creative little daisy

Really??

How did I not know this? I was nominated for an Apartment Therapy Homie Award and I didn't even know it. I was doing a little more blog tweaking this morning and noticed a referral to my blog from the Everything Typepad blog. That peaked my interest so I clicked over to see that I was one of the Typepad blogs nominated under the DIY category. I'm really bummed. Not that I would have won, but I could have let my readers know and shamelessly begged asked you to vote, pretty please with a cherry on top.

Oh well, a day late and a dollar short, I guess. Thank you to the three people who voted for me anyway. Had I known I could have managed at least three more votes from Alyssa, Kelli and Mitch. I'm sure my sister would have voted for me too. Unless you have to have a blog to vote. I don't even know the rules.

I'm happy to have been nominated, and so bummed that I didn't know. I definitely would have campaigned. Maybe next year.

I've been a little under the weather for a few days and have felt like doing little more than sitting on the couch. I've taken advantage of the down time by giving some attention to my neglected blog, uploading photos to my forgotten flickr account and also taken a few trips down memory lane by reading some old posts. It really made me appreciate having this little journal and reminded me how important it is to just blog. Stop worrying about who is reading and how it will be accepted. Some of the posts that meant the most to me, may not have been the most "popular" in terms of hits or referrals, but I'm so glad to have captured those moments.

On one of those personal notes, I have a proud mama moment I can't let get by without mentioning.

I think you all know that my son Casey is a Marine. His job involves maintenance of this big bird, a V-22 Osprey. He and his dad teamed up and did some painting.

 

The quality of some of these photos isn't the best. Casey took them with his phone and he said he got overspray on the lens.

I'm super proud of both my talented guys and so glad they had this opportunity to work on such an amazing project together.

My blog got a makeover

It's something I've wanted to do for a while,  just haven't had the time to sit at the computer for several hours straight, and that's what it took. Hours. I'm sure the little tweaks I made could have been knocked out in no time by someone who actually knows what they are doing. I am not that someone.

At one point considered paying someone to do it for me and even contacted a couple of  blog designers. It turns out they don't design for typepad blogs. When I started Creative Little Daisy in 2006, many of the blogs I read were on the typepad platform and those that were with blogger seemed to complain of frequent problems. The typepad bloggers weren't complaining about blog issues and they had nice looking blogs, so I went with Typepad.  Knowing absolutely nothing about blogging, other than how to read one, I jumped in blindly, fumbling my way around. In the past few years, there has been a shift. The number of blogs using blogger far exceeds typepad blogs (those that I read). If you google search anything to do with blog design tips or tutorials, you will find most are aimed at a blogger supported blog. That made the task of giving CLD a face lift a little more challenging, not impossible, just more challenging.

By now, y'all know, I love a good challenge, right?

What I really wanted was to streamline things. My sidebar was beginning to be a jumbled mess of various  links and buttons. I wanted a set of icons that matched and were pretty, making it easy to subscribe to CLD and find my facebook, pinterest, email... Finding the icons was easy. There are many sources for free downloadable icons, but clueless me didn't know what to do with them, how to get them on my blog. Then I found this that led me to this. Pretty buttons and easy to understand instructions for installing them. I had a little time on my hands, so I got down to business. It would have been very cut and dry except, like I mentioned before, I have a typepad blog, so I'm not one of the cool kids. The steps are a little different, but I was able to install the icons.  Here are some instructions for inserting images in your sidebar if you have typepad.

All was good, except that the pretty new icons made the rest of the blog look bla. One thing led to another and then another. You know how that goes. By the time I called it quits, because I was too cross-eyed to see anymore, I added the buttons, made a new sidebar image, a new header and new navigation bar. I also changed the colors.

I not going to go into great detail about what I did, because I would probably just embarrass myself. Most of you probably know these things already, but if you have specific questions, ask and I'll try my best to answer.
I did want to provide a link for the tutorials and tips that I found very helpful.

First, I would like to thank The Academy {snicker, it sounds like I'm making an acceptance speech} Not that Academy, this Academy for providing the free social media icons and Kira for providing the easy to understand instructions for getting those buttons on my side bar.

I wanted a cohesive and coordinated look and found the Instant Eyedropper tool very helpful. An icon is installed in your system tray that allows you to determine the HTML color code of any object on your screen.

The blog header and the navigation bar graphics were created in Picnik.

I used these instructions for adding the images to my navigation bar.

I think that's about it. It was a fun challenge and a way to get creative without getting paint in my hair, for a change.

Let's see if I remember how to do this...

I've been missing this place. It feels a bit strange to be back, after so long away. So much to say. Do I blurt it all out in one long rambling post or break down into quick bite size chunks?? I guess since Bayleigh is sleeping, I'll just write what I can and go from there.

Why the long absence, I guess that's as good a place as any to start. I think in my last post I wrote about being sick and in the hospital. That was one of those life changing events folks. A stop and take inventory of what really matters event. I was sicker than I've ever been and for the first time in my life I felt like I was getting a glimpse into what my mother must have felt like during the last part of her life. I've had this lung disease all of my life. It's the only life I've known, but this was different. I was completely wiped out just being still. Short of breath with no exertion. I had to gather my strength to get up and go to the bathroom. The scary part was that it came from out of nowhere. No gradual decline and I was terrified that I had progressed to this level and life as I knew it would be no more. I was so scared that my lung function had declined to such a point that I would have to very seriously face the prospect of transplant.  I also experienced some very scary anxiety. It wasn't a fun time. Getting out of the hospital and beginning to feel like me again felt like a gift. During the time I was sick I didn't feel like being on the computer and once I started feeling better it became evident that I wanted to do more with my time than stare at a computer. I realized that much of what I was reading led to feelings of inadequacy and frustration.

I started this blog completely blind about blogging. I had no plans other than to take some pictures of things I'd sewn or spray painted or talk about my dogs. I was surprised when other people actually found their way to my blog and even more surprised when they liked it and continued to read. I had a small little circle of blog friends and I loved it. I'd be so excited if I got a few comments. Over time the circle of friends got wider and the people who read my blog on a daily basis grew and I began to feel pressure to write something interesting, to post what I felt like people would want to read. If people were going to actually subscribe to my blog I wanted it to be worthy of their time. I loved the challenge it provided. My sewing skills improved and I loved learning about how to make my blog look pretty. I learned so much reading other blogs and tackled projects I would have otherwise felt impossible. All because of blogging. Then something began to shift. I started to feel like my little blog was sitting in the middle of the interstate with blogs flying past me left and right. Brand new blogs exploding with readers. Blogs with sponsors. Blogs giving away fabulous prizes. I felt like my blog was an 80s honda civic among a mass of convertible BMWs and although I kept telling myself, self, you started this blog for you. You don't need to try to compete with anyone, that's not what it's about. It's not a high school popularity contest. And I said back to myself, Whatever!  No matter how much I told myself it isn't about numbers, I couldn't help but be bothered by it all. I didn't realize exactly how bothered until I was away and I didn't miss it. That little voice that used to be in the back of my mind constantly composing blog posts was quiet for the first time in a long time. And I liked it.  Not only did I step away from my blog, I didn't read others. I think that was the most freeing act of all. How do I say this next part and not offend? I'm not sure I can. Just know that this is my opinion. I'm not saying there is a right way or wrong way to write a blog, I'm just giving my own individual perspective. Here goes, and please don't hate me. I'm saddened by the frenzy that blogging seems to have become. I miss the simple times when it felt like you were sitting at a friend's kitchen table chatting. Money finds a way to taint everything, doesn't it?  I don't fault anyone for making income from their blog. It's a part time or even a full time job for many, and that's great, but now it seems every other blog has sponsors, and with sponsors you have to promote those sponsors in order for them to send you money and if you really want a lot of sponsors you need to prove a lot of people are going to read your blog and potentially visit your sponsor. It makes me so crazy to read a post with a giveaway, but in order to be considered for the giveaway you have to comment here, then comment somewhere else, then become a follower, then write about the contest on your blog. Never mind, it's just too darn hard.  I'm sorry, but I'm just not going to jump through 25 hoops of fire to win some vinyl letters to stick on my wall. I've offended, haven't I? If I did, I'm sorry. Just know I'm coming back to catch up, but I'll be doing it 80s honda civic style. No flashy prizes to giveaway here and there's no telling what I may be blabbering on about. I've done a little furniture painting recently, I'll talk about that. We've experienced some loss in our family, I"ll tell you about that too. We've celebrated goals reached. Some of us are a year older.  I have much to share!