NaBloPoMo Day 16
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In case you have not noticed, I like to use smiles in my posts. :) I was wondering if anyone knows how I can get the emoticons for my blog posts so that I can include something more than :). I would appreciate any suggestions you have. Thanks!
NaBloPoMo Day 14
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Well, I am almost halfway through the month and I almost forgot to post today! I was sitting here and just realized that my blog was still lifeless today! I am so glad I remembered in time. I would have been pretty upset!
I am waiting for Andrew to get home tonight. He should be in around midnight and I am going to go in and pick him up. He thinks I left a car for him, but I decided to surprise him and just go pick him up. It will only let me see him about 30 minutes earlier, but it is worth it! I have missed him!
I am looking forward to my second baby shower tomorrow! A lot of Andrew's family will be here for it and I get to see several friends that I don't get to see too much, so it should be great! I will share what I got at both showers soon.
On to my blogging help question: I recently tried to install CommentLuv on my site. Unfortunately, I keep getting an error message. I submitted a help post, but have not heard anything back. Does anyone use blogger and CommentLuv? Any suggestions? Anyone?
NaBloPoMo Day 7
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I have recently come across a new blog: BlogMommas. As I get closer to delivering, I am starting to look for the "mom blogs" so I can somehow mysteriously learn how to be a mom! Blog Mommas hosts a meme called Flashback Friday. I thought I would post on it today. (I am home sick- I don't know if I finally succumbed to the dreaded stomach bug that has been fluttering all around me since last Friday or if it is my body's rebellion to the unnatural amount of sugar I ingested yesterday- but the result is the same!)
Today's Flashback Friday topic: What made you start blogging?
I started blogging in April of 2007. We had just lost Sydney and I was still at home recovering (on so many levels). I needed some way to cope with all of the emotions surging through me. We had changed so much in the previous month! We had gone from two parents sitting in a hospital room talking about baby registries and showers and how crazy we were for being parents to two parents completely lost and devastated, trying to figure out how the sun could rise another day!
One thing we had come to realize was that we needed to buckle down and really figure out who God is and how He interacts in our lives as Christians. As someone who had grown up in the church, I had never really had any struggles to test my faith...well I certainly caught up with a life's worth in a few short hours! While we still had our faith, it was drastically different. I wanted a way to explore that feeling and journey.
Another thing we learned was how precious a single day can be. We had our daughter with us a short 16 1/2 hours. Had I known then what I know now, they would have been hard-pressed to keep me out of that NICU- fever or not! But, I can't look back with "what ifs" or I would go crazy. But I could look forward. I wanted a way to keep in touch with friends and family. I wanted to be able to document what was going on in life so I would not forget. I wanted to make each day count for something. Blogging seemed like a good step in that direction.
Also, I was home a lot by myself and I needed something to keep me occupied or I would have gone crazy!
Over the past year, my blogging has been inconsistent, at time blogging daily, at times not blogging once in a month! I have had to realize that blogging is there to serve a purpose for me and not to rule me. I can't feel bad when life gets too crazy for me to blog...but it has made me take notice of what kinds of things are getting in the way of blogging and has helped me continually reevaluate my priorities.
I have thought about trying to make money with my blog and about ways to increase my readership. But, I have come down to this. I want to enjoy blogging. And as long as I do, I will continue to do it. When it becomes too stressful or not fun any more, I will stop. Right now, I am having too much fun!
So, feel free to look around a little bit. Peruse my archives and label cloud. Let me know what you think! Is there something you would like to hear more about? Something you don't like? Suggestions? Compliments? I love those :) I would love to hear from you!
You can read more about my blogging here. Click the banner for more Flashback Friday at BlogMommas!
No, I did not just hit a bunch of keys on the keyboard. Apparently, November is National Blog Posting Month. It is a great way to get back into the habit of posting every day...or at least more frequently. I know I have been lax about it lately. I am really working on getting more into a daily schedule. Maybe if I have some kind of accountability, it will help.
So, this is the first post for November. Yeah, I know...it is cheating, but give me a break! :)
Please comment to let me know that someone is reading this. Also, do me a favor and give me a really hard time if I don't follow through with this, ok?! Thanks!
I realize that some of you are having trouble seeing the March for Babies button at the top of my blog. I have heard that it is covered up by the pictures. Well, it does not do that on my screen. I figured out a couple of things.
First, I use Mozilla Firefox as my browser. There is very little that goes wrong with Mozilla Firefox. So, I highly recommend that everyone download Mozilla Firefox and use it as your browser! Seriously! It is free. It is proven. All of the cool kids do it... Wait. You get my point. So, go to Mozilla and download it today! At least check it out! It is very easy to use and has a lot of great features.
Ok. Enough about Firefox.
The other thing I learned is that older versions of IE do not view my blog correctly. So, if you plan on keeping IE as your browser (but I know none of you are going to do that because you were so convinced by my argument above) you should probably look into upgrading to a newer version. Not only will that help you with my blog, but it will also probably help you on other websites as well.
For those of you who don't want to do either of those things, but still want to help support the March of Dimes with a donation to help prevent other premature deaths, here is the link where you can donate through my husband, Andrew. (He does not have as much raised as me, so I thought I would share his link instead of mine.)
I feel like I have finally arrived as a blogger! It only took me a year. "What do you mean?" you may ask.
Well, I have been pleased with the fact that I have not had to enable any comment moderation or word verification on my comments. Everyone who has commented has been appropriate and I have not been getting any spam...until now!
I guess my blog just did not attract enough visitors, or something. But, in the past couple of weeks, I have had to delete three spam comments. Three! After a year of nothing! What is the deal?
So, I am thinking about enabling the word verification option on comments to try to slow that down. Or maybe I will set it where the comment has to be approved before it goes up. Or maybe I will just wait it out until I see if it continues. What do you think? Any ideas? I mean, is three too early to worry about the problem?
I have not posted on WFMW for a while because I did not really have much to offer. But, this week, I came up for something that works for me. (You would think that my life is in total chaos since I can't think of anything that works for me, but it really is not all that bad!)
I am quite addicted to blogging! There really should be a BA (Bloggers Anonymous)! I mean, I subscribe to 74 feeds! 74! And that is after I have trimmed my subscriptions down. But, I have finally come up with a system to manage these subscriptions that works for me .
1. First, you have to get some kind of feed reader! I used to just go to the links on my blogroll. However, I would forget which ones I had been to and which ones I had not. And, I would go to blogs that did not have any new posts- a waste of time when I had so many blogs I wanted to look at. So, I finally signed up with Bloglines. It is easy to use and free. It installed a button on my toolbar that says, "Sub with Bloglines." I just click on that to subscribe to a blog when I come across it. Then, when one of my subscriptions submits a new post, I can see it in one easy place. So, step one...if you are still using your blogroll or memory to keep track of blogs, go get a feed reader. There are a ton of them out there!
2. Once I have subscribed to a blog, I select which folder I want it to go in. I have several folders: My Friends' blogs; Blogs I Like to Read; Blogs with Specifically Christian Content; Organizational Blogs, etc. I also have a folder for "Still Deciding." That is where most of my new blog subscriptions go. I put them here because I do not want to forget where they were, but I am not sure that I want to keep the subscription.
3. Subscriptions in the "Still Deciding" folder are marked private and can not be seen by anyone looking at my Bloglines page. I do this because I do not know a lot about them and I don't want to "endorse" them until I know more.
4. I also have a "Last Chance" folder where I put subscriptions that have not had much content that I have been really interested in for a couple of weeks while in the "Still Deciding" folder. These are also marked private.
5. So, when I go to read blogs, I go to bloglines and read all of my friends' blogs and "Blogs I Like to Read" daily. If time, I also read the "Still Deciding" ones. Weekly, I go through and "clean out" all of the new posts, including the "Still Deciding" and "Last Chance" ones. This gives me an overview of what those blogs are about. If I have found a blog that I really have enjoyed, I move it to one of the public folders. If I am still not sure, I keep it in the "Still Deciding" folder. If I have not seen much I am interested in, I move it to the "Last Chance" folder.
This system has helped me keep track of the blogs I find and has helped me sort through them. It seems a little tedious, but once I got in the hang of it, it has been really easy. Anyway, it works for me!
Head over to Shannon's for more tips.
I have stayed away from running ads on my blog, because I have been afraid that it would turn people off. I am just curious, what do you think?
I am so excited! My new blog design is up and I love it!
Revka at RS Designs was amazing while working with me. She took all of my input and did exactly what I asked. She was very easy to work with and I would highly recommend her to anyone looking to redesign their blog.
You don't have to do a complete redesign if you don't want to. She does have some pre-made headers or templates that you can purchase for a reasonable price. Drop by her site today to see what she has to offer!
Thank you Revka!
Thanks again, also to Christy at After a Cup of Coffee...or Two for the giveaway that made this design possible!
I can't believe it! I won the blog makeover contest over at After a Cup of Coffee or Two! I will be getting a new design by Revka over at RS Designs. Be on the lookout for my new design! I can't wait. I am soooo excited!
I first saw this over at An Island Life and thought I would give it a try. I am really not surprised by the results:
75%
If you want to test your addiction, go here. Have fun!
You may be wondering what Snapshots of Life is all about. Well, I started blogging in April 2007 after the death of our daughter, Sydney. This is what I wrote about blogging then:
This website will hopefully be a way that I can keep in touch with important people in my life while giving me an outlet to explore the things that are going on in my life. I have learned lately that it is important to never let life pass you by and hopefully this website will show how this revelation has affected me.I feel like I have accomplished a big part of that. However, Snapshots of Life has evolved into so much more than I ever imagined! I never thought anyone would read it that did not already know me. I remember being shocked the first time a stranger commented on my blog! I mean...how did they find me?! So, what will you find here?
Custom design by Revka of
