Supper Success

Everybody ate, and nobody died! It's certainly a red-letter day ... And to think all I had to do was follow the directions on the package.

Next time, I'll be really daring, and go for the chicken tartar ...

My First Award!

Announcing Moods!

Blogger doesn't offer "moods" like some other blog sites, so I made my own, starring my all-time favorite strip "Calvin and Hobbes^."

Mood:

Pleased

A Thank You (and a bit of a brag)

I just wanted to say thank you to those of you who have subscribed to my feed (13! in just two days!) and to my visitors (70! in two days!). I sincerely appreciate your visits and interest: of all the blogs out there, mine is one you found worth reading. It really does mean a lot to me.

I'll give a shout-out to the EntreCard program: it really is a boon for bloggers. I have found some great blogs I never would have seen otherwise, and I know I'm getting visits I wouldn't have if I didn't sign up.

And mad props to Sheta Kaey of Spirit Companion, for so many reasons: she encouraged me to get motivated, told me about EntreCard, and she made the "Dare to be Different" badge and blog-movement. (She's also a fab graphic artist, as well as being a real classy broad.)

So thanks again, everyone. It's an honor to be part of all of this.

Site Tweaks & Additions

This was to be my day of rest, but apparently I didn't know what I was talking about.

But that's okay! Good stuff happened.

A tale of tweaks

I learned HTML and CSS by taking webpages apart and then trying to put them back together. "Oops, I guess that code was important" was a common utterance. :)

Javascript was too much for me though. I'm not a designer, just a hobbyist, and there seemed to be no reason to work so hard on a webpage.

But today I realized I really, really wanted a three-column layout for this blog. I really like the template design, though, and it even came "out of the box" in a color scheme that pleased me. I didn't want to have to start over. I wanted to just add a column.

Easier wanted than done. But I did it! All by myself, even. Usually when I have computer trouble of any kind, I'll e-tap an online friend who's a whiz with this stuff and cry on his shoulder. Then he tells me how to fix it and everyone is happy. But today I wad determined to puzzle out the arcane coding myself and get that column in.

The end result isn't as polished as what I started with, naturally, but I am happy with it for now. After some more practice I'll make it sparkle.

So in my new column (on the left, there) you'll see some buttons and badges and things. Having considered some off-hand advice from my good friend Sheta, I decided to go ahead and get a bit more serious about blogging.

More about those programs ...

Sheta is participating in Entrecard, and had made up some nifty badges - the "Dare to be Different" one - so I decided to join the fun. It's free and easy to sign up, and you get exposed to a lot of neat blogs, as well as getting exposure for your own.

Blogged.com is a rating site. My personal blog merited an 8.3, Great, and I'd really like to see this one inch higher than a 6.4. So do me a solid and vote there, 'kay?

I also signed up for Feedburner, along with their email-update service. That's another cool, free webtool. Who doesn't like free? Not only will they "burn" your blog feed, they make it easy to make sure the webcrawlers find it and keep it current. They also provided the active headline generator over in the right sidebar. Tech toys are so much fun. :)

As I sign up at more places, there will be more buttons, badges, widgets and updates.

It will be an interesting journey.