Sit down and grab your drinks.  Welcome to my new home!  I’m settling in quite nicely now.  Harriet, over at CreativeBlogMe, did an absolutely awesome job for me.  Don’t you think so?  It’s amazing.  She was so incredibly patient with a very non-technical person.  It was quite a switch over.   I love how my banner is on the top and the bottom.  I love how I have so much room for my posts as well.

Now the Google Friends doesn’t seem to want to listen but that seems to be happening everywhere from what I’ve seen.  It just wants to say there is no subscribers but there are if you click on it.  Especially since most of you are on it.

Finally everything seems to be settling down.   Except for my subscribers.. have you noticed yet that I am not in your google reader or that you are not getting emails from me?  I need you to resubscribe to me.  Really I’m serious we had to change the RSS Feed.  So what I need you to do is unsubscribe from me and resubscribe if you want to keep reading me.  pretty please.  I don’t want to lose anyone in this transition.

Harriet is even going to run a giveaway to help me out as well.  I literally went from over 500 subscriber to 5 subscribers.  Talk about freaking me out.  I was spooked.   All I could think was I was going to lose all my followers.. all the people that I love to follow myself.

So while I was moving, I had technical issues because my blog was shut down for over a week.  Talk about scary.  I was terrified.  Harriet wasn’t even suppose to start working on my blog at that point.  She was in Orlando.  I hope she had a good trip because she did start to help me out while she was there. 

I figured I had plenty of time to catch up on all my favorite blogs.  That didn’t happen!!  My computer decided that it had time to catch up on someone’s virus!!  I’m telling you viruses stink!!  If I didn’t have family to help me, I would have been shot down totally.  I was for another week.   So I got farther behind keeping up with all my favorite blogs.  I did get to work on a computer that was slower than molasses pretty much to keep up with Harriet.

I’ve been very honored to join Rita at One 2 Try and Lynn at Midday Escapades in the new meme, Friday Follow.  I don’t think any of us expected it to take off with such incredible speed.  It’s so amazing to be one of the host in this meme.  I want to say hello and welcome to all my new followers!  I can’t wait to get to know each and every one of you. 

The other day I read a post that I thought would be very beneficial to each and everyone of you as well.  Heather at Thetamom’s wrote “3 Secrets to Getting Return Bloggers.”  I thought it was a great post since we have this incredible meme going on.  Please go over and check it out.  Tell her that I sent you.

Starting today here is what you can expect from me:

1. I will get out more to see you all.  I love bloggy love.  I love commenting.  I’ve been down but here I come.
2. I will post every day about something.  Hopefully its something that you find relevant and interesting.  I’ll do my best.  If I have a review/giveaway, I will still post a more personal one.
3. I will continue the Friday Follow meme.  I love it.  Well, we will until it stops working.  Hopefully that’s never.
4. If I do a review/giveaway, it must be something that I would be interested in checking out 100%.  I’m not just going to do one because a company is asking me to do it.  It has to be something that I think you would find interesting as well.  Or my kids do.

Now some questions for you all:

1. Are you interested in seeing Magical Moments for Tuesday come back?  For those of you that have just started following me, the goal is to talk about one thing during the week that was magical to you. I mean that you were over the top about. It could be a project you completed, something your child did, a grand new idea, something you saw, etc. Something that was so magical that you have to tell us about it. I know. I know. This is why we all have blogs. But sometimes we just write about the negative things because we had a bad week. So if we all write about a Magical Moment then we might uplift another blogger. This is the very reason that I have this blog so that one day my children can see. You do not have to be a mom to do this.
2. Are you interested in more tips in home improvement?  I’ve considered talking with some friends to get easy tips for us all.  That could mean expanding into other areas of your home.  Though I will tell you now, I don’t want weekend warriors.  Weekend warriors tend to make expensive repair issues.

Let me know your thoughts in the comments so that I can help make my blog even better for you.

Lynn over at Midday Escapades saw an idea on Rita at One 2 Try saw this brilliant idea on another blog, started one on her blog, then Lynn did, and now I am joining in and paying it forward on my blog. Let’s all share some “follow” love and spread the good cheer. So if you are looking for more followers, want to help a fellow blogger get more followers, or would simply like to visit some new and interesting blogs, this is how we do it:

Use the MckLinky below to list your blog name and link to your blog or website. Then, follow the person who linked before you (or follow everyone listed). I will also follow every blog listed and would appreciate your follow back.   Please also link over to Lynn’s and Rita’s blog to link up there as well.  They are both awesome blogs to follow.

I’ll keep the list going indefinitely and will put a link to it under my soon to be newly My Recommended Posts for all our future bloggy friends to use. And, feel free to grab my button code on the side there.

I’ve been saying this for the longest time but it is soooo true.  I have the best followers.  My followers are wonderful.  Yes yes I’m buttering you up.  You see this week I have been trying to catch up on all my reading.  I’m sure that most of you saw me commenting.  But I ran into a few things that slowed me down.  I know I know.. So I’m going to give some tips that I got from my friend, Lee at Headaches, Hotflashes and Hormones.  Now if you haven’t checked her out, get your butts over there.  She’s totally funny and upfront.

So here are the tips:

NO REPLY AT BLOGGER DOT COM

I mean I hate it.. I despise it.  I want to respond to you all by email.  I love responding by emails.  I love talking to you all.  I want to know about my readers.  So I respond to every email I get.  Until I see the hated “no reply at blogger dot com.”  So Lee taught me how to get rid of this issue.  You can find this information here as well.  But to make it easy I am going to post it here for you.  I expect you to visit Lee though.  The directions are as follows:

1. Go to your Dashboard on Blogger dot com.
2. Hit your edit profile, right next to your picture, avatar or whatever else you have showing.
3. Scroll down to the line that says : Show my email address and CHECK THE BOX.
4. Hit save.

Now, for those of you who do not want a regular email address to show, go to Gmail, Yahoo or any other number of places and get a FREE, yes FREE, email account and set it up.

WORD VERIFICATION

Ok I hate hate this as well.  I don’t know why but my eyes do not do this well at all.  Or I hit save and then close.  Guess what happens?  You don’t get my comment and sometimes I don’t realize.  So I might have been commenting all along.

Now to turn off this awful thing and to help all of your commenters’ eyes, do the following:

1. Go to your Dashboard at blogger dot com.

2. Click on Settings, which is under the name of your blog.
3. Click on Comments, which is on the top of the page.
4. Scroll down until you see this: Show word verification for comments?
5. Click the box that says NO.
6. Click Save settings at the bottom of the page. Please do not leave this page until you have saved settings.

Again you can get this information from Lee’s blog here.

I am begging you to fix these things to help me get to know each of you even better in the future.

Ok..as I said before I have the best followers in the blogosphere.  So much so that its award time.  Lots of awards to do.

The rules for this award are:
- Put the Lemonade logo on your blog or within your post.

- Nominate at least 10 blogs with great attitude or gratitude.
- Link the nominees within your post.
- Let the nominees know they have received this award by commenting on their blog.
- Share the love and link to the person from whom you received this award.

I am pleased to pass on the Lemonade Award to the following 10 (in no particular order) who have given me great attitude and gratitude:

3 Little Monkeys
A Woman’s Life Stages
Deal’ightfully Frugal
Domestically Challenged
Finding Trinity
Just Breathe
Mamahood, Among Other Things
Midday Escapades
Two Peas in a Pod
The Balancing Act of One Chic Mommy

Please check them out at your first opportunity.  I love them all.

They are all awesome writers.  I read their blogs every single day.

Now, my turn to play the game and list 10 random facts about me, per the rules of acceptance of the award:

1. I am a Taurus
2. My parents owned an alarm company when I was growing up.
3. I have 3 brothers and 1 sister.
4. I don’t have a specific type of music that I like.  I love it all country, tap, jazz, blues, opera, etc.
5. I don’t cook very well but I can make a mean pot roast.
6. I am a night owl.
7. I have been a brunette, red head, blonde throughout my life.  My hairdresser always has to use two applications of hair coloring because my  hair is so thick.
8. I love General Hospital since I was about 13 years old.
9. I wear t-shirts and blue jeans all the time.
10. I won a typing contest when I was in the 3rd grade.

I’m giving this award to the following people:

A Nut in a Nutshell
A Woman’s Life Stages
Arise 2 Write
Bacon is My Lover
Headache, Hormones and Hotflashes
Heart 2 Heart
I’m Living Proof that God Has a Sense of Humor
Just Breathe
Keeping Up With the Schultz
Life of a Tater Tot Mom
Menopausal New Mom
Running Away?? I’ll help you pack
Stir-Fry Awesomeness
Vodka Logic
Welcome to Laurieville Population 1

1. I love to write..wait thats obvious lol. 

2. I love to go boating.

3. I love to swim.

4. I love being married to my husband.

5. I love the mountains over the beach.