them?

I keep thinking about the whole blog thing and why I started it in the first place. I originally started it as a journal for myself. I planned on having it printed out some day to share with my kids. Then I started thinking it would be fun to share it with my friends and family who live far away. It is a great way to keep up to date on far away loved ones lives. I love reading Hobo Mama, since we hardly ever get to see Scott’s older brother. It has also been fun to read Mike & Maren’s blog–even though they live in the same state as us, we hardly ever see them.

I love reading about friends and family. But, I don’t want to get caught up in the whole popularity thing that goes along with the blog scene. I find myself looking at my blog stats and trying to figure out how to get more readers. I keep wishing that more people would comment, but then I think about it and wonder why? Sometimes I feel like I am back in high school again and I am wanting to be one of the “popular kids” That was never my intention when I started my blog. I just wanted a place where I could write about my days and my life right now. I just wanted a place where all these memories from being a mom to little kids would be remembered.

I am still not sure what I want to do, and I don’t really have a solution yet. Right now, I am just thinking out loud…..

I think I am in a blogging slump. I have spent hours and hours lately redesigning and moving my blog. (With a little help from a few friends, of course!) But, now that it is mostly done, I have run out of things to write about. I just went and read a few of my friends blogs, to get some inspiration, but it didn’t help…

I have been meaning to go back and write a post about Emma’s birthday, but I want it to be special. I started writing it a few times, but it just wasn’t flowing like I wanted. Did I mention that I am the mother of a SIX year old???? I don’t know how that happened so fast!

I spent the day today getting ready for my Dad’s birthday party. My mom and dad and aunt Gert came over for dinner for my dad’s birthday. I made corned beef and cabbage, and it was DELICIOUS! That is seriously one of my favorite meals. Ian and I also made Granny’s chocolate cake. It was a nice night.

Well, there is my attempt at todays blog entry

P.S. I went back and added a post about Emma’s birthday party. Check out my post on February 11th if you want to see it.

I have made some progress with my new blog, but I have so much more I want to do. The problem is, I have such a limited understanding of all this code stuff I think that I have worked on all the things that I can. I have spent HOURS on this. Scott is starting to complain, but he helped me with my new header today. I still need to add a title or a logo. But that is where I get stuck. I need to make that logo linkable, but I just don’t know how to do that.

Here are my top priorities right now:

• Add Flickr photos Got them added, but I don’t love the layout. I love how they are on this website
• Add blogroll–I have the title, but I don’t know how to add the links
• Create logo for header and figure out how to make it linkable
• Figure out how to stop the text from automatically wrapping around my photos
• Figure out how to center photos
• Make link tabs somewhere in the header for: About, Archives, Contact–then make those pages
• Figure out how to make my comments a different color from everyone elses
• Get everyone to switch to Firefox–just kidding Figure out why everything is screwy in Internet Explorer
• Figure out why there is such a big space between my title and contact form on the “Contact Me” page

If anyone out there knows how to fix any of these things, I would love your help!!