I’m Beautiful Like Me.

I have made some changes around the blog site. If you hadn’t already noticed or read about it, I bought a domain! With that, I felt it was time for some changes and upgrades.

Firstly, I have changed the appearance ever so slightly. I gave up on the three column format because it felt too crowded to me. I have added some new widgets - curse those widgets! I love ‘em and want to use every widget I come across, but they really bog down page loading time and well, everyone hates that! So, I’m trying to keep the widgets simple and relevant to the blog. And I have managed to hide about half of them on post pages, which is not as simple as it sounds! Please note there are two new ones that I’m quite pleased with: Buzzworthy Posts and Top Commenters. Buzzworthy Posts are posts that received a lot of attention, either via comments or tags, diggs, etc. on social networks. Top Commenters is a widget that lets me spread the love of my most dedicated commenters! Thanks, BHF. You my girl!

I have two polls going on in the sidebar (so posted in the event that you are a feed reader) that I’m sincerely hoping will get some votes. Basically, I want to know how you read the content of my site and how you feel about the site’s appearance. I’m concerned that some people might have trouble reading the layout as I use a black background and it wouldn’t be the first time I’ve heard complaints about it being difficult to read. Also, I have very recently subscribed to a large number (think: 80+) of blogs. With that, I have been exposed to all sorts of inspiration on blog appearances and think I would be up to the challenge of more format changes if the masses so demand. On that note, if you are a plurker and blog author, please add your URL to my plurk blogroll page.

Finally, I have discovered the I Follow Movement - manually removing the ‘nofollow’ code from blogger’s template so that links posted in comments work. I urge you to leave your links in all comments henceforth and I will spread the link love! Please see the image on the top right of your screen. You can get your own and learn how to remove that code properly from your template (regardless of what blogging platform you use) at Randa Clay Design.

I do expect a couple of additional changes in the coming weeks. When the polls close here, I will make a decision about the format on the web and I also have some other things in the works that are temporarily stalled. I’ll be sure to update you when I know more.

In the meantime, thanks for reading and voting!

Happy Valentine’s Day

The past several days have been busy.

Monday, Husband was off. We had a WIC appointment. The boy weighs 21 lbs. 8 oz. He made an amazing dinner of steak and baked potatoes and rolls. I made salad. A good day.

BHF and her family visited for the night on Tuesday. We had fun shooting the shit, half-ass watching movies and having a few drinks. I made a pot of veggie chilli especially for them (turned out really yummy, too!). Her husband is really nice, her daughter is as cute as can be (and loads of personality, too) and their dog was sweet as can be. Joy enjoyed entertaining BHF’s daughter for a bit and the boy didn’t know what to make of all the extra people. He was pretty cooperative, though and went right to sleep when bedtime came. The next morning, Husband made a huge pile of French Toast. We ate, hung out for a bit and finally said our good-byes. I’m super-jealous of their travels.

Cleaned up a bit after they left, made lasagna for dinner. Husband returned to work last night. After he left, I went out to the Jeep and got the Valentine’s candy I bought for him out of hiding and left it, along with a card, out for him to find when he got home. Had a hard time falling to sleep last night.

This morning, I woke up late and Joy was running late, too. We got halfway down to the bus stop before she realized she’d left her Valentine’s cards on her desk in her room. I came back to get them, but the bus came before I could get them to her. So, when the boy went down for his lunchtime nap, I went up to the store, bought her a carnation, a lovey and a bag of candy for her to share with the class and took them, along with the gift Husband got her up to her school. It made her feel pretty special.

After getting back from the bus, I went back to bed for another hour or so. Woke up and found flowers, chocolates and a card from Husband. He’s my favorite! I rewarded him with hugs and kisses.

The boy was pretty cranky today. He slept well at both naptimes but whined a lot all day and gave me hell at bedtime. I now have a headache and am getting ready for sleep. I haven’t read in a while (still on Chapter 3 of The Restaurant at the End of the Universe by Douglas Adams). The girl has a few appointments tomorrow and I will bring my book - maybe I can squeeze some reading in then.