A Catch-Up Post for a Terrific Tuesday

LoveHubbie's oldest son got married just over three weeks ago and the pictures are here. They are great. Don't look for me in any of them (I'm actually in two in the background) but who cares about that, as the lovely couple is what everyone is interested in. The photographer was outstanding, I thought, and captured many candid as well as posed moments. She certainly has a wonderful eye! Most of all, she captured the "feel" of the wedding, which I think is the hardest part. Check them out! 

I wanted to address several things that came up in the comments. One is that the font I am using is a new Blogger font, and there are quite a few of them...this one is called "Coming Soon" and the blog post title is called "Fontdiner Swanky".

Rebecca wrote "everyone loves comments...it is affirming to be seen, to be heard." This is so true. When you leave a comment on my blog, although I'm experimenting with not answering directly in the comments, I will go to your blog and leave a comment there too. I think that is one way to let you know that you are seen and heard (as well as writing about it here) and that this builds community, a reciprocity. There are a few people (very, very few) whose blogs I follow and comment on who do not follow mine...but mostly I enjoy the exchanges that take place between community and the relationships that result. This is the strength of blogging, I think--finding authentic community and sharing and expressing with each other. Rebecca said that it "keeps the love circling" and that is so true!

I just finished a big project that has to do with a loved one's therapy. I have my own therapy and therapeutic activities that I've been participating in all week, as well as doing many things to help LoveHubbie's business this week.

Here is a picture from my art journal in the style of the Queen of Arts, Kim Mailhot, and inspired by a post she did a while ago. Kim shares Big Love with so many, including me. It says "Big Love is Good Love" and "guard your heart". It's the photo I've been editing for past posts:

Oh, and have a TERRIFIC TUESDAY!

Anyone Tried Blogo?

I'm trying out a new blog editor today, one that works well with my Mac. It's called Blogo. If you have a Mac, you might want to give it a try. I'm hoping that it will make blogging easier and the Blogger interface irrelevant. If you blog with a Mac, what do you use?

So far, it seems like it is much easier to edit photos and to post. However, I'm thinking that I still have to make a smaller copy of my photo to keep from using up too much space; ideally, I'd like the photo uploaded to be the size I'm using in the blog, not the size of the original.

Blogo is free to demo, and then costs $25 to purchase.

~Photo by LoveHubbie Mark

Blogger Has Enabled Comment Moderation

Back from vacation, I noticed that I had a few moderated comments, which surprised me, since I had not enabled comment moderation. It turns out that Blogger did it for me and may have done it for you as well. Under Settings, then Comments, see if Blogger has enabled your "Only on posts older than days ". Also blogger has added a new "Monetize" tab in case you want to use AdSense (please, no!) I wanted to let you know so you didn't miss any of the comments, as I almost did!

For Writer Bloggers

This article by Andrew Sullivan is provocative---it's about blogging as an emerging literary form---and will be of interest to those of you who are writers. It's rather lengthy, but worth the time.

When I have something like this, something that requires time or thought (like Chani's posts), I enjoy printing them out and reading them in a quiet place when I have time...or even sticking them in my purse in case I get caught with unexpected waiting somewhere.

Enjoy.

Blogger Posts Can Now Be Scheduled (Sort Of, But Not Really)

I just heard that Blogger posts can now be scheduled. When you're done composing your post, look in the lower left hand corner, above "Publish Post". You'll see "Post Options". There you can schedule posts for any time in the future. I used to do this with my old blog and loved it. I used to post clear through my vacations, instead of leaving a long gap of no posts. Admittedly, those posts would have to be timeless---things like quotes and musings---and comments wouldn't be responded to promptly, but I like having this feature.

It's pretty good since Blogger is free, don't you think?

UPDATE: At the present time, this feature doesn't really work. As Chani wrote in the comments, it simply posts your post right away but stamps it with a future date and/or time. I'll change this if/when it ever works the way it is supposed to!!

A Blog Hijacking

Every love affair has some bumps and I experienced one in my relationship with Amazon today. Thanks to Rick's sharp eye, I discovered that my blog was linked throughout with popup windows and links to various Amazon books, some of which were books I'd never recommend. The one Rick saw was to a diet book from an disreputable author, and my last two posts have been non-diet posts--advocating an approach to eating that doesn't involve any external authority telling you what to eat. This was very disconcerting to me.

I felt like my blog had been hijacked by an Amazon bot or troll. Amazon apparently combs your blog content and then links to books they select. To my dismay, my content was rife with link after link to books I'd never heard of. Selected by a robot.

So I terminated my Amazon Associates agreement, a process that took hours (but that's another story) which means that you'll never see commercial messages from Amazon again on my blog. I still love Amazon, and will still link to books or other items I recommend, but every link you see will be from me and not Amazon (which was the way I thought it was, anyway). And of course, I'll get no referral fee, but I don't care. It's not worth losing the integrity of my blog over this.

Be careful, folks. Read the fine print of your agreements! Don't learn the hard way like me...you know those things that say "I Accept" and then you never read them? Read them!

I also got rid of my BlogRush link as well, since that wasn't commercial, but was bringing in BlogRush content to boost my blog traffic. I want my blog to stay clean and personal. Even if it's small. I'd choose that over robot-selected links any day. The only link I kept was to Energy Muse jewelry, because it's a small company whose products I've loved for years and believe in one hundred percent...I want you to have that link. And the ad is so peaceful; I love to watch it change! :)

Anyway, I'm not sure how long this has been going on, but I apologize for it. And a big thanks again to Rick!



GWCC-UPDATE: Surprise! It's a new day one for me :) The longest I've ever gone was 22:45. I'm not giving up...

What's Up with Bloglines?

How cow, Bloglines is saying I'm posting 5 or 6 posts a day sometimes, and now is going back through pretty old posts, saying I'm reposting them. I apologize to all of my subscribers. Who knows what's going on? (If you do, then let me know!)

I continue to post 1-2 posts per day, and rarely change a past post, so this is a mystery to me!

Having Trouble Keeping Up?

Is anyone, like me, having trouble keeping up with all of the wonderful new blogs in Carla's "My Sacred Life Project" and/or Karen's "Creative For a Month Project"?

If so, here is an idea for you: Go to Bloglines and set up a free account (Bloglines is a blog reader), and then subscribe to each of the blogs listed on Karen and Carla's web site. It's easy to set up (about as much trouble as checking each blog daily), but then it's super-easy from then on. I am going to have a separate folder for each project. Then when people post new posts, only the ones that are new show up. HUGE time saver, plus, you can save posts by checking them to comment on later so that you don't miss anything. I didn't know why I didn't think of this before.

~Picture by LoveHubbie Mark

Displaying the "My Sacred Life" Button in Blogger

This post is for those of us in Carla Blazak's My Sacred Life Project, now numbering 17+ people. Since my comment on Carla's blog was incredibly confusing and sparse, I thought I'd repost better and detailed instructions here for installing the "My Sacred Life" Button in Blogger. The button was designed by the amazing Karen Smithey, of Art in the Garage, who also designed the header for happyluau.

Note that these steps will only work in Blogger:

1. Go to "Layout".

2. Go to "Template", then choose "Add a Page Element".

3. Pick:

"HTML/JavaScript
Add third-party functionality or other code to your blog"

4. Paste the code in from Carla's post on 8-23. I would put the code here, but I can't get it to display properly; I don't have the HTML skills. So, given that, look at Carla's post and find the code in the center of the post. It starts with a "less than sign" and the letter "a" and ends with an "a" and a "greater than" sign. Cut and paste it into the "Content" section in its entirety.

You can leave the title blank if you'd like, or put one in.

4. After you make sure it works (display it by saving it and then using "View Blog" to be sure), position the logo wherever you like by dragging and dropping it in the right hand column.

It will display the button and link to the post on Carla's site.

Hope this helps!

My New Blog Header

Do you like my beautiful new blog header? It was designed by artist extraordinaire Karen Smithey from Art in the Garage! The reason it is askew is due to me---I was unable to install it in Blogger; you really have to tweak the HTML template all over the place, which is beyond my level of expertise. Karen is going to fix that up for me too :)

Karen made each of the "Happy Luau" letters out of pictures from my web site that have sweet memories for me. I wasn't sure what I wanted, so she came up with this creative idea, and I love it! It took a boring Blogger template and made it into something truly special.

She also designed a favicon for me of a palm tree that I am equally delighted with.

Thank you, Karen!

Rate Your Blog

Go to "What's My Blog Rated?" to rate your blog or other favorite blogs in the blogosphere.

happyluau is rated:

~via Mingle² - Online Dating

Originally found in Dr. Hsien-Hsien Lei's blog "Eye on DNA"

Getting a "G" Rating surprises and pleases me, since I have discussed some mature subjects here, and used words like "clitoris" in my title.

Blogging Stuff

Great post on RSS from Brad at Word Sell. I am not too technically minded, and don't understand the ins and outs of RSS, but I do know how disappointed I am when someone doesn't have a feed. I probably won't have the time or remember to come back and visit. Anyway, this is a great list for learning more about RSS.

I also found this today: 50 Signs You're a Blogaholic. Egads, I am one; are you?



~Picture by Hubbie Mark

How to Install "Finding Water" Icon in Blogger

This is in response to question in a comment on my blog from another member of the Finding Water Community. It's pretty easy just to paste a picture of an icon into the sidebar; the hard part is to link it, too, in Blogger. I have two ideas here, an easy way and a harder way (for those who know HTML).

If you don't know HTML, you can do things the easy way. Please test this to see if it works. I think it will, but since I don't have another Blogger account to test it with, I don't know for sure. In theory, it should work. It involves going to "Layout" on your dashboard, then picking "Add a Page Element" on the left. Next, pick "HTML/JavaScript" and click on "Add to Blog". Don't worry about using a title. Just get out of the "Compose" mode, go into the "Edit HTML" mode, and copy and paste the code below:

<a href=
"http://www2.blogger.com/%20http://artfulwater.blogspot.com/">
<img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5033442916917247250" alt=""
src=
"http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_xOpK4d6Dw5o/RdphqiQO_RI/
AAAAAAAAAEw/up8IcQes0DM/s400/fw.jpg"
border="0" /></a>


Save the changes and view your blog to see if it took. Hopefully it did. If not, when you paste it into the HTML/Javascript screen, make sure that the long URL that is broken onto two lines above is all one line (i.e., keep RdphqiQ0_RI/ on the same line as AAAAAAAAAEw). I can't type it for you as it should appear because Blogger just truncates it and you can't read the code. As it is, printing out code is incredibly hard to do in Blogger because the code is interpreted instead of displayed, so I had to use special characters, which took me over an hour to fiddle around with and then figure out what to do! Thus, I REALLY hope this is helpful and not too confusing :)

The above method involves using my code and referencing my Blogger server space, which is a bit easier than uploading the image to your own Blogger server space.

To keep the image on your own Blogger server space, you need to do a trick that is a bit harder---kind of a work-around. I did this and I know it works, but it's harder. First, upload the Finding Water image as an individual post---just the image that's all. You will delete this post later. Now it's on your Blogger server space and you have a URL for it. Capture that URL and store it somewhere. Then follow the above steps to add HTML/Javascript using the above same code between the slash-stars, except replacing your URL for the image in between the double quotes where it says "src=". Lastly, go back and delete your post that is just the image. It's somewhat hard to put this into words, and you pretty much have to be comfortable with HTML. This will work, though---it's how I did it.

Hey if anyone knows a better way to do this, let me know. Here is where I went to figure out how to display HTML in Blogger. What a relief to finally figure it out!