He's Gone

My Parents
John (died 3/30/09) and Joan (died 4/11/93)

My father, age 62, died Monday at 12:50 AM, from brain cancer. His service will be held Thursday and then he will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery in a few weeks.

Thank you for your thoughts and prayers!

Custom Blog Design Giveaways at the Ultimate Blog Party

5 Minutes for Mom is hosting The Ultimate Blog Party 2009 and it isn't to be missed! Among many other great prizes, several very talented blog designers are giving away custom blog designs. To enter, jump over the the Prize Page and see how to enter.

Here are the designers who are giving away a free custom blog design:

INTL 1: Sweet and Simple Blog Design
INTL 23: Busy Mama Blog Designs
INTL 28: Sassy Chic Designs
INTL 33: Southern Girl Blog Designs
INTL 35: Blog Designs by Sheila
INTL 36: Sara's Pixel Studio

Also, Delicious Designs by Trista (formerly Pumpkin Patch Creations) is hosting a giveaway, but I believe you need to post at her site to be entered (with the others you need to follow the directions given at the Prize Page).

Back to Business

Okay, I have finally returned from my little Internet vacation. I had hoped to come back over the weekend, but enjoyed reading too much. Anyway, I have some posts I need to finish before making them live.

I do want to let you know that I have a few giveaways coming up so make sure to keep checking back. Two custom blog designs will be given away as well as a premade blog template. In the meantime, check out the custom blog design giveaways running at other sites by watching my right hand side bar.

Thanks for your patience!

Coming Back Soon

I am sorry I have been away for a few days. My father, who is battling brain cancer, has been in the hospital and it has been a challenge to juggle my family, housework, Usborne Books (my side business), trips to the hospital and blogging. Obviously, blogging took a back seat to everything else. However, he is doing much better and is back home. You can find out more about it all at my personal blog, Moving Forward.

By this weekend I will have several new posts coming your way. During my little break, I had several ideas on things I want to share plus I need to do a designer showcase or two.

Please let me know if you know a designer who isn't on my lists so I can add her. Also, if you have any great tips or ideas that bloggers can use for their blog, please let me know and I will share it here and link to your site.

Twitter Buttons - A Big Variety

By TwitterButtons.com

If you are a blogger, whether serious or for fun, it benefits to join Twitter. It is a great way to network with other bloggers and to give announcements and links to new posts or giveaways. MomAdvice gave a great explanation of Twitter and how it benefits you to use it.

To make the most of Twitter, you should post a link to your Twitter page so that readers can follow you. There are several sites that offer free Twitter buttons. If they don't have a code for you to add, then you simply save the button as a picture and add to your site, including the hyperlink to your Twitter page (for example, mine is www.twitter.com/readingtofour).

I was going to hunt down and list out all the places you can get cute, free Twitter buttons, but Annie at BlogU already did. Simply click HERE to see her post with lots and lots of links for Twitter buttons.



Special Note: If you would like to follow me on Twitter, click on the Twitter bird at the top of this post or click here.

New Free and Premade Templates

Lena at Simply Fabulous Blogger Templates has released some more beautiful, completely free templates. Simply to go her site and follow the instructions. Here are a couple I think are especially lovely.

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LeeLou Blogs has come out with a few more beautiful premade templates and the cost is only $15. Below are just a couple of the new premades they designed. Click on one of the templates to see all the new premades.



Also, LeeLou has added MANY new free layouts which you can view here.

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Special Note: Blogger made some changes that have caused many designer's templates to be problematic when uploading. LeeLou believes that she has found a fix for the problem, in regards to her templates and the fix may work for other designer's templates as well. It is worth a try.

Check out this post and make the changes she recommends. This fix is for those who have been using free templates already and those trying to upload now. Hopefully it will get your template working for you.