Hey…Ch, Ch, Changesss…

Annnnd, that’s as much singing as I’ll do until I’ve had a little more sauv. blanc and/or I’m alone in my car. And by “alone” I mean, with Joshua, because, I mean, he’s kind of my superhero sidekick.  He needs a cape or something.  No tights, though.  It’s too hot here for tights.  Maybe a cool belt with gadgets…

Wait…what was I saying?

Oh yeah.

I HAD AN AWESOME NIGHT OF SLEEP LAST NIGHT.

Let’s process that for a minute, shall we??  Ahhhh…looking forward to another tonight.  But, back to the point again.

Okay, so, I’ve made some changes around here at ye olde blogge and I hope you’re liking what you see.  You can thank the handy dandy new and improved Blogger Layout Editor for helping me with the new layout.  I like it.  Only making these changes caused me to lose ALL of my comments and the ability for people to LEAVE comments which sent me into a near panic because, uh, HELLO!?!?  There’s a contest going on here, people.

You still have two days to enter.  I know that I originally said I’d draw the winner tomorrow night, but since I missed a night and almost a whole day of comments, I’ve decided to give y’all another day.  (And I almost just typed out “you all” like I’m not a good Southern girl..WHAT IS GOING ON WITH ME??)

Anyway, here’s a link to the giveaway post, even though you could also scroll down.  It’s only about three entries back.  But I know y’all are probably as tired as I am and I read somewhere that deeplinking is good for your SEO (whatever THAT is) so here you go:  Uglydoll Giveaway

Back to that layout thing…

In addition to changing up the layout, I also added Disqus as my comment…uh…program? Yeah, we’ll go with that.  Here’s why.  Blogger-no-reply makes me stabby.  Seriously.

Blogger-no-reply is what happens when 1) guests without a blogger/google account comment on your blog or 2) a blogger using the blogspot platform doesn’t have his or her account set up to receive emailed replies.  What both of those things mean is that previously when people commented on my blog, I had no way of following up unless I did it here, which I don’t mind doing. But I have no way of knowing if you’ll read it.  Make sense so far?

Disqus allows me (and you) to 1) directly respond to comments here in a threaded fashion. I love that.  No guessing who the reply is to.  And 2) it allows me to contact you via email if there’s something I’d like to chat about with you in private, or if I really, really want to make sure you got the reply.  So, it’s a win-win. When Disqus is working.

There was a bug issue earlier today that sent me screaming for the nearest Target for some retail therapy.  Thankfully, the issue was resolved after I bought makeup, sunglasses, and wine, which had nothing to do with resolving the issue aside from the fact that those items made me feel better about the universe.

Finally, I added a new page to the layout:  Blogs I Love.  I read a LOT of blogs.  If I made a blogroll of all of them, it would be a mile long.  Or a half a mile.  I’m not good with distances and numbers.  So, I traveled through my Google reader picking up blog buttons from all the lovely people I have in there who happen to have blog buttons and I’ve compiled them all here.  On the Blogs I Love page.

I also added a link to the page in the actual blog roll to the side over there —————->.  The blogs remaining in the sidebar are those that do not have blog buttons.  And yes, I realize that the page has a lot of links.  Play a game with it.  Visit two or three a day.  Or click at random.  Or pick a random number and click that one.  Just go visit those bloggers because I know awesome and they are awesome.

I’m wearing down the husband so I can get a new banner and blog button.  We’ll see how long that takes!

What do you think of the changes so far?