Sneaker Teacher: Blog stuff

Showing posts with label Blog stuff. Show all posts

Oopsie Daisy

I tried to be productive and transfer my classroom blog over to my work email address so it's not directly linked to this blog which worked out well. I copied the HTML code and the new blog looks just like the old one, which I will probably delete. I love the idea of a classroom blog and I love writing Sneaker Teacher, yet I don't necessarily want the same audiences reading them....I want to keep my classroom blog strictly classroom related.

Then I got a little curious and started playing around with some blog elements and despite the clear warning that one should save their current template before making changes--I did not. Now I have this new template and I am not sure how I feel about it. I like the layout a lot and I think it seems a little more open and not so squished in, yet in changing the template, I got rid of all of the other design elements that I had added like the cute font in my post titles and the Comic Sans font for all of my posts etc. Ugh! I know I can redo those things, but it is pretty time consuming and I am just a tad annoyed over the whole thing. I kind of want a combo of the new and the old. Oh well. My bad.

I do like how there are some additional options on the commenting section. I really like the ones that allow you to link to twitter and facebook, but my design function let me "try it out" then it disappeared and I don't know how to install it. I guess I will need to buckle down for another day of designing sometime soon.

::sigh::

I enjoy figuring out how to do different things and following tutorials to add fun elements, but it's pretty addictive and time consuming and I am just not up to it today. I cut my finger pretty badly last night, so I am just taking it easy today. I will post about the books I have been reading, but I felt the need to explain the blog changes that you will encounter today.

What do you think? Does it look better or worse?

Divine Design

I had a lot of fun designing this blog and giving it a makeover. It was fun to learn how to do it and I was really proud of the final result. Yesterday I asked my friend Brooke if she would let me give her blog a makeover and she said yes! Brooke and I went through out master's program together, got engaged in the same month, got married three months apart, and worked at the same school for three years. Now she is about to have her first baby at the end of May (one thing we are not doing at the same time!). I am so excited to meet her little bundle of joy this summer when I go back to Oregon! She and her husband are not finding out if the baby is a boy or a girl until the birth. What a surprise, I could never wait!

Last night I worked a little bit on a new design for her blog. I just used my "play around blog" so the design in on my own blog, but as soon as she gives me the info to log into hers, I can transfer the design over. I made a family theme for now and when the baby is born, I told her I can change it up again to make it more boy or girl appropriate depending on what she has.

Take a look and let me know what you think!

I am not finished yet. I may play around with the text colors and try to get the photo to look more high quality. Blog design is so addicting! There are so many fun things to do, but I am pretty happy with the color scheme and family theme. Seems appropriate for a couple about to have their first baby!

The Mowery Family

Also, I have talked about making a classroom blog once I get back in the classsrom so I tried out a design for that as well. I am still processing how to make it work because I would definitely want to incude photos and make it a place where parents could look to see what has been happening in the classroom, but in order to do that I feel that it would be important to make it a private blog, which is more difficult for parents. I found that when I made my blog about living in Germany private, I lost some followers (friends and family!) because they never bothered to go through the sign in process. I think a class blog could be so great, but I would not want to make any families who don't use computers feel left out. Perhaps a training session and a tour of where they can access in the info (classroom computers/library computers). Anyway, I was just playing around, but here is the link. Once I get back to OR, I would use my work email instead of the one that links to all my other blogs just so it stayed school related only. That way I can include a different "personal info" description more specific to that blog.

Here it is

Will you/did you find out the gender of your baby or keep it a surprise?

What do you think is the best gift to give a first time mother?

If you don't have kids, have you already named them?
(We have two boy names and one girl name picked out!)

Awards & Apologies

I would like to thank Karin and Mary Anne for the bloggy awards that they have passed to me!

Humane and Happy...two great compliments!

I am passing the Humane Award to:

Making This Home

The Happy 101 Award is meant to be passed to 10 bloggers who post at least once a week

(and make me happy?!...I added that part!)

My 10:

Look at My Happy Rainbow

The Candid RN

All The Weigh

She Wears a Red Sox Cap

It's Not All Flowers And Sausages

Lamberts Lately

Also, based on a comment from my previous post about ADHD, I realized that what I wrote may have not have been as clear as I had hoped. I tried to be lighthearted about my "soapbox moment" speaking about person first language and I guess I came off a lot more preachy than I intended. I would like to take a moment to try and clarify my intent.

If I teach a student that has ADD or ADHD, I think it is very important that I help the student learn strategies to manage their behavior which is why I am trying to research and learn more about the conditions and symptoms.

Recognizing that some students do have ADD/ADHD is very important as they have particular needs in a classroom setting that need to be addressed. Calling students ADD just because they are inattentive on a particular day and caused the teacher frustration, to me, is not okay.

If a student has a disability, I prefer to use person first language when I refer to the student because that type of langauge is indicative of my belief that students with disabilities should not just be known by their labels. I agree that this type of language can get a bit picky, however I agree with the intent of not only seeing students with disabilities in terms of what is "wrong" with them. They deserve more than that.

There are some teachers who use langauge when speaking about students that makes me uncomfortable. I feel very strongly about advocating for students with special needs and it makes me sad when they are not seen as individuals as much as they are simply identified by their disability category or label or referred to in negative ways due to a disability. Perhaps this is not intentional, but I like to share information about person first language to increase awareness. If this came off as know-it-all/preachy/confrontational, that was not my intent. I am simply a teacher who likes sharing information and discussing my particular interests regarding the teaching profession.

I always appreciate feedback that makes me consider other perspectives and stretch my own thinking. Please also keep in mind that I am simply expressing my own thoughts and ideas and you do not have to agree with what I say. If you disagree, please do so in a respectful manner.

Thanks!

Drumroll Please....

It's bloggy makeover day for Sneaker Teacher!!!

I finally had the guts to change my blog design and put my own creation out there for everyone to see.

It was a big step because I LOVED the design that Leslie made for me. She rocks.

But I kind of think I rock too. (sorry, horn tooting...shameless!)

What do you think?

I think I am in love.

Mostly because this is my design and it's all me.....bold colors, teacher stuff, cute fonts.

I found tutorials online and figured it out. So fun. So rewarding. So time consuming!

Just like you need to change up your wardrobe or your style every once in awhile, I think the same goes for your blog design.

Now that changing my blog has eaten up tons of my time, I need to go do something productive!!

Still in the works....

I am still trying to create a new blog design, but I have lots of reservations about actually installing it on this blog. It looks pretty good on the test blog, but when I cut and pasted the html code to this blog and just previewed it, some things were not looking right. Since I did not design what I currently have, I would have no way of reverting back to it once I start making changes., so I am not feeling ready to commit to that quite yet!

So for now....you can see my new blog design here...and hopefully someday I will get brave enough to move it over and work out all the kinks.

I really wanted to design a custom header and since I don't have any cool programs, I just used Microsoft Word and then printed the image, scanned it, and uploaded it to my computer. The image came out a little grainy, but it's a start. I think it came out cute. I really want my blog to reflect my personality so I am having a lot of fun making tweaks here and there, so you can see a little bit more of my personality in the changes.

I promise to post about something more interesting tomorrow!

Hooray!

Notice anything super exciting?

I figured out how to add a super cute font for my post titles and the date!! Woot Woot! I played around a bit on my "test blog" and once I was successful, I decided to be daring and change my real blog. I tried out two different fonts and decided that I liked this one better because the first was too thin and not bold enough to give the titles the true pizzazz they deserve. I was so intimidated by the tutorial yesterday, but I actually pulled it off.

Interested in giving it a try? Here is the tutorial I used.

Now that I have mastered super cute fonts, I really want to figure out how to make a cute collage-ish header that incorporates different elements from the everything-to-do-with-teaching scrapbook kit I downloaded from Aja Abney. I am thinking that I will need one of those fancy design programs and I know that some are free, but I haven't found one yet that works with a Mac. Any ideas? I don't want to buy one yet because I want to investigate a little bit and maybe just try my hand at it before I spend money. I just want to be able to play around with the design and make the header lots more fun and exciting.

This is so addicting! Check out the custom signature I made too!

I would also like to mention my excitement at now having 90 followers! That's only 10 lovely bloggies away from the big 1-0-0! Never in a gazillion years did I imagine when I started blogging that I would have that many people interested in what I have to say. It's funny, at this point I can't even remember what life was like before blogging! I enjoy it so much and live life with posting on my mind! I always look forward to sharing something about my day and different tidbits about teaching. I also really look forward to seeing what my bloggy buddies have been up to and I don't know what I would do without this great format for connecting with so many different, amazingy wonderful and fantabulous people.

Seriously...I'm in AWE

Today I became slightly obsessed with the notion of learning how to do my own blog design. It seems like such an amazingly cool thing to know how to do that I thought I would give it a stab. Some very nice bloggers out there actually took the time to write and post detailed descripions/instructions for how to do things like making custom signatures, inserting a custom background, and adding some graphics.

Thanks to the help of this site, this site, and this site (where I found out about those other two sites), I was able to learn some great stuff. I decided that rather than mess around with the beautiful template on this blog that was designed by Leslie (who by the way is a very cool teacher/blog designer on the side who does fantastic work that I could never in a million years live up to, but I still want to try...), I would create a new blog just for messin' around. That way, I can try some things and have a place designated just for learning until I actually get the hang of it enough to really change my design....

So, I created a new blog which you can find here. Take a look and let me know what you think of the design elements that are on there so far! I have to say, it was completely, utterly, and seriously addicing to play around with this stuff today! I can see why people get so into it! It took me such a long time to figure out the few elements that are there...hence the title of today's post....I'm in AWE of those who have the mad skills to do awesome blog designing!

Bloggy Award

Thanks to Katie for the Beautiful Blogger award! Katie is a third grade teaching, yummy snack making, good food loving girl after my own heart. Check out her blog Yes I Want Cake.

To accept this award, I need to share 7 new things about myself and pass it to 7 other bloggers.

1. I pretty much refuse to use airplane bathrooms. This includes 9 hour international flights.

2. I have major issues with vomit. I have not thrown up since I was 10 and I'd like to keep it that way. I also have anxiety about others throwing up near me. Weird, I know.

3. I am going to start working on making my first quilt. I picked out some cute Noah's Arc fabric and I am going to make a baby quilt. (No, I don't have any news to share. I am learning from a lady who charges by the hour, so I figured the smaller the quilt the better!)

4. So far in my life, I have never broken a bone which is pretty incredibly considering what a huge klutz I am.

5. I am really bad at making small talk. Germans don't do small talk, so I fit in well here I guess.

6. I have not worked out in the past two weeks. For me, that is unheard of! I am looking forward to getting back on the wagon and making 2010 a really healthy year!

7. I am really self conscious and I always worry that people don't like me.

Ok, now I would like to pass the award to some amazing bloggers. When I look at this award, what I think of is not necessarily the blog itself, but the bloggers behind the blogs. I have selected 7 bloggers whose personalities, sincerity, kind spirits, love for life, and honesty shine through in their blogs. Some of these bloggers have gone through/are going through struggles and I admire each and every one of them for their courage, humility, and honesty.

Thanks for being special!

Kenz @ All The Weigh

Amber @ {ae filkins}

Marsha @ Other Such Happenings

Amanda @ I am mommy / I am baker

Jenny @ Peanut Butter and Jenny

Jen @ Following the Footsteps

Lisa @ Our Journey of Hope through Autism

Bloggy Awards and ExPat articles

Thanks a million to everyone who commented on my post from yesterday about teacher preparation. I am still interested in hearing about other experiences in teacher prep programs, so if you haven't commented yet you still can ====> click here.

Also a big thanks to Nicolasa from Low Expectations for bestowing upon me two fantastic bloggy awards. I am particularly excited about the first one because I have never seen it before.

This award goes to Loyal Bloggy Followers

I would like to pass this award to:

Kelly @ She Wears a Red Sox Cap

and

Jen @ Following the Footsteps

They were two of my very first followers and I can always count on great comments from them both. If you are a loyal follower of Sneaker Teacher too, go ahead and grab the award for yourself as well! Leave me a comment telling me what parts of Sneaker Teacher you like and feel free to leave comment love as often as you like so I know you are following! :0)

The rules for accepting the Your Blog is Fabulous Award are to list 5 things that you are obsessed with and pass the award to 5 blogs that are **fabulous**

oBsEsSiOnS!!

1. I would have to say I am pretty obsessed with blogging. The first thing I do when I get up in the morning is check to see if I have gotten any comments. Since Germany is so far ahead of the US, I usually get comments while I am sleeping, so it's fun to wake up and receive some love <3.

2. amazon.de and Amazon Prime shipping. I have ordered a LOT of books since we moved here because I need textbooks for my classes. With a free trial of Amazon Prime, I get next day shipping for FREE.

3. Nutella-it's amazing.

4. Baking-I have not baked in months because it has been months since I have had an oven! I love making treats like decorated sugar cookies, banana bread with cream cheese frosting, cupcakes, birthday cakes, and most of all cake balls. If you don't know what a cake ball is please visit www.bakerella.com.

I also love eating said treats.

5. SKYPE- I heart skype for so many reasons. I love to see my mom's face. I love to see my bff Cristina's face. I love to participate in doctoral classes in Portland when I am sitting in my office in Germany. Technology is SO cool!

I would also like to pass this award to:

Peanut Butter & Jenny- a peanut butter lover & future teacher (girl after my own heart!)

All the Weigh- a girl on a weight loss journey lovin' life in NYC

{ae Filkins}- what would we do without Friend Makin' Mondays?

Theta Mom- this cool mama tried out for the Radio City Rockettes

Windowboxes and Weissbier- a fellow Expat living in Germany

Mixing it up a little...did you notice not all of these bloggers are teachers this time???

Last but not least, I am very excited because I submitted a piece to an online Expat forum and I just found out it was published with October's articles!

Check it out here

snaps!

I got an email today saying that www.onlineschools.org posted the list

"100 Blogs Every New Teacher Should Read"

How cool is it that blogs have become such a great resource for teachers to share and learn from!?

How cool is it that Sneaker Teacher is on the list!

Check it out **here**

I am not sure how this happened, but I am so excited! Sometimes I feel like blogging is like writing a diary that goes on the internet for everyone to read instead of being hidden in a drawer or underneath the bed. I am really thrilled to know that readers find my blog interesting and helpful when it comes to teaching.

Bloggy Awards!

Nicolasa at Low Expectations has given me the Honest Scrap award! I just came across her blog a few weeks ago, but it was one that I immediately liked. Maybe it's because she is also a teacher, but I connect with what she is saying! She has a really pretty name too!

Thanks for the award!

The logistics:

Say thanks and give a link to the one who gave you the award.
Share 10 honest things about yourself.
Present this award to 3 other fantastically brilliant blogs of content or design, or peeps that have encouraged you.
Tell those 3 people they've been awarded and make sure they're informed of these guidelines

10 Honest Things About Me

I have been in love twice in my life & very happy that I had to go through heartbreak to get to my second love.
I am not really good at first impressions of other people--There have been many people who I didn't really like at first who ended up being some of my best friends (this includes my hubby!)
I cried a lot the day my parents took me to college.
When I was about two, my brother and I were making fireflies on the ceiling with flashlights in a dark room and he hit me with his flashlight by accident. I had to go to the hospital and I we thought I would need stitches, but all I got was a tiny bandaid under my eye. I still have missing eyelashes in that spot.
I have never smoked a cigarette or tried drugs...ever
Somewhat related to #5, I am allergic to alcohol and break out in a rash when I drink certain kinds. It has something to do with how it's processed, but I have no problem with top shelf brands. hehe.
Sometimes I wonder if I will ever be ready to have kids.
I wish I lived closer to my best friend.
I was always a really good student, but in college I got a C+ in Physiological Psychology. I failed my lab where I had to identify parts of actual brains marked with pins.
Last but not least...I have a dual personality in that sometimes I can really go with the flow (in work situations) and sometimes I am a complete control freak (at home).

Now, I would like to pass this bloggy award onto:

It's a Wrap- if anyone deserves an award for being honest--it's her! She talks about healing herself and her relationship with food while recovering from anorexia. I really admire her strength to share her struggles and accomplishments and I would encourage you to check out her blog and the pics of her yummy meals! She is also a junior high math teacher.

Leslie @ Lamberts Lately- Leslie did the designs on both my blogs and her work is fabulous! She is a first grade teacher and all the $$ she makes from blog design goes towards her classroom purchases, so not only do you get a great looking blog, but you help out her and her students as well!

Katie@ Yes I Want Cake- Katie's is a healthy food blogger! She posts photos of her meals and lists ingredients and recipes. Frequently I read her posts and start drooling because her meals look so good! She posted about a pear & cinnamon grilled cheese sandwich last week, I made it, and it was divine! What a surprise...she is also a TEACHER (third grade).

Thanks also to Christie from Just the 2 of Us for giving me the One Lovely Blog Award! This is another blog I just recently came across and I am looking forward to reading it more.

The rules for the One Lovely Blog Award are:

Accept the award and post it on your blog with the name of the person who has granted the award.
Pass the award to 15 other blogs that you've newly discovered
Contact the bloggers and let them know they have been chosen for the award.

Wow! Choosing 15 blogs is a lot! I am going to take the liberty of reducing that number by a bit (okay a LOT). I have already awarded a few of the blogs that I just started reading above with the Honest Scrap Award and they are probably the same ones I would give this award, so....it's a daily double!

This award goes to...

It's a Wrap!

Yes, I Want Cake

Señorita in the City

I guess I need to be on the lookout for MORE new blogs!

Bloggy Award!

Thanks so much to Jen from Following the Footsteps for giving me the "Over the Top" blog award! I have never met Jen, but I feel like we're friends because of blogging and that is so cool! The rules for accepting this award are to copy and change the answers to suit you and pass it on. Answers can only be one word! Pass the award to 6 of your favorite bloggers and alert them they have been awarded.

1. Where is your cell phone? hotel

2.Your hair? lame

3. Your mother? awesome

4. Your father? handy

5. Your favorite food? peanutbutter

6. Your dream last night? weird

7. Your favorite drink? Diet-Coke

8. Your dream/goal? doctorate

9. What room are you in? office

10. Your hobby? blogging

11. Your fear? frogs

12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? U.S.

13. Where were you last night? hotel

14. Something you aren't? outgoing

15. Muffins? banana

16. Wish list item? clothes

17. Where did you grow up? Connecticut

18. Last thing you did? read

19. What are you wearing? red

20. Your TV? laptop

21. Your pets? none

22. Your friends? far

23. Your life? rockin'

24. Your mood? hungry

25. Missing someone? many

26. Vehicle? traveling

27. Something you're not wearing? earrings

28. Your favorite store? grocery!

29. Your favorite color? green

30. When was the last time you laughed? earlier

31. Last time you cried? Saturday

32. Your best friend? tough

33. One place that I go over and over? gym

34. One person who emails me regularly? mommy

35. Favorite place to eat? LaBarca

I am passing this award to:

Kelly @ She Wears a Red Sox Cap

Mrs. Lipstick @ Organized Chaos

Nicolasa @ Low Expectations

Mrs. Bluebird @ Bluebird's Classroom

Morgan @ Confessions of a Future Teacher

Eager2teach@ My Journey Through Student Teaching

I think there is a theme here....all of these lovely bloggers are teachers!

Yay for teachers!

Bloggy Award!

Thanks to Chrissy at Bitter Sweet Moments for bestowing upon me the "Your Blog is Fabulous" award! The rules of receiving this award are to list 5 of your obsessions and pass the award to 5 other bloggers. I am so honored every time someone thinks my blog is worthy of an award! The tough part is choosing people to pass the award to because I read and love SO many blogs.

So, I will start with my 5 obsessions and then get to the other blogs.

2. Sweets. I absolutely love anything sweet, chocolately, peanutbuttery, or sugary. I really enjoy baking and think that in another life I would love to own a cookie/cupcake/cake shop and spend my days decorating delicious treats!!

3.Being a student. I am a perpetual student and continuously choose to enrolled in classes to improve my skills as a teacher and absorb more knowledge. I truly love learning and have taken it to the next level by starting my doctoral work. Yes, I know BIG dork :0)

4. BOOKS. I love browsing books, buying books, owning books, sorting books, and most of all reading books. I have quite the collection of "teacher" books going and despite my husband's protests that I really did not need to bring all of my books with us to Germany, I am anxiously awaiting their arrival and cannot wait to organize them in my new desk that has a nice set of bookshelves on top!

5. Organizing. I love love love the container store and other such places that sell organizational bins and products. My stuff is not always super neat, but I love to really get into it every once in awhile and go nuts on making everything super tidy! Give me some plastic bins and a label maker and I am a happy camper!

Now onto some Fabulous Blogs. Instead of 5, I am choosing one really good, really funny blog to pass this award to (I can break the rules a little can't I?)

Mimi at It's Not all Flowers and Sausages

This blog is written by a hysterical teacher who actually just got her first book published which was a result of the popularity of her blog. She cracks me up with her witty writing style and funny commentaries on teaching. Check out her book here. Mimi your blog rocks!

Bloggy Award!

Thanks to Heather from Adventures Across a Sea of Blue for giving me the "Honest Scrap" award! I love getting comments from readers and get extra excited to find out that my readers want think my blog is worthy of awards! How fantastic.

The rules for this award are as follows:

Thank the award giver
Link back to the award giver
Name 10 things about you that people may find interesting
Nominate and link up to 10 other blogs for this award
Comment on each blog to tell them about the award

10 Interesting things about Sneaker Teacher

Ready, Set, Go!

I moved to Germany 10 days ago with my husband.
I speak spanish (well enough to do some parent teacher conferences with spanish speaking families, but would love to become more fluent).
When I was born the umbilical cord was wrapped around my neck.
I want to write a book (soon!)
I was accepted to a doctoral program back in the US and am trying to figure out a way to still make that happen from Germany.
I love to read but have terrible reading comprehension.
Since graduating college I have been a nanny, a preschool teacher, and a first grade teacher. I am now a TA in third grade at an international school.
In college, I worked at a store called Hope's Cookies in PA and ate my fair share of free ice cream.
I broke my husband's heart in college, but I married him so I think I redeemed myself!
I am terrified of amphibians, but not reptiles.

Because of the name of this award, I would like to pass it to the following blogs written by homeschooling moms. These creative mamas post about some pretty cool projects and activities.

Milk & Cookies

Passport Academy

1 + 1 + 1 = 1

Knowledge House Academy

Our Homeschool Fun

Blogaversary!

Today is my one year blogaversary!

I remember when I started blogging and did not have any followers and never got any comments. I still enjoyed writing and posting about teaching and instruction, but I have to admit it is a LOT more fun now that there are people reading what I write. I remember being so excited to get a few fans and now I am up to 34! It is so fun to connect with other teachers and other bloggers and I feel like the world of blogging has brought a lot of joy into my life in the past year. I did not write as frequently during the school year, but I have a feeling this year will be different.

Thanks to all my readers and fans, especially the ones who leave comments! I love to hear feedback on what I write and I hope to continue gaining followers!

Bloggy Awards!

It's always special to receive blog awards because that means people are reading (and liking) what I am writing! I love blogging and would do it even if no one was reading, but I do love that other people take interest in what I write about and want to honor Sneaker Teacher with awards!

Thanks to Ashli from Chasing Today for The Uplifting Blogger Award

I am passing this award onto:

Jen from Following the Footsteps because of her strong faith and positive words

Vivienne from The V Spot because of her humor

Thanks to Heather from Oswald Cuties for The Adorable Blog Award

I am passing this award onto:

Pineapple Princess at The Love Shack

because she is creative, posts beautiful pictures, and has adopted the most preciously beautiful little girl who she refers to on her blog as "Beach Bunny" all of which make her blog adorable.

Bloggy Makeovers

Many thanks to Leslie from Lamberts Lately who was the mastermind behind my blog makeovers! Leslie is a recent graduate from the University of Alabama and is going to be a first grade teacher! (A girl after my own heart). She is very creative and I can tell she is going to be an amazing teacher. Check out how she turned her classroom into a jungle!

She also redesigned my Team Toppel blog which has been renamed "Travels of Team Toppel." Her pricing is reasonable and her designs are fantastic. Also, she uses the money she makes doing blog makeovers as supplemental income to help pay for additional classroom materials to help and inspire her young learners. Definitely a good reason to give your blog a makeover if you ask me!

Check out her blog design page. She offers several different packages ranging from "mini makeover" to "super makeover." She also has A la carte items to purchase as well.

Thanks Leslie! Your beautiful blog design makes me one happy blogger!

Blog Award!

Thanks to Chrissy from Bittersweet Moments for giving me the

"One Lovely Blog Award"

The rules to receiving this award are to: Accept the award, post it on your blog together with the name of the person who has granted the award, and his or her blog link. Pass the award to 15 other blogs that you’ve newly discovered. Remember to contact the bloggers to let them know they have been chosen for this award.

I appreciate being recognized as a lovely blog. I love teaching and love talking about teaching and I am happy to have followers that enjoy reading what I write about.

Here is my list of 15 LOVELY blogs:

She Wears a Red Sox Cap

Following the Footsteps

Mommy Matters

Jen & Rob

A Year in the Kitchen

Courtney's Corner

Our Feet Are the Same

The V Spot

From the Beginning

Our Homeschool Fun

It May Be a Crazy Life, But It's Our Life

Enjoy, these blogs are all very different and are written by some very interesting and fun ladies!

Bloggy Book!

Have you ever thought about having a hard copy of your blog entries? I never did until I read Our Feet Are the Same's blog entry about her husband giving her a bound copy of her blog entries for her birthday.

How cool is that?

Interested? I sure am.

Click here to check it out.

It is not inexpensive, but not super outrageous. You have to enter in your blog address and then there are a few options regarding the cover color, adding a photo to the cover, and writing an inscription. Then you click and just wait a few minutes while it turns your blog into a book. You are able to view all the pages online and then choose if you want to order an electronic pdf copy for $2.95 or if you want to order a more expensive soft cover book or hardcover book. The price for mine was about $60 for the softcover and $70 for the hardcover, but the pricing is dependent on the number of pages.

A 20-page softcover Blog Book is just $14.95 -
Hardcover only $24.95. And extra pages are only 35 cents!

NEW! Get a PDF of your Blogbook for only $2.95

I did not actually order mine because I was thinking it would be cool to wait until my blogoversary which is coming up in August and then publish a whole year of blogging posts. You can also choose whether or not to include the comments that people made.

The only problem I ran into initially was that there was a feed setting that was preventing access, however when I changed the feed setting to "full" the site was then able to make the book. (Click on customize, then settings, site feed, and choose full in the drop down.)

I will definitely do this for the entries on my TeamToppel blog which will be a journal of our adventures living abroad in Germany for a few years and I think it will be cool to do for this blog as well so I can look back on my reflections of teaching and making new blog friends!