How Cool is THIS?!

Never mind the laundry.  Or the dishes.  Or the fact that I have some work to do to prepare for tomorrow's shoot.  Or heck...the KIDS.  I spent the day re-designing my blog!  What do you think?

I love the fresh clean feel of my new little blog, and how easy it is to edit.  My next goal is to do the same to my photography blog.

Why the change?  Mostly because I wanted to be able to post bigger pictures.  With my old 3-column blog, I kept running out of room.  And also...because I just wanted to, that's why ;-)

Looking for something?  Please check out the navigation bar at the top (a row of words just under the header picture that turn red when you mouse over them).  Otherwise, you can find the labels in the sidebar. If all else fails, you can always type in a word to search for in the "search this site" tool, also found in the sidebar.  

I'm trying to figure out how to make a navigation button that enables you to email me.  Anyone know how to do this?  Help please!

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Guess What Today Is?

As of right NOW, I've been blogging for two years! Happy Anniversary little "Call Her Blessed".

I've been thinking a lot lately about why I blog and what my goals are. I hope this little corner of the blogosphere is a blessing to you. I hope it encourages you in some way, and maybe makes you laugh from time to time. Most of all, I hope it helps you to see the awesomeness of the One from whom all good things come.

If not, what can I say? At least the grandparents get to see fun pictures and videos of the kids every now and then :-)

Have a great day!

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A Major Award

Don't you just love that part of "A Christmas Story" when the dad gets a "major award"?  Cracks me up every time :)

My sweet friend, Becky nominated me for this award.  I'm so touched!  The rules are that I'm supposed to list 7 things that I love and then pass the award on to 7 other bloggers.

Seven things I love:

1.  Opening windows and letting a spring breeze sweep through my house.

2.  My folks' cottage in Wisconsin.

3.  Anticipating something good - the anticipation is sometimes even better than the "something".

4.  About 8:15 PM when all my kids are tucked in and drifting to sleep.

5.  Dashing home after taking pictures to load them on my computer...and finding one or two really awesome shots.

6.  When my husband walks in the door after work.  He's hugging and kissing the kids...but he's looking at ME.  Good Lord...what did I do to deserve him?

7.  The joy on my kids' faces when they're doing something they love.  

And 7 bloggers I love:

Lisa Michele Photography

Bayou Belle

Jane, Jack, and Lulie

The Homespun Heart

Choosing Voluntary Simplicity

One Thing

Confessions From The Rubber Room

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TONS Of Great Christian Blogs

There's a new blog list out there: "Top 100 Blogs on Christian Families" (at a "Becoming a Radiologist Technician" of all places!?!).

I recognized some of my favorite blogs, and I'm looking forward to browsing through some of the ones that are new to me.  Just thought you all might like to check it out - what a great resource!  

PS.  My new favorite number is 63 ;)

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I Do Believe That I'm Hooked

I'm having just too much fun with writing eHow articles!  It's just so easy...you fill in all the little boxes, and the next thing you know...viola!  a pretty little article with great formatting that's printer friendly and all.

Are you irritated by me doing this yet?  I just wrote an article titled "How To Write A Great Blog Post".  As always, if you go read it please take a second to rate the article.  I sure do appreciate it!

Now...I'll get back to actually blogging instead of just writing about blogging :)

PS.  This post?  And my last post?  Totally do NOT follow the guidelines I just wrote about regarding how to write a great blog post.  Sorry, faithful readers!

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Do You Like Me? Do You Really, Really Like Me?

Parent & Child Magazine is having a "mommy blog" contest.  If you'd like to vote for your favorite mommy blog, you can click HERE to submit your opinion.

Ahem...if you're interested, the title of this blog is "Call Her Blessed" and the url is www.CalledBlessed.com  ;)

I'm gonna go over and vote for some of my favorites right now.  How cool would it be if one of my bloggy friends was featured in a magazine?! 

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Do You See That? (A GIVEAWAY!)

Over there...in my left sidebar...you'll have to scroll down a little bit. I have my very own little button! My wonderful designer, Jen at Blue Yonder Design, whipped that little beauty up for me.

Go ahead...grab it and put it on your blog. And when you do, drop me a comment to let me know. Everyone who adds my button to their blog will be entered to win a set of my note cards. I'll give away 2 sets of cards, and I'll draw a winner Monday, December 8th. (The post I linked to shows tulip note cards, but I can do them with any of my photographs. You can choose your favorite, or I can surprise you.)

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Are you wondering how on earth to add my button to your blog? Here's the simple play by play:
1. See that white box below the button with the foreign language typed in it? RIGHT click anywhere in that white box, and click "Select All".
2. Then right click again in that space, and click "Copy".
3. Go to your blog and add HTML. If you have a Blogger blog, you'll find the option to add HTML under "Layout".
4. When you get to the place in your blog to add HTML, right click again and click "Paste". There you go - all done - look at that, not even 5 steps!

Don't forget to let me know if you've added it. If you don't let me know, I won't know to add you in my Giveaway drawing!

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Blogger Tips & Tricks

I've been using the Blogger platform for almost a year now, and I've learned a few tricks along the way that have made my life easier...that have "worked for me". I thought I'd share:

1. SPACING - Every now and then, when I hit "Preview" to see what my post will look like, all the hard returns are missing. It looks like one giant run-on paragraph. Not nice to look at, and really not nice to read. Even more frustrating, when I go back and add more hard returns, the formatting is still messed up. Ugh. I've found that two things help. (1) To avoid this problem, add any pictures to your post *before* typing text. For some reason, adding pictures after text seems to mess my formatting up. (2)If you have the spacing problem and need to fix it, I've found that pressing the SHIFT key while pressing the ENTER key will make your spacing fixes stick. A wonderful reader opened my eyes to this trick. Don't know who she is, but if you're reading this, thank you!

2. POST PLANNING - Every now and then I know I'll be away and won't be able to blog. Since I just know that the very planet we live on would stop (maybe just slow) spinning if I didn't blog, I had to figure out a way to fix this horrible problem. I have two fixes (1) Get over myself, and just let a day or two pass without posting (gasp!) and (2) Use the "Post Options". See the tan box that you write your post in? In the bottom right corner, there's that blue text that says "Post Options". All you do is adjust your "Post date and time" to a *future* date and time. And here's the trick...when you're done with your post and have set the date and time you'd like to publish on, click the orange "Publish Post" button, NOT the "Save Now" button. After you click the Publish Post button, it will bring you back to your list of posts, and will say that you've "scheduled" a post for such and such a date. Pretty nifty!

3. Copying. Have you noticed how you can't highlight and copy your text to another program or "compose" window? Every now and then I want to do this...maybe Blogger won't let me save, and I don't want to lose everything I've written...or maybe I'm doing a cross-post and don't want to re-write everything all over again at the 2nd blog. Whatever the reason, it was always a pain when I couldn't just copy and paste my pictures and text. BUT YOU CAN COPY AND PASTE THE HTML CODE! It sounds fancy, but it's not at all. See that "Edit Html" tab up there next to the "Compose" tab? Click on it. Highlight everything, even stuff that looks like garbled words, right click, click copy, and then paste it wherever you want to put it. If you're pasting it to another post, you need to save it to the "Edit Html" page of the new post. When you click back over to "Compose"...there it is! Pictures and all!

Click on back to Rocks In My Dryer for more great tips. Thanks for stopping by!

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Someone Loves Me!

A sweet bloggy friend, Peggy at "...aMazing Grace" just emailed me to tell me that she enjoys my blog and would like to give me this blog award! My very first award!

That's it. It's decided. Peggy is officially my favorite (at least for today...if someone can send me a link proving that eating nothing but chocolate will make you thin and fit, then THAT person will become my favorite of all time) ;)

Thank you, Peggy, for taking the time to make me feel special today.

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Just Call Me A *SUPERSTAR*!!

I'm a member at 5 Minutes For Mom, and they just published an interview with me! Kinda silly...but if you'd like to check it out, click the button above.

The clutsy, stumbling, fidgeting, goofball, "Mary Catherine" always cracks me up. She's my kind of SUPERSTAAAA :)

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Our Little Blog Ring Isn't So Little Anymore!

I just wanted to extend a very warm welcome to all of you who have signed up to be a part of the Christian Moms Blog Ring. I'm so excited to see how our little community is growing!

If you're looking for some really neat women to meet, go visit some of the members. Just click on the button with the tulips on it (my left side bar), and it will bring you to a list of blogs. And if you'd like to join, click the same button and you can join from there too.

P.S. If you sign up, please come back here and drop me a comment so that I know to go "approve" you & get your blog listed...a irritating little detail that I keep forgetting about ;) Thanks!

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A New Blog

Well, I've started a new blog. There. I've told you. It's called "Call Her Skinny", and it's where I'm going to keep track of what I'm doing to try and get this old bod of mine back into shape. Come visit me if you'd like...and leave a comment when you do so I know you've been there.

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Preserving Blogs

I've been trying to figure out a way to save this blog permanently in some hard copy format. Anyone have any experience with this?

I happened to find THESE folks tonight, but don't know anything about other options.

What do you guys know about this?

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Just For Kicks

Check this out! I can't decide if this is "good" or "bad"...my high school English teacher would probably be pleased. But my college technical writing prof? Probably not! Maybe I should write a few posts about differential equations, mechanics of materials, or fluid dynamics...bore you all to sleep (and possibly make my shriveled little brain explode)...but hey, my "readability" might get "better" or "worse"?

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A New Little Group Of Friends

I am so excited about the "Christian Moms Blog Ring"! There are 6 of us so far...a neat group of ladies...I've been enjoying clicking around on their sites. It sure is handy to have us all in the same "ring". I can just click from one to the next. Simple pleasures, I suppose :)


In case you have no idea what I'm talking about...I started a "ring" for Christian Moms who blog. We all link up together to make it easier for us and others to find each other. If you'd like to see who's joined so far, you just have to click on the picture of the tulips in my left side bar, and it will bring you to a list of our blogs (you have to scroll down a bit past a few ads). If you want to join the ring, you can do that while there as well.


The more the merrier, so go sign up soon!

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A Great Site...

Lizzie, from "A Whisper Of Grace" just joined my new blog ring! I went to check out her site, and wow! What a treasure! Especially if you're looking for inspiration or for some great tools for growing in your faith...you just have to go pay her a visit. I'm so thrilled to have her as a member of "Christian Moms Blog Ring" :)

If you'd like to join, you can click on the tulips in my left side bar, and it will take you to where you need to go. Just scroll down, and click "Join Ring Now".

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Join My New Blog Ring!

Power By Ringsurf


Hey look! I started a new blog ring named something really fancy and unique. Are you ready for this amazingly creative title?? Here it is:

Christian Moms Blog Ring

Told ya. Knocked your socks off, didn't I? :)

So far it's not much of a ring...more like a tiny little dot out in cyber-space...being that I am the only member of this fabulous new ring. Please join!

Why join? Well, when you do, you get this cool button I designed. See it there in my left sidebar? It's the one with the pretty tulips and it says "Christan Moms Blog Ring". The more people who join, the more "advertising" we all get for our blogs. People will check out our "ring", and find all of our Christian Mom blogs all in one handy place. It's just a great way for us to connect with each other and to get links to our blogs out there.

How to join? Click on the button with the tulips, scroll down a bit until you see "Christian Mom Blogs", and click "Join Ring". It's simple and free.

C'mon, it'll be fun!

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Technical Difficulties

Are you looking for my pretty new blog layout? Yeah, well, I'm having some technical difficulties...also known as operator error...ALSO known as I'm a complete moron. Ugh. Some days I feel like a total rock star - on top of the world and can do anything I put my mind to. Other days...like today? Not so much.

I have a desperate call for help sent out to Saint Jen (my glorious, marvelous, and wonderfully talented) blog designer. I hope she's as forgiving and compassionate as she is talented. If so, we should be back up in no time.

This calls for popcorn. With about a whole stick of melted butter on it. And my droopy-butt comfy pants. And maybe some chocolate. Yes, chocolate. Lots and lots of chocolate.

UPDATE: I'm back up and running already! That only took about an hour! Have I mentioned lately just how amazingly awesome Jen at Blue Yonder Designs is? If you want a blog designed (and rescued when you are a doofus like yours truly)...Jen is your gal.

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Making Comments: CHANGE

Sorry everyone, but I had to enable some security measures on the comments you leave. Some spammers have been visiting more and more. Rrrrrr.

So now when you comment you'll have to type some letters in a box. The letters will appear on your screen (they'll look funny), and all you have to do is type those letters in the box that asks for it.

It's an inconvenience, but I don't know how else to get around it. Please don't let it stop you from commenting though...I love your comments!

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Hey!

What do you think of my new digs?! I love it!

If you like what's been done here, head on over to Blue Yonder Designs and give Jen some love! I'm sure she'd appreciate an email from you saying that you think she did a great job. I've told her a hundred times already! If you're looking for a new blog design, I highly recommend using her services. She's creative, talented, and very fun to work with. Heck, she's put up with the likes of ME for the past week!

In honor of this wonderful new design, I'm hosting a surprise GIVEAWAY!!! I'll be giving away a package of note cards (tulips? daisies? crocus? mountains? it will be a surprise). To enter, just comment to this post and tell me all about how much you love this new design. If you don't really like it, I fully expect you to lie to me!

And honestly...if you can think of a way that it can be better, let me know that too. Can't find something you're looking for? I want this to be easy to navigate, so please let me know if you're struggling with something.

That reminds me...stay tuned for some more details to be added (like a navigation bar).

This post will remain at the top of my page until the Giveaway is over (So scroll down for today's posts). I'll draw a winner in one week...that's Friday, April 11. Tell your friends!

The winner for this Giveaway has been selected. Thanks for participating!

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