WP Thoughts, Blog Organizing & Why we Do This

{Blog Thoughts, WP, Categories & Love}

Sorry about some of the random posts and re-posts today folks.  I've been trying to re-tag all of my past posts so that they are easier to find, and during my 10+ hour venture, I had a few hiccups.

I've had quite the internal struggle lately with the good ol' blog.
(nothin' major, no worries)

It's amazingly fun, a fabulous creative outlet, and also something that our family loves to do!  But along with that comes LOTS and LOTS of work.  Not only am I talking about the actual projects that need to get done and photos that have to be taken and edited to POST on the blog, but more the day to day upkeep, emails, time writing posts, designing and more.

Don't worry, even though it might sound like it, I'm not complaining... ha!

Truth be told... I love it.  :)

Right along with being a Mom and Pinterest... It's honestly a dream "job" and an obsession.
Please tell me I'm not alone here...hee hee

In the past few months I have raked my poor brain over the coals, trying to decide if making the ever-trendy Wordpress move was for me, and my blog.
In short.
I TOTALLY think it is.  :)

There are lots of fancy, fun, new-fangled gadgets that wordpress can offer, that blogger may not, at this time.

This is where the hard part came in...
And I feel a little silly to admit it, but

... I'M JUST NOT READY.

I would (and sometimes DO) spend all my days in front of my computer, tweeking, posting, and adding more to our blog.  But alas... I also have "right here-right now" people, things, and life commitments that need lots of my attention as well.  From what I've heard, making "the switch" has a bit... okay, let's admit it...a LOT of a learning curve, and lets be frank... I BARELY have the time to invest into what I'm doing now!!! lol

Does this mean that I'll never switch over... Nope!

:)

It just means that right now, I'd rather not stress about:

"how to add an element to my blog here" or

"how to figure out why certain things aren't working over there"

As one of my fellow bloggers put it (who recently made the WP switch)

"WP is awesome, but Blogger is just like a nice big warm hug"

 haha!  I loved that!  It was definitely the best way to describe it.  Easy, user friendly, and simple.

So as weird as it may sound... I think I'm going to stay in "the blogger embrace" for just a bit longer, till my life has the time-capacity to allow for learning curves, and other potential hurdles.

Okay.... So THAT being said... I have been working on a few things to hopefully make navigating and browsing around "our House" a bit easier.

First:  Compressed/Truncated Posts

This allows ME to add more posts per page, and hopefully let the blog load a bit faster, because there are just snippets of the beginning of each post.  Like so...

 In order to see the entire post, you just need to click on this link by the red arrow, that says:

The FIRST post on our blog will never be compressed.  Just the older ones that follow.  Hopefully this will lead to less "scrolling time" for our frequent readers and new readers, alike.  Making it easier for them to bypass entire posts that don't interest them, if they are reading our blog page by page.

If you follow us in a reader, new posts will still update in their entirety, and will NOT be compressed.

(I'm also still working on redirecting links to a brand new window, so you won't have to navigate away from the original page you are on.  That will come soon )

2nd: A Categories Gadget

For some reason, after we switched our domain to a .com, our "search this blog" feature got all ski-wompie (yup, it's a word, ha!), and was no longer helpful.  So I've gone through EACH post, re-tagging it with the topic(s) that the posts touch on.

You can find this on the right hand side of our blog, towards the bottom, it looks like this:

Making it a whole lot easier to search for certain topics, within that given area.

To use this feature, all you need to do is click on whatever topic you want to read about, and it will bring up all those posts, within that topic.

Compressed as well, to make for quicker finding.

Also, just for a change of pace, I've switched up our header and button.  It's nice and simple :)

Do you sense a trend, with the whole "simplicity" thing, here? ha!

I will be adding a new background, and menu bar soon, with added tabs, that will include:

Frequently Asked Questions

My Favorite Blogs

etc...

Whew!  Alright, I think that's it for now. lol.

...Now let's get mushy...

I hope that all of you know how MUCH we love doing this.

To me, it's never been about the "numbers, money or recognition".  Although nice...Our blog means SO much more to us, then that.  And the connections that we make with our readers friends are why we do this.

I had a friend ask me MULTIPLE times...(and you know who you are)...

"What is your goal?  What do you want to accomplish with your blog?"

At first I didn't know.  But after I thought about it for a bit, Cason and I came to this conclusion:

If nothing else, this blog is still, and always will be, first and foremost, for US.  We won't get hung up on the nasty comments, or the opinionated outlooks of others.  We'll stick true to our carefree, casual, non-stressful tactic that we started with.  Posting when and whatever we want.  And if others want to be involved with what we are doing, and how we do it, then we welcome them with open arms!

Our main "goal" is to make sure that our blog is a place FULL of positive, fun, happy, safe topics.  No backbiting, negativity or controversial issues.  Only motivational, inspiring, uplifting, feel-good posts, around here :)

There is enough stress, sadness, and drama in day-to-day life.  We always want to make sure that our blog is our refuge from all that mess.

So yes... sometimes I'll post too many pictures of my kiddos, or take 3 months too long to finish a bathroom remodel... but HEY!  That's life!  ... And we're a Craftin', Home DIY'n, LIFESTYLE BLOG!!!

:)

We are completely terrified when we actually stop and think about how many people that we might possibly reach with each and every post.  So most of the time we choose not to think about it, and go along, acting like it's still just our family and close friends reading about our lives and home style shift, journey.

Which you all ARE, so it's cool if we display our dance videos and talk about being a bad Mom, from time to time, in front of you... right???haha!

We consider ourselves incredibly lucky and immensely blessed.  Thank you ALL for your amazing comments, and endless support with our home remodeling adventures, and we hope you know that...

WE LOVE YOU!