Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Several of the blogs I read recently posted about Google reader going away on July 1st and how they are switching to Bloglovin'. I decided to join the bandwagon! If you want to see a wonderful tutorial on Bloglovin', I recommend heading over to this post on "Sew Many Ways". It's a great tutorial with screen shots, and just in general a great blog to look at.

Award Winning! That's me!

The wonderful and awesome Nicky from the wonderful and awesome blog KnittingNix nominated me for a Liebster Blog award! This is my first Blog award!  WOOT! Thank you so much Nicky! Anyone who reads my blog and hasn't yet read Nicky's blog, I highly recommend it! Wonderful sense of humor and just a really nice person. One of those blog's where you just feel like you could call the person up and meet them for coffee and while away the hours chatting and knitting together.

Now here are the Liebster Blog award rules. It is really simple and in a nutshell, pass it forward. You link to the blog that nominated you. Then you choose 5 blogs of your choice to pass the award on to. These blogs have to have less than 200 followers to be eligible for the Liebster Blog Award. Share a link to your chosen blogs and lastly, but not least, display the Liebster Blog Award button on your blog.

What I love about this is that it's a chance to reach out to bloggers that I enjoy the works of and let them know "Hey! I read all that stuff you write! I love it when you stick a barbie in a sock and take a picture of it! I love it when you take pictures of your dogs and share them!" etc... It's just a wonderful way to say - one blogger to another - I appreciate you sharing your world with me!

Even though KnittingNix is one of the blogs I read all the time - this is a Pay it forward thing - so I will spring from Nicky's kindness and will nominate these 5 Blogs:

1. HippyWitch Crafts I have only just started to get to know Lori, but I am really enjoying her blog! She makes the most awesome Toadstools and sells them in her Etsy shop. (My goal is to buy one some day. I just love them!) She is crafty and clever and I really enjoy her blog!

2. Zeal for Everything is another blog I read all the time. I have a crush on her two dogs Schrödinger and Isabelle and I just love the honesty of her blog. She puts stuff out there and she inspires me to be true to my own voice.

3. Kids and Capers is chicken soup for my soul. Her blog always has something that comforts me - be it some fresh baked muffins or some wonderful crochet project she is whipping up. She also has an amazing amount of blogs she follows - and I can spend many hours just jumping from blog to blog to blog. Excellent Blog-taste!

4. Another favorite is Knit Sew Hooked. She always has something fun on the needles! She has been a little quiet lately, but I really enjoy reading her blog and seeing what she is up to.

5. And last but not least PDX Princess. Her blog has so much going on! I love her blog posts but I am also always checking out her books (her taste runs Vampy like mine - so I scope out possible future reads) and I like seeing what she is watching on TV. She really broadcasts her life and makes full use of the media out there to do it. Plus she has awesome cat pictures and yarn p0rn. What's not to love?!?!

I read all the blogs I nominated and enjoy them very much. If you have a moment stop in and take a look at them - maybe you will find a new blog to love too!

Frustration - Indeed!

So this morning I was plodding through my e-mail and saw that there was a new post from a Blogger I enjoy Zeal for Everything entitled Frustration. This poor wonderful woman has been reading my Blog and trying to leave me comments - only to be denied! Argh! I feel like I turned on the lights and lit up the decorations for Trick or Treaters on Halloween and then locked the door and fell sound asleep.

I am touched that she would take the time to let me know A) That she has been reading my blog and enjoys it! and B) That she hasn't been able to comment! I know I have been frustrated with this on many a blog. Back in Blogtoberfest, I had many blogs I tried to comment on and found that I couldn't. FRUSTRATION! Sadly I didn't have the brains about me to send a note to most of those bloggers to let them know I tried to leave a comment and could not.

So here is the deal. I am not a techie gal. I would love to be savvy - but in truth - I am pretty plug and play. I have checked my comments settings in Blogger and made sure I had it set for anyone (including anonymous peeps) can leave a comment. I have the settings as friendly as I can get them.

Next I went to google and typed in "people aren't able to leave comments on my blog" and started looking for advice. The blogger help pages weren't too useful. ( I checked there too) But I did find this one page that I thought was interesting. There are some big words here that are a little over my head, but I tried to follow the best I could. The Site is called "The Real Blogger Status: What Blogger Won't Tell You" and because of the advice here I changed my comments from embedded to a pop up window. Not sure if this is going to do the trick or not? Not sure if I just screwed up my blog and now nobody can comment? That would be so Jenny. :)

So I am going to keep trying to get this right. If any of you wonderful bloggers out there have had this issue and have some advice for me I would love to hear it. And if you try and leave me a comment and cannot, give me a yell?

As for me, I am going to keep trying to learn more about blogging, about how to have a good blog (one where people can comment!) and I will let other bloggers know when I cannot leave a comment on their Blog! I will pay it forward! I will also be checking my Third Party Cookie status in my Internet Explorer settings. Just have to figure out where they are.....

Thank you again to the wonderful Zeal for Everything.