Love My Blog

I do love my blog, well I may not be showing it at present as I am AWOL more than I am present but hey who is counting or checking?

Anyway, why I love my blog?
I am currently going through my picture storage programme on the computer. This programme allows me to store my pictures in date order, I can tag the picture with when it was taken and also who is in the picture.
This means when I have a folder for 'Ben May 2006', I can click on this folder and it will show me all pictures that have Ben in it taken in May 2006.
Ok this means some of the pictures have multiple tags if all of us are in the picture but it makes scrap booking much easier when looking for pictures of people around the same time frame.

However, when we changed programmes we had some pictures that had the wrong date on them, we remember having a period of time when the camera was saying the wrong date and we couldn't get it to change to the correct one, I think this might have been just before we replaced it.
This means that we have pictures of Alex that say they were taken on Jan 6, 2005.
No worries there you may say....apart from the fact Alex was not born until June 2005! So looks really weird when viewing in date order to suddenly have Jan 2005 come up with Alex walking along the street in a picture and him as a newborn in the next one!

This is where the "I love my blog" part comes in....I noticed that some of the pictures I was trying to redate had had the name altered, thus meaning I must have labelled them to upload to the blog, so I skipped back through the archives and there are the pictures in a blog post at the correct date.
So my life has just been made easier, as it is easy to relabel pictures when the proof is right in front of you on the computer screen.

Man I love my blog sometimes!

Grow Your Blog Party

Today I am taking part in a "Grow Your Blog Party"

Vicki over at 2 Bags Full knows many people via her blog and has some wonderful friendships because of this, well electronic friendships anyway, and they are sometimes great ones to have.
So she is holding a party to enable others to find some new friends and followers, maybe even some new interests in crafts, books, places and even tips on how to blog and what to blog about etc.
The main purpose being to Meet-Greet-Grow your blog.

So today is party day and welcome to my place.
Please don't worry about your shoes as you come through the door, I am not fussy, although I have just been redecorated however the carpet is old!
I like to keep my blog background up to date with the time of year, although here in New Zealand it is summertime so I have just changed from my Christmas background to something a little more suitable.
If you like this background then you can check out more free ones over at Leelou Blogs, she is always happy to share a few freebies with friends.

If it smells nice that is because I am cooking some chocolate brownies to take with us tonight to a dinner date with some friends.
I can offer you some tea or coffee however due to the gorgeous weather we are having I thought maybe some peach ice tea with ice cubes would be better suited to the day....help yourself.

So who am I?
I am a wife and mother, oh and in my spare time I get to play nurse at the hospital.
I have been married for 4 years although we have actually been together for 13 years.
We are very lucky to have 2 adorable sons who are 7 & 9 years old.

I am English and moved to New Zealand just under 15 years ago, on my own on a one way ticket!
I decided that I had a one year visa and if I didn't like it here then I had to work hard at my nursing job to raise the money for the ticket home.
15 years later and I am still considering raising the money to go home!

I started blogging in 2005, although I only managed a few posts. I got back into it in 2006 and I haven't looked back since.
I started blogging to keep all my family overseas up to date with what the 2 little bundles in our life were up too. I didn't want to keep writing out separate emails to relatives with heaps of pictures attached, which in turn would take up time and space on their email (we are talking pre broadband, so most were on dial up at the time!)
Since then, several of my family have moved from England to New Zealand and so now I blog as a memory of life and what the family are doing. Even though my mother only lives 1 hours drive away we still manage to keep up with what the other is doing by checking our blogs!

I like crafts and have been cross stitching since I was 7, however along with most craft things, it has been on hold for a few years whilst I grew the 2 young boys in my life. Although I am suddenly gaining more time for myself and can now get my stitching out for at least an hour before someone interrupts me for something, so hopefully there will be more time for it coming my way soon.
I have also just started getting myself organised to do digital scrap booking.
I am working my way through the pictures on the computer, organizing them and also getting to grips with the scrap booking programme I am using. Layouts are very few and far between at the present moment but I am learning and hopefully more will start appearing as I get better at it all.

So this is me, this is where I can be found and I am so glad that you dropped by.
I would love you to come back and visit anytime you feel like it.
You may find I will be sleeping when you visit due to the time difference (New Zealand is so far from anywhere!) but feel free to look around and make yourself comfortable whenever you feel like it, just remember to turn the light out when you leave.

Scrap Booking Freebies

In my last post I mentioned how I had discovered digital scrap booking?
I am having fun learning all the ropes at present so no layouts to share just yet, but believe me, when I do they will appear thick and fast.

In the mean time I have been getting to grips with digital stores online, downloading zip files and learning how to unzip them and upload into my digital programme!
Believe me, lots for me to learn, luckily I have a very patient husband when it comes to computers and he will, at a push, happily show me how to do things on this electronic device that manages to have me very frustrated occassionally!

Anyway, onto the freebies.

You would not believe the amount of sites out there in that big old www world that has kits and papers for the digital scrap booker...!

My Memories is one of the wonderful stores I have come across and they have lots of freebies as well.

A side from that they have a blog and currently this weekend only they are celebrating International Digital Scrapbooking Day and there is a blog train flowing.

You start at the first station (designer) and you collect a free kit and then they tell you where the next station (designer) is located and you follow the link to the next place and collect the next freebie.

These freebies by the way are not just an embellishment, no we are talking full kits here, some with up to 50 items in the pack.

So if you have some time today and wish to find some wonderful new designers of awesome kits for scrapbooking, then head on over to the My Memories Blog and follow the train out of the station.

Choo Choo

Happy travels to you all

New Design?

Are you happy with the new blogger interface?
Do you use the new design?

By accident a few weeks ago I changed over to the new blogger interface and I am not sure about it. It has taken time to get use to, I do like the layout of the new post page, having everything across the top of the page is working but the rest of the website I am finding difficult to use.

It won't work at work anymore because it doesn't mix with basic google nor does my lap top seem to like the new interface.
However last night I found a button that allowed me to revert back to the old blogger interface and suddenly I feel like I am home again.

I want to keep moving with the times but at the same time I wish the move wasn't so drastic.
Am I the only one struggling with this change, is it something I will have to bite the bullet on sooner or later as it will be the only interface available?
Honestly Blogger.com I am trying, really hard, I just wish all my computers were accepting of it!

How are you finding it?

Can't Breath

For 10 seconds just then I couldn't breath!!!

No I wasn't choking or having an allergic reaction!!

For 10 seconds Blogger told me that...."I wasn't following any blogs at present!"

I missed more than 1 breath or 2. I choked, I swore, I screamed, I went into panic!
How can Blogger loose all the blogs I follow? Come to think about it do I have a list anywhere else of all the blogs I love to follow? NO

Seems I might have to rectify that one very quickly.
However 2 seconds later after refreshing the page...pooff and all the blogs I follow appeared in the reading list?
Why - I don't know, I don't care, they are back, I am happy!

Summertime

Christmas is over, the New Year has begun and the sun is finally shining.
So my blog needs to reflect that so a new design to keep it bright and alive.

Now I just need to start planning a new background and title banner for Autumn / winter.
It is never ending!

Also last night we took the boys to see the local national cricket 20/20 game that was being played between our local team and one from the South Island.
The weather cooperated and we had an awesome evening, although sadly our team lost (which Ben found devestating! Such a sentimental old fool, he shead a few tears!)

However as the game was packing up I saw someone walking through the grounds whom seemed rather familiar to me. I soon realised that in fact it was Dee from dee*construction I have never met her before but decided I couldn't miss the oppotunity to meet a fellow blog so raced over and introduced myself.
So to Dee, it was lovely to put a face to the blog and meet you, if only for 2 mins.
Have a great weekend

The Amount of 10 Things

On the 10th day of the month, every month, friends over here always blog about 10 things.

Usually they have to do with her scrapbooking, but as I am not yet a scrapbooker, then I will just write 10 things about what ever is happening at the moment.

So here are my 10 things for this month.....(I know I am a day late!)

1. the amount of days until Alex goes to stay with Grandma on his own.
2. the amount of weeks the kids are off school for the holidays.
3. the amount of times I should go to the gym each week, but sadly don't always make!
4. the amount of mums at the girls night we had last week that had us laughing and crying so much.
5. the amount of days we are going to the caravan for, for Labour weekend at the end of next week.
6. the amount of stitches we took out of the cat last night following her surgery 2 weeks ago.
7. the amount of hours sleep I would love to get each night if I wasn't woken by my husband snoring!
8. the amount of days since I started my new job, which is going well by the way.
9. the amount of minutes I have left to get this post completed, posted and get to my next meeting seeing as I am writing this at work!
10. the amount of kilos I would love to loose, if I ever really put my mind to it and decided to do something about.

Hope this enlightened you a little
Catch you next time

Comments

I know that lots of people are having trouble commenting on their friend's blogs, some blogs will let you comment whilst others will keep asking you for an account sign in?
I don't know what the probloem is anymore than you guys do but I have worked one thing out.
There are 3 ways that comments can be shown on a blog. The blog writer can decide to have the comments show up in one of the following ways:

1. Seperate page - this way when someones comments, the comment field pops up as a balloon on the page and when finished you close it and you are then still at the blog site.
2. Full page - when you comment this takes you to a new page with all the comments down the left side and the comment field on the right. To get back to blog you are reading you ahve to hit back key.
3. Embedded below post - when you comment, you are taken to another page where the comment and comment field are at the end of the post.

I have worked out that all the sites I am having trouble commenting on all have their comments set as "Embedded below post"

How do I change this so friends can continue to comment, I hear you say?

Easy - go to settings on the dashboard, click on the blue word comments within the settings tab, (do not click on the comments tab next to settings tab)
3rd down is the 'Comment Form Placement' here you can choose how your comments field shows when someone wants to leave a comment. If you have embedded below post, consider changing to one of the other styles.
Go to bottom of page and click Save.

People should now be able to leave you a comment

Hope this helps

Useful Blogs

In the 6 years, (wow is it really 6 yrs already?) that I have been blogging things have changed in the blogging world.
Firstly when I started 99% of the blogs I followed or casual glanced at were from America. Nothing wrong with that, I have a love of the country so happy to read about it and people's life all the time.
Nowadays there are a lot more blogs from our home country of New Zealand.
Seems everyone is joining the blogging world and sharing a little glance into their world and life.

Secondly, all the blogs with useful information were sadly again based in the US, blogs that gave you reviews of products, retailers and great useful places to visit with a family etc.
How I wished there was something like that here in New Zealand?
With a growing family of 2 boys, who sometimes without realising it, do actually keep growing and getting bigger by the day, then I love reading about great places to visit that don't cost a fortune, that someone else has been to and highly recommends and is family friendly with something to hold every member of the family's attention.

Well, I have found it........




Let me introduce you to this developing blog written by Kiwi Mums for Kiwi Mums like you and me.
Welcome to Undercover Bloggers.

What It Is.......A resource for people who want to know the great places to go... and the terrible places to avoid.
The Purpose.....To harness the power of blogging to rave about our great experiences and warn others about the bad ones. To shout the praises of people and companies who go the extra mile. And to scold the ones who have forgotten that service is everything.

This blog is written by mums around New Zealand, so sadly it does not cover all areas of the country, but they are working on that one. So for all you people in Auckland, Wellington, Dunedin and Tauranga then  there are some places that you might want to check out.
For those in Hamilton, well there will soon start to be some reviews of areas appearing.
For people in other areas who have places to shout out about then why not consider getting in touch with Nicci and seeing if you can't help out.
So when you have 5 minutes with a coffee, yea I know when does that ever happen! Go over and check out the blog and see if there isn't something that takes your fancy to use as your next place of interest for your next family day out.

Trouble Again

Once again I have several posts to show you but once again they will only work with pictures.
BUT once again I am unable to load pictures onto the post.

Have I mentioned before at all that I hate this new picture loading device that blogger have changed to?
I just don't seem to get the pictures to load.
Today I can get them to load to the sub screen but not actually load onto the post!

What is the point?

Background

Some of you, if you have been catching up on my posts, may have noticed that I had given my blog a 'spring feel'.
Unfortunately it was very slow in opening and for some it just wouldn't open at all, there by not allowing them to view the blog at all.

So I have reverted back to my Autumn/Winter background until I have 5 mins to work on choosing another one!

Bored

When I am bored with nothing to do....!
Which lets face it is really never!
Because with looking after the family, completing my studies, catching up with emails, thinking about craft (quilting, cross stitch, scrapping etc) and reading the occassional book, I never have time to be bored.
Although.....
There are times when I just need to chill out, have nothing planned and not really want to have to make an effort to get something out to do and organise, and so this is when I can surf on the net.
Usually I surf blogs, I bring up my own blog and the hit the ultimate button 'Next Blog'

Once upon a time, you got a few new ones and then you seemed to come back to one you had already discovered, BUT, nowadays they go on for ever.
I started blogging in 2006 and the changes I have noticed since that time is huge. More people are blogging. Yes ok America plays a big part in this, most of the blogs I come across are from people who live in the States and would you believe a fair few are LDS.
I love LDS people, I have some wonderful friends from past who are LDS.

They have some wonderful concepts on living sensible and wonderful lives. Families are everything and I love Family Home Evening, this is something that everyone can instigate in their homes to have quality family time at least once a week.
I also learnt from them about food storage and the importance of having extra food stored around the house in case you have to stay in your home in an emergency and can't get to a shop etc.
My food storage is not fab but it is enough that would see us survive for a couple of days at least before I would have to start getting too creative with food.

They are also huge on journal writing and lets face it, at the end of the day we are all now keeping journals. The plan and simple blog is now our journals and I love the fact that more and more people are stepping forward and keeping a memory of their time.

So the next time you have 5 minutes, go press 'Next Blog' at the top of your blog page and see who you might meet.

Pages

I have a blog with several pages!

I have finally found out about it all and have created some pages of my own.

Look across the top of the blog under the title banner and there is a line of yellow words, these are my pages.

So easy to create and so much nicer than having some many links and lists in the side bar.

I have

1. my 'about me' page
2. my 'Quilting' page
3. my 'Free Patterns' page
4. my 'Recipes' page
5. my 'Wedding Day' page

I am having fun with my blog at present, why don't you go and try it out for yourself?

Wishing

The other morning there was a lovely huge rainbow in the sky.
I called Ben out to look at it.

He asked me if he could make a wish on it?
Didn't see why not, so said yes.
Here is his wish (he said it out loud)

I wish
I wish
I wish we had a rocket booster on our car

Nothing like plain thinking from a 6 yr old.

My wish would be.......

That I manage to get another 100 posts done so I reach my 1000th, as this post is my 900th.
Yea for me on reaching a milestone and I look forward to reaching the next one soon, maybe in about 3 months time if I write 1 post a day.

Autumn

It has suddenly gone cold in the evenings, the days are still quite warm but suddenly the curtains need closing at night.
The blankets are making a slow appearance in the living room and I am even considering finding my slippers!
I will resist putting the heater on until after Easter (April)

March 1 was of course the start of Autumn for New Zealand so I shouldn't be too surprised that the temperature is dropping, the days are getting shorter and the mornings are dark.
The clocks do not change for another 3 weeks, Easter Weekend, but by the time it all changes we are going to be ready for it.
Good Friday will be light and Easter Monday will be dark.

So I have updated the blog to get that lovely warm feeling that we all need in Autumn time. Hopefully this will also warm all you guys that are hanging out for heat with your spring just arriving, wait patiently as it will arrive soon.

Followers

I follow about 20 blogs.

I am sure there are more to follow but I try not to get to greedy otherwise I never get to visit them all.

But I am very good at deciding to stop following one if I realise that I haven't been checking them out lately or I get bored with them. Sorry, I am not saying you are boring, just that sometimes people change the focus of their blog and it no longer holds my interest. At least I am honest.

I am trying to get my inspiration back for crafts so am finding all these new blogs that showcase what they have been up to lately and love perusing them to see if it gets me back in the mood!

Once in the mood, I will try to find the time, but seeing as the boys are a little older now and I am not so tired at the end of the day, Maybe I will start getting some little things done.

Now I just need to sort through all my UFO's and see what I can start with, has to be something little though or it will never get done....!

New Sign Off Button

As mentioned before, I had changed my sign off button to match the new background but seemed to be having some trouble with it.

Now I am no computer expert!

I love blogging and can do the very basic things to keep it looking good, usually after my darling husband has shown me first. If someone actually shows me what to do then I remember and can do it again when needed.

I am definitely a visual person when it comes to learning stuff, I get lost try to understand things read from a book!

So it was no surprise that he managed to fix my little problem by loking at the html code and telling me where I had gone wrong.

So hopefully we are all fixed now and things should be fine from now on, well until I change the background again and have another new button!

Sign Off

As you can see at the end of this post I have a new sign off to match the new background on the blog.

Unfortuantely I seem to be having a little trouble with it.

Have changed over the code etc but we will just have to wait and see if it keeps working correctly.

New Background

It has taken a little bit of hard thinking to decide on a new background for the blog for the holiday.

I wanted to go with a Christmas theme but couldn't decide on whether to go with a winter theme or summer theme with appropriate colours.

Because to all my northern hemisphere friends it is of course winter, it is getting cold and dark in the evenings.

Unfortunately for all of you I am in the southern hemisphere and we are getting the long sunny days with blue skies and endless sunshine! (not that I want to rub it in!)

So after a lot of deciding, I have chosen to go with a winter theme for now and I will change it to a more appropriate summer theme in January when summer does well and truely hit us here.

New Editor Mode

As I expected, several of you have commented as to how you can gain this fabulous new editor mode for writing your posts.
So here are the instructions

1. Go to your dashboard
2. Click on 'settings'
3. This should bring you up in the basic tab
4. Scroll down to the bottom
5. Go to 'Select Post Editor'
6. You will find that you have a Green dot next to 'Old Editor' change it to 'Updated Editor'
7. Save Settings

Hey presto you should now have the new editor mode in place.
So go and create a new post and see all the wonderful new things you can do, or more like be able to write a post without having to continously get rid of extra spaces and being able to add pictures where you want and how you want.

Happy Blogging