{Ten} on Thursday

Welcome to the {Ten} on Tuesday Thursday post!

I'm obviously a little behind this week, but still had some of my random tid-bits to share!

{1} I think I cursed myself with the last {Ten} on Tuesday post! I mentioned my obsession with vacuuming, then the next time I went to get out the vacuum it was making a horrible noise! It was SO loud, and Barrett was sitting up on the couch covering his little ears! Justin took it all apart, we cleaned it out really well, checked the belt...everything looked fine. Obviously an issue with the motor. Justin called a vacuum dealer/repair store in Ark City and was told that vacuums bought at Wally World were meant to be disposable. Lovely. So, after not even two years, we're having to say goodbye to Kermit! Seems like just yesterday I got it for Mother's day and took these pictures of baby Barrett sitting on the box.

Any suggestions for my next vacuum?!?!

{2} I had a little down time...so I piddled with some menu buttons for the top of my blog.

Okay, I really didn't have "down time." I've been sick for the last couple weeks (but I think I'm finally better), and luckily I didn't have any photo sessions scheduled during that time. Between all the coughing and blowing my nose, I had plenty of other projects to keep me busy! Designing birthday invites, birth announcements, save the date cards, and wedding invites for clients, and several print orders.

So in the middle of all that, I thought it would be fun to make these buttons :) Hopefully I'll be able to use them as an easy way to find posts I've done on certain things. I plan to add more posts for the photography tips, crafty corner, and interior design categories too.

{3} I also added this Google search box.

I don't know if anyone else uses it, but I am loving it to search my own blog!! I just used it for item #1 in this post! I searched "vacuum" and found that I've written SIX posts with the word "vacuum" in them! Too funny!! But I quickly found the post with the pictures of when we first got Kermit. I could also search in my "edit posts" tab (in the dashboard), but it's not as easy to find what I'm looking for. Searching on my blog homepage gives me results like this:

{4} I finally got our office cleaned up and organized!! It feels so great! I really hate clutter, so I don't know how I let it get so out of control, and stay that way for so long...but I did! Maybe because our house is so "cozy," and I don't have a basement or garage to store anything in! So it all drifts into the office. I think Justin was about to recommend me for an episode of Hoarders! Although I told him it wasn't about hoarding, it was just a BIG MESS.  I have no problem with getting rid of anything!  I probably throw away way too much, actually! And I pitch things into the "garage sale" box just because I don't want them laying around. It's nice to finally be able to leave the office door OPEN!

{5} In just a few days, one of my best friends is having baby #2!! They are one of those couples that likes to be surprised on "birth day," so they don't find out the sex at their 20 week ultrasound. I have NO idea how people do that, but it is fun to keep everyone guessing! My guess is a BOY. Even though I'm thinking it will be a girl...I'm just holding out hope that Barrett might not be the only bfe baby boy anymore!

Can't wait to cuddle Baby {H}!! Lydia Grace is going to be a great big sister! (I took this picture of her in September, and I think she looks so little)

{6} I did another blog design for a fellow blogging friend! They are also photography clients of mine. Their little girl, Ansley is so adorable!! Melissa gave me some of her handmade bows and headbands to use for my newborn sessions, in exchange for the blog design. It was fun, although I can't figure out why the background pattern isn't showing up when I view it from our PC in the office.  I know I love my Mac, because it doesn't make everything looked stretched and blown-up like the PC does, but WHY is it not showing the pattern? It's frustrating me, now that I'm doing blogs for others...made me realize that most clients are probably not viewing my photography blog (or THIS one) the way it's meant to look! 

Here's what Melissa's new blog looks like on my screen (viewed with Firefox), is this what you see?  ---->

{7} Gosh, I'm wordy with these {Ten} on Tuesday Thursday posts! I can't help it!!

{8} American Idol eliminations were last night! It's now down to 11. These are now my TOP picks:

I love them both for their sound and style. I would buy their albums.

This is the first season though, that I really do like several of the contestants. I just probably wouldn't buy all of their albums.

{9} I LOVE Lady Antebellum! I've loved them since the first time Ellen introduced them to the world! So WHY do I still not own their new "Need You Now" CD?!?!?! Maybe the Easter bunny will leave it in my basket? 

{10} This afternoon, my husband and his older brother, leave on their "survival" camping trip.  You know, Bear Grylls style? I'm not quite sure how I feel about this. Three nights in the wilderness. A knife, one canteen of water, no matches, no tent, no sleeping bag, no cell phone, no firearms, no food...and the weather forecast says "snow" for Saturday! They plan to hike away from the truck this afternoon, and not see it again until Sunday. They will be boiling their drinking water, making their own traps to catch their meals, and building shelter. Justin has given me permission to write a post about this trip, so more on that later!

Guest Post for Scrap*Funattic & a Blogger TIP for you

I was so honored to be asked to do my FIRST guest post on another blog! Scrap*Funattic is an amazing scrapbooking store in Andover, Kansas. TRUE, I'm not really a scrapbooker these days...but I still enjoy all the fun things they have, and I have quite the stock of stuff from them! All of the ladies associated with the Attic are wonderful, but Danelle (another Winfield girly) is currently running the blog and was the one that invited me to do this. A scrapbook isn't complete without PICTURES, so I focused my post on a tip that will hopefully inspire you to take better pictures at home!

You can check out the Attic Blog HERE....

and read my guest post Natural Light for Natural Photographs

Feedback would be much appreciated! I would love to do this again, but I need to know what you want to learn about {basic photography, blog design, photoshop, custom headers,  digital storyboards ,etc.}, and if anything I'm saying in my current guest post makes sense :) Say "hi" to the Attic girls too!

And now... a TIP for my lovely readers!!!

This one is a super simple Blogger tip, and I just discovered it a couple weeks ago myself ,while I was knee-deep in my photoblog makeover. You may very well already be using this on your Blogger account!

::Updating your post settings::

*In your Dashboard, go to "setttings" and then scroll down to "Global Settings"

*Under "Select Post editor," if you have 'old editor' selected, uncheck it and change to the 'updated editor'
*Save settings, then create a new post, and notice the new and improved posting window & options!!!

You can have all sorts of fun with this...
*More font colors to choose from, if you like that kind of thing!
*One-click way to strikethrough your text in a post, like this
*An option for text background color like this or this
*Adding a link to an email address, like this: email laura
*When you insert a URL link, you can test it in the link window as you're adding it 
*more options for editing in html mode 
*Several other things I haven't even experimented with, and am not really sure what the heck they do.
*Can't find the spell check, but on my Mac, everything that's misspelled is automatically underlined in red as I type, so I don't use that feature. 

*Now for my favorite part...the new photo uploader!

I obviously like my pictures bigger, and I usually use an image hosting site for my photos, and then link them into my posts. With the updated editor,  you can insert a photo into your post, and it will insert WHERE YOU HAVE YOUR CURSOR!! Remember before, when you added a picture, it would automatically go to the top of your post every time, and it was really annoying?!?! So now, I can go to the insert photo icon, and tell it to put a photo RIGHT HERE below this line of text --->

Then AFTER it's in my post, I can click on the photo, and quickly decide what size I want it to be: small, medium, large, or extra large. {my pic above is medium}. 

Here is an extra large ----->

* I should add that I'm not sure how the photo sizing works with different blog layouts. I have a wider posting column, so this photo fits fine. I just looked in the html code, at the extra large photos are sized to a width of 640. I don't know how wide the typical/basic blogger posting column is, but you can try it, and maybe it automatically adjusts the max size to fit your template???

If you're interested in making your blog template a little wider, you can go HERE to check out the CoffeShop's awesome tutorial on doing just that! Be sure to tell Rita THANKS :)

 I can also decide if I want my photo to be: left, center, or right.
 {this photo is "left justified", so I can type here to the right of it really easily}

 I can also post these two pictures of Barrett eating a cookie {and telling me to get my camera out of his face} side-by-side!

If you decide you want to move your photos after they're in the post, you can easily click and drag them around.

Thank you, Blogger! I LOVE IT!!!

Hope this is something that will make your posting faster and easier, and if you've already been using the updated editor and have some additional tips, send them my way! Happy posting :)