ê¿êspi20.com — watching and writing

Blog hopping has worn me out today! I’ve hit several spots that were “not found” — mostly Blogger blogs — it seems Blogger is having difficulties these days and many of those who have on-going blogs there are unhappy.

[Soapbox] My advice is and has been for some time (almost one full year!) to buy your own hosting. Ever since my WordPress.com blog was removed for a violation of TOS (for nothing more than having a paid-for review of product) and I lost everything I’d done there for 3 years. That was a crushing blow, but certainly served the purpose of weaning me from free hosting for anything I do on the web. If they had at least communicated with me about it, but no warning was afforded and no answer was given to any of my questions or suggestions to resolve the issue. Just total and unequivocal erasure, then ignore any attempt at communication. When you don’t pay, you have no rights, you are a non-entity and they don’t owe you even courtesy. [/Soapbox]

But on with my travels…I got hooked into Papillon’s story of her recovery both mentally and physically from female genital mutilation. It’s tastefully done and a real eye-opener for someone who was aware of the practice, but so far removed from it, I might as well be on another planet. I haven’t read the entire story yet, but will before it’s all said and done as it’s truly riveting.

I really need some travel deals for some of the places I’ve visited virtually today, because now I want to really GO there and see these wonderful places for myself! Gary over at Everything Everywhere despite being stuck in Australia right now, is still posting gorgeous photos of his travels through the world. I think he’s got his issues resolved and I can’t wait to see the photos from his next port of call! Thomas has been taking some awesome shots of landscapes during the midnight sun period in his native Norway and Daisy has been modeling new clothes for us - she even won an award for one of her costumes — what a talented girl she is! - Did I mention that she’s a cat?

Tomorrow promises to be just as entertaining as today was. The Internet is full of wondrous, enchanting, provocative, educational, beautiful and inspiring sites such as these. It has truly broadened my horizons and given me a plethora of experiences both good and bad to deepen and widen my personal world. Thanks for coming along with me!

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Waking from a dream, I see the walls trembling
Dogs are howling their woe
My eyes have trouble focusing
And my mind is rambling

Have I been struck down with a stroke?
Is it some form of mental illness?
Should I be calling 911?
(I fear that scythe carrying bloke.)

I hear a rumble closing in
Could it be an earthquake?
Am I about to be crushed
By the house I am within?

I finally shake the cobwebs out
And get my mind all clear
It’s only that I fell asleep
Again in my massage chair

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I opened my big fat mouth and asked someone to review my blog for style.  In his acerbic but accurate way, he suggested things to do.

They included removing stuff from the sidebar and footer thingy like the calendar and the tag cloud, didn’t like centered sidebar with bullet points (neither did I). He made fun of my template likening it to something produced in Microsoft Works and the color scheme didn’t agree with him either (said the green was like the chlorine cloud above Bophal when the Union Carbide plant blew up) , but I rather LIKE this template and the color scheme is pleasing to me, so I doubt I’ll change those anytime soon (of course that all depends on if I find a template that really rocks my socks). He made fun of my header saying it looked like vomit from Puff the Magic Dragon (close! It was a starfish actually — that’s probably as close to Puff vomit as anyone could possibly find!).  He also pointed out that the header didn’t say anything about my site.

So, it looks a little different around here. I’m not sure I’m in love with my new header, but it is more relevant. I like the eye and the url reflected in it, but not sure I like the background color I chose. I’ll probably keep tinkering with that. I kept the template and colors — I like the real estate this one provides for content and it provides simple enough tweaking of sidebar items and footer items to be idiot proof — since I know next to nothing about PHP, that’s a good thing.

I guess it was messing with the header that got the creative juices flowing and since Sam was generous and unstinting to me with the review, I wanted to be generous to some other person (pass it forward?) by sharing one of my small talents which got the EC card or blog header offer going below.

So, what do YOU think of the changes? Agree with them? Disagree with them? What else should I do to encourage readership and make it easier for you to navigate around? Here I go again — opening my big fat mouth! Will I never learn???

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