I Used to Blog More

I'm not sure why, but I haven't been blogging here as much as I used to. I have been busy and also blogging about gardening more. I love to do that! It helps me to keep my knowledge current and actually in my head. I am also in the planning stages of starting a garden coaching business. I would go to people's yards and teach them about the plants they have as well as how to take care of them and generally improve their gardening skills.

If you're interested, my gardening blog Turn Your Thumb Green is updated pretty often, now and I'd love to hear any questions you may have for me! Also, I've been pretty active at Crazi Beautiful Women This has been a great opportunity for me and I hope it turns into more!

I'm not going to stop blogging here, but I think it will just be about what it has been for the past several months rather than the several times per week.

I guess I didn't need to say anything, but I wanted to explain... Thanks for visiting and come back soon!

Crazi Beautiful Women

I wanted to let you all know about a great new website! It's called CraziBeautiful Women! They are gathering experts in lots of areas to write, inspire, encourage...you get the idea! It is a really fun place and it is just starting up!

The best part for me is that I have been asked to blog about gardening for them!! If you go to their site and hover over Girlfriend to Girlfriend and then click onBack to the Basics and there I am! I am really excited to blog like this! My first post will be on Friday! Come check it out!

I'll still blog about gardening at Turn Your Thumb Green, too!

Waste or Not?

When I first moved from Florida to Utah, I tried to maintain relationships and keep track of my friends, but none of them wrote back when I wrote letters. More recently, I have gotten in contact with several old friends through email and blogs. Then, a couple of days ago, I joined Facebook and I've found several people I have wondered about for a long time. I have also wasted a ton of time and I hope I don't stay too addicted to it!

It doesn't really matter whether you move 2000 miles or 20, it is hard to keep up with friends. I am so grateful for the Internet, email, blogs and facebook! It has been so nice to reconnect with old friends!

Just So You Know...

I let my feed reader get way out of hand and I just can't look at everything. I just can't get to it as often. I decided to start fresh. I hope I didn't miss anything too wonderful! I'm just going to have to live with not knowing. If you wrote or read something fabulous that I have to read...let me know!!

I think I may need to cut back on the number of blogs I check...

Name Change Note

I just wanted to help stop confusion, since I was going to change fake names for my family. The kids wanted it and I wanted the names to fit each other and the new baby's name. So, I've decided what to call her on my blog, but not in real life. Go figure! I guess it's easier to give a fake name that a real one. My husband will be "Mister", Luke will change to "Link" and Belle will change to "Princess". I also added pictures on the side with names!

Online Friends

It is really interesting that it is so easy to feel close to people you only know online. I have thought a lot about this, since I met Aaron online. We feel like we were able to know each other a lot better than many couples when we got married. We still had to get to know each other's habits and in-person selves, but we only had talking, so we were able to learn a lot about how we felt about the world. For some reason it was also easier to say things online than it can be in person.

I think blogging can be the same in a lot of ways. We are able to tell each other things online, that are hard to tell people in person. I can't quite figure it out, but I think when you have something to say, you can just type it and hit "send" or "publish" and it is out there. In real life, you have to look people in the face and gauge how they are feeling as you talk. I think I tend to worry about what they'll think and that isn't as big of a deal online.

In some ways, I feel closer to my readers than my real friends. I wish that we could live closer to each other, so that, now that we know what goes on in each other's heads we could hang out!

(It would probably help if I hung out with my real-life friends more than once a month...)

Turning Your Blog into a Book

I found a site called Blurb (if it was on your blog, I am sorry, it has been so long that I don't remember where I saw it first) and thought it was a great idea. There is also lulu.com. I just found it. It is a site that prints any book you want.

I used to be really good about writing in my journal, but it hasn't been a priority lately! I wish it was, but my blog has mostly taken its place. The problem is, I want my children to have access to the stories and pictures. Who knows how long Blogger will be around or if my kids will be able to find what I have done. I haven't published any of it, yet, but I want to try to do it yearly, so it is all in my possession!

Prices at Blurb start at $12.95! It goes up from there and I'm sure it would take a ton of pages to print my whole blog. You download their program for free and you can edit your book as much as you want, so I don't have to include all of the idiocy! ;)

Oh, and looking a little closer at the website, you can make LOTS of different kinds of books. You can do cookbooks, photo books (I'm thinking Grandma and Grandpa needs one of these.) Wedding books...it goes on! I'm really excited to do one. I'll let you know when I do one how it goes.

I think I found a template that I really like!!

What do you think? I've been playing around with the generic templates for a long time and then, I realized that I could still do all the things I wanted with this one!! I think I really like this one, at least for now... Who knows what I'll think in a month.

Guess Who I Met, Yesterday!!!

I finally got to meet some of you blogging gals out there!! It was fun!! I was late and had to track them down, but we got together and had a lot of laughs! I didn't know many of them at all, but it was really fun!

Here I am with Kim!



And Lara!

I wish I had the group pictures to show you, but those will have to wait!

So, go see who I met:

Kim came down to visit and initiated all of the shenanigans! She is hilarious!

Lara came to visit is and is wonderful. I may have to take her up on her offer to visit at her house some time!

Soggy Cheerios is a funny lady, who's blog I will start reading now, since this was our first real exposure to each other.

Twas Brillig's blog looks really neat, but I only just barely started reading it recently. I can't wait to get to know her more.

DeDee was really fun! I haven't really read her blog much, either...but I'm sure it'll be fun!

K was really funny and I can't wait to start reading her blog as well!! She is awesome and gave my kids and I a ride from one place to another, since I don't know the city well. Archer freaked out and had to be forced into her van! I for one and glad she didn't kidnap him!!

Now that I have met you in person, I can't wait to have new blogs to read!!