Blog update

After blogging all over the place for many years, I find myself back on blogger. I just merged several old, old blogger blogs and so the posts here are all over the place in terms of time, topics, and the pseudnyms of my kids.  I've reverted to the Little Women ones I loved so long ago, when I had four "Little Women" of my own. 

Well now they are no longer little! And there is a not so little man in the mix.

I hope to import a few more posts from another blog in the next few days, and continue to post here as time allows.

Merging the blogs wiped my followers list, so I hope if  you like what you see here you give me a follow and not get spooked that I've been blogging for 16 years and have ZERO followers, LOL.

 

 As far as blogging goes, you can occasionally also find me at: 

 HSP Mom and The Highly Sensitive Homeschooler

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Blog Business

Just an FYI, I moved my old haiku blog from Homeschooljournal.net to Blogger. I really liked Homeschooljournal.net, but I have several blogs here at blogger and it was basically to keep my head from exploding by having too many places to control. :)

The new link is http://haikuofahomeschooler.blogspot.com

It is very bland right now. Maybe someday I'll get a nice banner photo or something. And maybe even write haiku again.

ETA: Ahhhhh! In trying to upload another template I have royally messed things up over there. Hopefully soon it will look normal!!

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A blog question

If you have a moment, could you click on over from your feed reader if you are on one, and tell me if my sidebars are all overlapping the main green strip that runs down the center of the blog? I don't think they used to do that, but now if I'm on anything other than full screen, everything on the left side is out of whack. I thought it was because of some large header photos in a few posts, but I removed them and it didn't help.

If it isn't happening to anyone else, I'm not going to bother changing anything! :)

Thanks for taking a moment to look.

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It's official

I've moved. I'm posting at

A Call to Adventure

Please change your bookmarks. Now. Don't wait months like some people I know (I'm talking to myself here, not anyone else who knows who they are, LOL).

:) :) :) <---those smilies mean I'm a nice person and you don't want to lose touch with me.

Even though I'm weird. And whiny.

See you there!

Please? ;-)

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Just messing with the template

I uploaded a newfound template that I liked. Not sure if it's *me* - it's much busier than what I had a moment ago! I don't yet know if I can move the sidebar widgets around, etc. That will be a deal breaker if I can't. I really do like it, but I need to be able to personalize. Be prepared to see many crazy changes until things get settled here.

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The Conundrum

As I mentioned a few days ago I'm itching to go back to my "A Call to Adventure" blog that I had years ago. I thought maybe I'd just use that blog for a specific purpose, like to chronicle the lifestyle changes I'm trying to make. So I went into blogger and quickly made up the blog...and when I saw it my whole body just went "Ahhhhhhh...."

"Ahhhhhh" is NOT the feeling I get when I'm here. Doesn't that even sound silly? "Here" is not anywhere, it's a piece of cyberspace! Yet I feel anxious when I'm "here" in this little patch of electrons. I named my blog Epiphany Springs in the hope that I would have my dream to go along with the blog - a house a bit further out in the country with some sort of brook or spring near it. That dream seems quite far away right now, and it make me a bit anxious and sad to think about it.

Even dh wants me to take a break from house hunting. He says it's making me crazy. (I counter with the fact that it's OTHER things making me crazy - I house hunt to get away from that and hope for something new and exciting...).

So back to the "Ahhhh" feeling. There isn't even anything over at "A Call to Adventure," it's just a blank Minima template (ETA: a little time on my hands and there are now Epiphany Springs posts over there and a header photo), but it took me back to a time where life was a bit easier, and I felt my call to this crazy homeschooling/SAHMing/Catholic lifestyle a bit stronger, a bit more wonderfully. The title reminds me that we're all called to be saints, and that this life should be considered a grand adventure. I want that Ahhhhh back in my life, that sense of peace in my purpose. Epiphany Springs just reminds me that my will and God's are at odds right now. :(

So I guess there IS no conundrum. The difficulty when I started this post was wondering whether I should keep BOTH blogs going, but I think I answered my own question. Come what may. Give me a few days, I need to pretty it up, but unless in the next week we put an offer on a house with a stream in the backyard, I'll be making new digs over at A Call to Adventure. I need to be true to myself, and true to God's call.

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This is really beginning to irk me

and I don't even LIKE the word irk! ;=)

I can't open my own website. Something about IE and blogspot are not jiving lately, and everything crashes. It's not just this site, either, it's many different blogspot blogs, but for some reason not all, and not all the time!

But it's making me really antsy to want to move again. It's like having your front door stick all the time - supposed to be bad chi. You're not supposed to feel unwelcome in your own home. Well, my blog front door is stuck. :-P

And besides, I'm missing my old "A Call to Adventure" personna (and readers, I had readers back then, LOL!) I can hear Willa going, "Cool..." :)

Well, I'm not going anywhere right now, except to put my son to bed. But blogger doesn't seem to be fixing this little problem. So I stay irked.

ETA: Well, I did a little googling and one blogger mentioned that it could be a problem with the "followers" gadget/widget on the sidebar, so I removed mine and it worked! This time, at least.

I still feel like I want to move, but that's probably because our house hunting is going nowhere.

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Blog business

Just to clear up some blog hopping I've been doing...this, Epiphany Springs, is my main blog - the place I hope to be "real" but still try to keep things in general happy, hopeful, fun, with a touch of reality (meaning, whining and craziness) because afterall, I *am* a melancholy baby. ;-) There shouldn't be any noticable changes here, still a smattering of life, crafts, links, schooling, God, questioning, and complaining.

I didn't want to totally lose my old red and green apple template that I made (and liked), so I moved that to Epiphany Prep School, where I'm going to cross post any school things I put here, and also put other schooly stuff there. Since we'll be doing a mixture of Sonlight's Core 5, Serendipity's new World Tour, and my own blend of world cultures study, I hope to have a lot to put there in the coming school year. For now, I am burnt out from school and we are just trying to plow through the end without thinking about it much. :-P

Please Send Chocolate, which was my school-y blog, is now going to be a place where I can talk to myself, LOL. I sometimes need a place to just dump - vent - whine, whatever you want to call it, when I don't have someone IRL to talk to. I don't want all that here, in general. I don't think I'll use it much, because every time I try to write a post, I wind up deleting it. I think just the act of writing is helpful. We'll see how it goes.

I also have a blog about my feelings as an adult adoptee. If anyone is interested in the link, leave a way I can contact you and I'll give it to you. I don't want to link it here.

I now return you to your regularly scheduled lack of blogging. :)

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Breaking my blog fast

...to tell you I've started another blog, LOL. Cheating my blog fast, you say? ;-) Actually, it's only to keep track of what I'm doing therapeutically and academically(sp? and sp?) with Rose. My mind is a sieve. Since I need to write it all down anyway, why not write it in blogland to keep the house uncluttered with yet another notebook. Maybe it can even help someone else.

It's just the resurrected old "whole family" record keeping blog, Please Send Chocolate:

Please Send Chocolate

I thought it was appropriate considering how I feel after a morning of hyperacademics with Rose while trying to entertain the middle two, making sure Skye is getting some work in, and wrestling with Jeffrey who seems to have no idea WHAT to do with himself these days.

It will most likely be jotted notes of our days that might not make sense to anyone else, but you are free to come see if you'd like. :)

OK, back to my normal blogging fast. Such as it is. LOL

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Curses to you, Statcounter!

Who was it that was talking about not checking (or even having) a statcounter the other day? I should have taken her advice. I check my statcounter maybe twice a month, usually just to see if someone has linked to me that I need to thank or some such thing.

Let me just state that I know up front that people do read through Google Reader or Bloglines. I also know just how many (or few) subscribers I have there.

So today I admit to you that it actually made me cry, what I saw there on Statcounter (that and being totally hormonal and sleep deprived with a 3yo who won't.stay.in.her.room. for naptime). Man, what a punch in the ego. I understand people are busy, that people are on feed readers, that people have better things to do than listen to me whine about blog stats. I also know that I used to get many more hits than this.

I had 7 hits so far today. And that's with being linked in Jen's 7 Quick Takes! Yesterday? Five. FIVE! Total. The day before was a whopping nine. Woo hoo I'm so popular! :-P

I *don't* blog to be popular or to get hits. I blog to share things, to think out loud, to converse and laugh and complain and let people do the same.

But FIVE hits? That's demented, and sad, and not even social! (Ten points to the first person who knows movie line that's referring to)

I know I shouldn't care. Detachment, detachment, detachment. It should be my word for 2009.

But I do. My dh is so busy, my kids are disrespectful and argumentative and unhelpful, and my online buddies are my *lifeline* to thinking that just maybe I'm an OK person, worthy of love.

Five. Bleh!

OK, rant over. Thanks to the five of you that read this, LOL!! :)

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A Poll: Guess the reasons I haven't been blogging

A) I ate too much Thanksgiving turkey and can't roll to the computer

B) The children all slept throught the night and I died of shock

C) I've become completely addicted to Facebook and the games there and use up all my computer time

D) My children have become completely addicted to the games on Facebook and fight me for computer time

E) I'm too busy knitting and re-knitting the same durn Christmas presents

F) The children and I have glued ourselves together with glitter glue making Christmas crafts.

G) I've run away and become a hermit.

H) I've gone up a ladder to paint our livingroom and I'm too scared to come down

I) All my time is spent thinking of haiku to win a free subscription to Faith and Family

You may pick more than one answer. :)

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Nevermind

Nevermind that last post about comments. I deleted it, and UNembedded the comment window. I was having trouble with it. I'll go back to it once the kinks get worked out!

Back to my regularly scheduled boringness. ;-)

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OK, one more question

Thanks to those who have let me know about my banner image. I did a "shrink to fit" and reinstalled the image. I don't think it helped any, because it was already smaller than their maximum.

Let me know if it looks better, and if you know what I can do about it if it's not! I admit, I'm image conscious, LOL. I want this to look nice. But I don't know all the ins and outs of website building so when I mess with my own HTML I probably do more harm than good! :-P

ETA: Does Minnesota Mom's do the same thing as mine? We have similar templates although hers is 2 column and a little smaller. I'll have to go steal some more code from her if I can't get it to work on my own. ;-)

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Commenting troubles

I've had yet another person tell me that they cannot comment on my blog. Because I *live* for these things, you know, I've tried to mess with the settings in Blogger.

If you've had trouble commenting in the past, could you try again now? I'll know it didn't work if I get no comments on this post! :)

I hope it works, I hate to frustrate people. Including myself.

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Banner photo problems

Would anyone who has a minute take a look at my banner photo and tell me if it's HUGE in your browser window? It looks fine on my laptop. But when I went downstairs to use the desktop one (that has different settings) I was surprised, not to mention embarrassed and disappointed, to see that it looks humongous in this browser.

What does it look like for you? It should only fill up the three columns of type, and the menu bar under it should go straight across, not get broken in half...

And does anyone know how I can make it work on all computers?

Thanks!!

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Just fyi

I'm messing with blog colors, headers, etc. I can't seem to get it the way I want it. Just saying, "This is not me." I don't have the tools and the knowledge to do much about it, though.

It's hard to leave it this way! It's like reading a half done poem.

ETA: Ack, that reminds me, it's Haiku Friday!! Ummm....here goes:

hours spent chasing
what will properly capture
the elusive me

For more (and better!) Haiku Friday, visit A Mommy Story!

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Huh???

Does anyone else see that half of my last post, everything after that, and my entire left sidebar have been crossed out? What in the world?

Well, I don't have time to fix it now...hopefully it's just some blogger glitch that THEY'LL take care of. :) If anyone knows what's going on, let me know!

ETA: Nevermind, I fixed it. If you ever want to cross out your entire blog, just put some unclosed strikethrough code in one of your posts, LOL.

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How to get your email sent with your Blogger blog comments

I've been curious - and had several others ask me also - how to get my email address to show up as the "from" address when blogger emails my comments to the owners of a blog. Well, I've finally found out, so I wanted to share.

Go to your Blogger "dashboard". On the lefthand side it should say "edit profile" -- click there and then under privacy it should say "show my email address." All you have to do is click the checkbox, and when you comment on someone's blogger blog, your own email will be the "from" address instead of the default "noreply-comment@blogger.com" or whatever it is. Then it is much easier for people to reply to you through email if you have a question or want to chat with them about something.

Now of course, that means the person whose blog you are commenting on has to have it set that they receive comment notifications in their inbox, which not all people do. Also, they now have your email address, which you may not want that public. But it works for me - I typically only comment on people's blogs who I have known for awhile and hopefully never say anything bad enough to cause me to worry that they have my email address! :)

Hope this helps someone.

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Haiku-ing hiatus over

At least I'm going to try -

I'm going to start attempting to haiku back at Haiku of a Homeschooler again. I need a creative outlet. :)

I can't promise anything great though. I felt kind of haiku-ed out after the first few years. I mean, just how many math haiku can one person write?

I stopped years ago when I felt done and "all written out," but now I'm itching to try again.

So bookmark it and shower me with comments so I feel loved. stop on by if you like! ;-)

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New curriculum plans up

In my "curriculum" tab under the header picture. Nothing new and exciting for those who have followed my blog for awhile (I've said it all before, LOL), but it's all in one place now. Except for the feeling that I'm forgetting something BIG, like math or something. ;-) Let me know what it is when you figure it out! :)

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