My Facelift

Okay, not mine really. Blogalicious has had a makeover. It's her birthday so something new seemed in order. I wanted a more open look, something less boxed in. One thing that prompted me to make the change was that YouTube has enlarged their videos, so the last one I posted was too large for my posting area and extended beyond the margin which was ugly. Collin Kelley clued me in on how to fix that by adjusting the html code, and I made it work. But I kind of liked the larger video. 

Thus began a few days of experimenting with new looks. As you can see, I've stuck with the same color scheme. I want my blog to sort of match my website. I know that's alarmingly compulsive, but there you have it.

One thing I could not get with this new template is lower case letters in the header, footer, dates, and a few other places. I'm not keen on all caps, so if anyone knows how to adjust that, please clue me in. Also I'd like a line separating one post from another and could have that if I retained the border that is part of this template. But that messed up my header. It's there but you can't see it as I made it the same color as the background. Unfortunately, that eliminated (or colored over) the borders between posts. I'm fooling around with putting in a line in the post layout window, but am not sure it will look right. So bear with me through a few posts. Beauty comes at a price.

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Happy Birthday to Blogalicious

Today is my blog's first birthday. It was exactly one year ago that I launched this blog. I did so with some trepidation. Would I be using up time that I ought to be spending on other endeavors? Would I write fewer poems? Would I be taken less seriously as a poet if I became a blogger? Would anyone bother to visit my blog?

I'm happy to say that starting a blog has been a very good experience. Sure, I guess I should be off right now cleaning something or reading something, but those things will get done (okay, maybe the cleaning won't get done). I don't write any more poems than I did before the blog, but I don't think I write any less either. One thing's for sure—I've written a lot more on a variety of topics, stuff I would never have written without the blog. In fact, in the past year, I've written 138 posts! Whoever thought I'd turn into such a blabbermouth.

I can't say if anyone takes me less seriously as a poet now that I'm a blogger too, but I can say with certainty that I continue to take myself quite seriously. And I've certainly bought and read more poetry, some of it because of exchanges here on the blog.


I think I'm more observant. I'm listening carefully for topics that might be useful on the blog. I read more carefully, again thinking about some response I might make on the blog. I pay more attention to books and chapbooks now that I might want to feature one on the blog. I take more photos as I love adding visual effects. That kind of makes life more fun. And really, that's what I enjoy about blogging, i.e., it's fun. I've made contacts with lots of people I've never met and I've learned a thing or two. And I like to think that I've put a few poems out into the world that maybe you hadn't seen and that I've helped a few poets sell a few books.

Like that baseball field, it seems that once I built it, people came. Readers have come from all across the US: Oklahoma, Missouri, California, Massachusetts, Florida, and so on. And they've come from outside the US: Canada, Scotland, Germany, India, Holland, Brazil, and Singapore.

Please, have a piece of cake before you leave!

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