Carnival

We are still having a Carnival this week even though it doesn't look like it. I've been getting a lot of questions about the Carnival and I will be coming up with a new schedule for the fall.

Carnival of the Blogging Chicks #11

Sorry that I didn't put up a link earlier. If I missed your entry, please email me.

Updated: OOPS! Forgot one, make sure you check out Ethel's post. Also, I wanted to let you know that I've changed the way the windows popup, instead of multiple windows, there will only be one.

This week, Ethel found out what chocolate cake does to children.

Lindsey over at Suspension of Disbelief is back up and running after a crash to her server - and what better topic to discuss than the importance of backups! Run on over and check out her post on how to backup the important things, and how to do it with ease!

Two terms you wouldn't expect to be in the same post title: Handcuffs and Sunday School. Read all about it as Tess talks too much...

In honor of the end of summer, Karmyn R in Dreaming What Ifs... is sharing a scary campfire story called "Don't Drink The Water Either." Read it with the lights on and keep your hands in your lap!

In an age of technology, magic and the pursuit of ultimate beauty, Shalee - owner, chef and head waitress at Shalee's Diner - serves up some old-fashioned advice about what being beautiful really means, along with the world's best coffee and pie.

Catez says of her post: "This is one of my favourite places - it's like a universe in the depths of the earth."

Kelly says of her post, "Wish for you" describes a mother's trip to Mackinac Island with her daughter, and how it helps discover the beauty in their relationship. Complete with slideshow and song lyrics."

Got a helpful household tip to share? Got a fairy tale? Over at She Lives, Carol combines to the two ingredients and the results really heated up her kitchen! See why in She Covereth.

Tasra gets "burned" by creativity...watch the video at Lessons from the Scrapbook Page!

Robin from PENSIEVE shares a very private part of her heart this week, knowing in advance it will be offensive to some, but hopeful for the ones who somehow "need" this kind of encouragement.

In "When Becoming a Mom Isn't So Easy," Janice from 5 Minutes for Mom remembers the many women who struggle with infertility and miscarriage, and shares a couple blogs that might bring some comfort.

Polly asks, are you a Creature of Day? Find out at Life is a Buffet.

Malissa at Malissa's Merry-go-round shares her feelings over her son starting school in A little boy for a few more days.

Melissa at Making Things Up describes a typical morning at her house, including, of course, dirty clothes, clean laundry, and a carton of carrot juice.

Michele at Life Under the Sun proposes a cease-fire in the Mommy wars.

Mary says farewell to dysfunctional friendships in a short but sweet goodbye letter.

Tags: Carnival

Internet Problems

I've been having problems getting on the Internet the last few days, so if you've emailed or left comments, it will be a few days before I can get back to you.

Blogshares

If you like to play blogshares, you might want to buy Blogging Chicks shares. It looks like you might be able to get it cheap.

Introduction: Melanie in Orygun

A brief introduction: My name is Melanie. I live in the City of Portland, in the Willamette Valley, in the great state of Oregon. I have never lived anywhere else; I hope to keep it that way. I am the mom of two amazing girls, ages 8 and 12, who are a constant source of pride to me. However, they rarely get much airtime on the blog, because I am a tad paranoid like that. One more thing - I do have a tendency to let a bad word or two slip now and again. I am telling you this so that if you are a person who is a careful steward of your speech and of what you read, you can avoid unpleasantness or embarrassment. I hope to speak with you soon on my blog - I like to think of each post as a conversation waiting to happen. See you there!

Using Tags

I was asked to address when you should tag a post with Technorati tags, I expanded the answer to include tagging in general for both Technorati and del.icio.us. This is a blogging 101 article, if you know anything about Technorati or del.icio.us, you might not want to bother with this article :-) The article is posted at Life Under the Sun.

Blogger Beta

Annie of Blog U was able to make the switch. I think I'll wait, I'm in no rush :-)

Blogger will have categories soon

If you're thinking of leaving Blogger over categories, you might want to wait because Blogger is going to be providing categories soon. They are currently testing a system that will allow you to do categories and to add stuff with your mouse instead of editing your template (no more destroying your template because you are adding a link to your link list and didn't realize that your stupid touch pad had selected the entire bottom half of your template to be replaced, woohoo :-) Here are the particulars:

Today we're launching a new version of Blogger in beta! You've been asking for ways to do more with your blog, and you can with this new release. With the beta you can:

• Categorize your posts with labels
• Control who can read your blog
• Change the appearance and content of your blog with your mouse instead of HTML

Take a look at the tour to see all the new things you can do (well, a lot of the new things ... they didn't all fit in the tour).

As we release this version, we're limiting the number of people who can switch over. (You'll see a link on your Blogger dashboard when you are able to move.) Eventually, of course, everyone will be able to transition their blogs to the new version. Thanks in advance for your patience as we roll it out.

If you can't wait, you can create a new account on the beta now and make a new blog to test out the new features. Because the new Blogger uses Google Accounts, you can use your existing Google login, or create a new one. (Later, you'll be able to merge your current and beta accounts, and have all your blogs in one place.)

I've tried it out and it looks easy to use and has some neat features, but they won't let you edit the html, yet and so the whole thing is useless for me until they do. I'm not using their templates so I have to be able to copy over my templates (I refuse to go back to blogger templates). It's fun to play with, though and you might want to set up a test blog to see what it looks like and get familiar with the new way to blog.

Updated to add: You guys who have had problems adding the blogroll, wait until you see how easy it is to upload the blogroll. I can't believe it. I just clicked on "add a page element" and in the window for the page element, which I named "Blogging Chicks," I put in the code for the blogroll and saved the changes and that was it. When I viewed the blog, the blogroll was there. Man, I can't believe how easy it was. Go set up a test blog, but don't move your blog over to the new system. It's only a beta system which means it's a test system. I'm sure there will be a lot of kinks to be worked out before it's really robust enough to trust your blog to it.

Miscellaneous Information

1. We will not be having a Carnival this week and in the fall through winter we will only be having the Carnival two times a month. More on that later in another post.

2. We now have 300 blogs on the blogroll.

3. I wanted to clear something up, Blogging Chicks isn't a meme blogroll like Thursday Thirteen or Saturday Photo Hunt. A Carnival isn't a meme, it's purpose is two-fold, introducing readers to new blogs and to promote your blog. It's meant to highlight your best writing and let people see that they should keep coming back for more.

Since it's not a meme, you don't have to visit every post and you don't have to comment on every post like you do on the other meme blogrolls. Visiting and commenting are nice and a source of encouragement but are not mandatory.

4. I spend a lot of time talking about TTLB and I don't mention Technorati at all. The reason for that, is that for a blog to improve the groups TTLB ranking they have to register but for Technorati, that's not the case. But of the two rankings, Technorati is the more crucial. If you haven't registered your blog for Technorati you should. You do get traffic from those who want a particular type of blog or who search on articles that you've tagged.

Your Technorati ranking should be in the 8,000's which sounds low but is really good. When I first registered with Technorati, mine was in the millions, so 8,000 is excellent. The Metablog is under 5,000.

I'm going to write a more technical post about tagging and stuff like that later since I was asked to write something on when you should tag a post.

5. Anna has an interesting article on a rarely diagnosed type of breast cancer that is particularly deadly. Go check it out to be prepared.

6. T has an article on AOL, if you have that service, you might want to read it.

7. And finally, would you please do me a favor? There is a guy, Mike, who has been so helpful to me with wordpress, trying to figure out how to get the blogroll on wordpress and even though he wasn't successful, he spent a lot of time trying. He has been so nice as to link to the Metablog for his female readers, could you please go to his blog and thank him for being so nice and promoting Blogging Chicks?

Updated for a stupid spelling mistake!!!!!!!

Carnival of the Blogging Chicks #10

Please don't forget to link to the Carnival on Sunday. I should be posting the Carnival by 12:30 1:00 am tonight.

We won't be having a Carnival next week but if you want to send me a link for the following week, go ahead.

If I forgot your entry, please email me.

Sometimes all you need to do is look up to have something extraordinary in your life. Pamela at The Dust Will Wait shares some pictures and a brief story of her friend Barb.

After last week's entry about how she loves the technical side of blogging, Lindsey over at Suspension of Disbelief received A LOT of questions regarding things that are confusing for many blogging chicks! So this week she's made up a nice, pretty list explaining these technical conundrums!

Amanda explains the name of her blog.

Do you ever feel like the Invisible Woman at your house? Shalee does, and she loves every second of it.

Finding Time and Creating Balance--Who couldn't use a little more time to do what you love to do and live a life with a lot more balance between work, play, being mommy, wife, friend, and chauffeur? Author and creativity coach Tasra Dawson offers three solutions that can give you more time to do what you love!

Rach at Dutch Femka spends time doing her favourite summer past time that reaps many tantilizing creations albeit not without some consequences.

Suzy says of her post, "I think know all things that Christ would want of me, without knowing all the facts. I'm learning all the time that what I believe and what is truth in God are two totally different things. Amazing how that works, isn't it?"

WARNING!!! Sentimentality ahead at Of Making Many Books! Rebecca tells of what happened Nine Years ago, Today.

From Lisa of Lil'Duck Duck, "The Continuing Adventures of a Toddler and his Duck"

According to CyberCelt, there is a prehistoric canyon in the Texas Hill Country...

Kristied over at Just Venting talks about a fun summer day with her son and his father. Nothing better than a tuckered out kiddo and some good fun!

Toilet paper can be serious business, especially when one's, er...system is...uh, overactive. Carol and her family appreciate this humble product from the bottom of their bottoms in She's Just Charmin(g).

Jeanne at At A Hen's Pace connects country music and her husband's midlife crisis.

Anna says of her post, "Our family loves my son's friend, Jake, to pieces despite his unusual genetic defect. Jake's good, but he can't top us."

Robin at PENSIEVE was surprised this post received so many comments. She confessed that since the last week before school didn't leave much time for writing, she's submitting it for the Carnival, hoping to hear any perspectives by Chicks who haven't already given their two cents. She also wrote a follow-up to the original post that completes the thought.

Maritzia talks about her mom and watershed moments in her life.

Debbie is taking a road trip. This is not an ordinary road trip; it is a bloggers road trip! We will visit some of my favorite blogs that I visit often. So get on board with me as I head out into the Blog-O-Sphere!All Aboard!

Janice from 5 Minutes for Mom has mixed emotions as she watches her four year old son Growing Up.

Polly at Life is a Buffet shows us how small the enemy is and how big our God is with "Itsy Bitsy Spider."

Do you envy how easy it is for kids to make friends? Jennifer, at Snapshot takes a look at Friendship in her post this week.

Michele of Life Under the Sun reviews Comeback, a book by Claire and Mia Fontaine.

Loni shares games children are playing that they are dying from, including the game that killed her 16 year old son.

Kailani of The Pink Diary asks "Who Needs Sleep Anyway?"

Melissa at Making Things Up deals with the excitement and terror of a missing blog (the whole thing, gone. No posts! No formatting! It was ugly).

Beth examines what it means to be friend when one of her good friends is recently hurt by another. What a gift friendship can be when treated with care!

Fivetimemom says of her post "Do you know anyone who feels as though the world owes them something? If so they may have victimitis virus."

Malissa invites you to peek inside her 5 year old son's nature
journal. Sunflowers are the topic this week.

Cathy looks at how her view of the world has changed since 9/11/01.

Catez reflects on coke shooting out of nostrils, sieving gnats, friendship, and what enjoyment means online and offline.

Dogfaceboy is spoiled, if not altogether ruined.

Heather's post "How I learned to stop worrying and love the south"

Carnival Icons

I've made icons with different colors to go with different template colors. If anyone wants a different color, email me the hex code of the color you want.

A new blog to the blogroll that you should check out

I've given up trying to announce all the new blogs that are added to the blogroll. Some days I add three or four, and that's way too many to try to announce. But I thought I would let you know about a new blog, Blog U, that will be helpful to us all since it's a techie blog. Go check out all her cool suggestions on how to improve your blog.

Thank YOU!!!!

Thanks for helping me make my goal! The Bear appears to have fixed the problems with his tracking software and now the new blogs on the blogroll are being counted. Yes! Those who have registered for Truth Laid Bear should all be Adorable Rodents now. Yes, again! And it isn't even the end of summer yet. A big thanks goes out to everyone who joined Truth Laid Bear, you have made me one happy blog owner. And I bet you have made many women on this blogroll very happy, as well.

And check out the Metablog, it's a Large Mammal!!!! (I hope this isn't a mistake :-)

Carnival of the Blogging Chicks #9 Blogging Love Theme

Please don't forget to link to the Carnival. And if you decide that you want to join in on the fun, email me a 1 or 2 line description of your post with a link to it.

Are you a real woman? Real women scrap AND blog...learn a few lessons on friendship, sisterhood, scrappin' and blogging at Tasra Dawson's blog: Lessons from the Scrapbook Page.

Lindsey from Suspension of Disbelief loves learning about the latest technology through reading blogs, and forming different and diverse friendships through writing on her blog and reading the blogs of her new bloggy friends!

Jennifer, Snapshot manages to continue her series, and merge the Wizard of Oz, blog-love, and a book review in Self-Confidence in Philippians.

Over a cup of tea, T. brings her blog opinions about current events, religion, and politics to the table, making a difference in the world one post at a time.

Debbie tells how blogging has become her way of self-expression about herself, her life, family, friends and so much more!

Nikkie writes about the many ways she loves blogging.

In Dreaming What Ifs... Karmyn R begins to wonder if her love of blogging is healthy. Sure there are tons of negatives. But in the end, it is the positives that far outweigh any argument that can be made against it!

Gina at Portrait of a Writer...Interrupted loves how blogging connects her with people all over the world. In fact, after you read this post, she's sure you'll be well connected too!

Robin was surprised to find a Parallel Universe she had no idea existed when she entered the blogosphere almost a year ago. She's been loving it ever since, although she didn't go "public" with her blog til Spring.

Polly at Life is a Buffet is blogging with love, but, what's with the clanging cymbal?

Anna loves blogging for the revenge.

Katrina at Callapidder Days loves to get comments on her blog posts. But she particularly enjoys receiving comments from someone named "Anonymous." Read all about it at Introducing...Anonymous.

Julie at Another Chance Ranch loves the reality part of blogging! Is it like the internet's version of a reality television show? Let her know what you think?

Lisa at Lil Duck Duck celebrates two months of captured memories through her blog.

Rachelle complains that blogging keeps her skinny but is happy that it also prevents her getting too much sleep in "Lack of TV and Too Many Friends."

Kim, from Balance My Chaos, loves blogging so much she participates in this carnival on vacation!

Kuanyin says of her post, "I have posted a photo of a joyful leaping dolphin. And I speak of the Carnival Coming to Town & My Blog and a sentence about joy."

Jen says of her post, "I love the chance to vent anonymously. I love seeing comments and linkies and getting to 'know' other bloggers. I like having a chance to practice writing skills in a non-threatening environment..."

Frazzled LaShawn loves everything about blogging and shows some love for one of her favorite reads.

It is trifold why Iris at Sting my Heart loves blogging. Sharing hope and encouragement her primary reason why she is blogging. Find out more in her post "Sharing the Truth."

CyberCelt writes about the unique tribe that wait for someone to visit, to comment, to validate their efforts, to share advice--TO CONNECT.

AmandaM at Imagine Bright Futures looks at how Liver Families' Forum members find a chance to chuckle in the midst of the seriousness of pediatric liver disease.

Michele of Life Under the Sun realizes that she loves the techy side blogging.

Heather asks, "Why blog?"

Flipflop Mamma's first carnival post. This is what she says of her blog,"My carnival post is up! The link to it is below. Here's a little blurb about my blog: I'm 28 years old and I live in Illinois. I have 2 beautiful daughters ages 10 years and 8 months. I am married to a pastor and loving it! I'm a little flip, a little flop, and a whole lotta mamma!"

JenLo at Thinks By Me says that what began as a way to stay in touch with her out-of-town family became a full-blown obsession that has become a daily habit.

Melissa at Making things Up stumbles upon what she likes about blogging while pondering the all-important question: Am I a mommyblogger?

Carolyn at A Prairie View reflects on how her life long history of journaling evolved into blogging. She sometimes falls into the "wannba" trap, but for the most part, knows she is accepted in the blogging world, and that is what she loves about blogging.

Malissa at Malissa's Merry Go Round explains why she blogs.

DCRMOM shares how she got started blogging and the challenges and surprises she has found along the way.

Dogfaceboy, of A Doggy's Life, shows, rather than tells, what she loves about blogging, in Yellow. (Of course she gives it away at the end, in case you missed it. And you might have.)

Marti was looking for a hobby.

It's a trip back in time for Julie Carobini as she talks about her love of blogging.

Samantha says, "I just want to share all the things that I love about blog-land! Things that make me happy, and things that touch me deeply..."

Karen at Changed by His Love recalls the reason for blogging in the first place and all those people who touch her life each day.

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Don't Make Me Link to Spammers

Please let me know when you delete your whole blog. I really don't like linking to spammers. It is never a good idea to delete your blog because every link on all your friends sites will be redirected not to your new blog but the guy who now owns your address. Let this be your object lesson.

Blogging Love Carnival

Here is the icon I plan to use:


I might put up others if you guys hate this one.

Please make sure you tell your readers, so far I've only gotten Blogging Chicks submissions.

Updates by Mail

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