In So Many Words

Well, I by no means think I am deserving of this award, but I am thankful to Leah at Just Me for letting me know I am appreciated. If you haven’t met Leah, she is a pastor’s wife and mom to 4 girls, one of whom has special needs. She has also embarked on a spiritual journey that she is blogging about at 90 Days of Solitude.

I’ve been somewhat on again/off again with blogging in recent months, but every time I question whether I should continue, I realize how much it means to me to have this little place of my own and to connect with so many wonderful people. So I am working on not feeling guilty for posting irregularly or for not having time to visit other blogs and comment. I just try to enjoy the time I do get to spend online.

I have, however, spent a little bit of time working on my blog admin lately, and one of the things I did was to close the comments on posts older than 90 days. I hope it doesn’t turn people off, but it has really cut down the amount of spam considerably. Anyone who wants to contact me directly with any question or comment can still easily do so through my contact form.

I’ve also been playing around with the new version of my blog theme (Thesis 1.6) and was very happy to see the ability to assign colors right from the options page. With the nested navigational options, I was able to include my main categories at the top along with the pages I wanted but not have it look too cluttered or overwhelming. I can easily change the background image whenever I want and modify the text/link colors to match.

A couple of other things I did were to add a widgetized fat footer (thanks to this super-easy tutorial from Thesis Theme Tools) and to put my blogroll back in the sidebar. The blogroll only shows the most recently updated blogs, but you can still see the entire list via the Blogroll link in the footer.

Oh, and one last thing. Through a post on Howtomakemyblog.com, I found a plugin that allows you to add your Twitter ID in your comments on my blog. You just enter your Twitter username (no html or @) in the box below the comments box before you submit your comment, and a link to your Twitter profile will appear below your name. You only have to enter your Twitter ID one time and then it will save it just like it saves your name, etc.

Let me know what you think about any or all of the changes. I’d love any feedback or other ideas you have.

And then go visit some blogs that truly deserve a Best Blog Award —

• Simple Mom
• Steady Mom
• Zen Habits
• Becoming Minimalist

I have been trying to simplify things in my life lately, including changing the look and feel of this blog. I am now using the Thesis theme and have gone back to my original puzzle piece header image.

The new layout is set up with just one sidebar and a lot less clutter on the page, although I can easily change it later if I wish, since it is more of a framework than a theme, without worrying about messing up the formatting like downloading a new theme might do.

I also condensed my categories from 23 to 13 and removed a lot of the extra buttons and icons from the page. I do plan to add pages for my blogroll and social networking stuff, and I am still working on adding a three-column footer so I can tuck some general information down there. (Hey, simplifying is a process. )

It’s taken me a long time to even start trying to figure out PHP and get into my WordPress theme editor, but now I am learning about hooks and how to use them (made easier by the OpenHook plugin). One great thing about Thesis is the awesome support forums; I had a question the other day and posted it in the forum and got an answer within a couple of hours. Pretty cool!

Let me know what you think about it so far and what you think are the most important pages or other features I should add. Thanks!!