Terry

Welcome to the blogging world. I've done a lot of writing over the last 10 years, earned a fair amount of compensation for that writing however, I don't consider myself a writer--I'm still working on it. I say that because I want to put into perspective the greater sense of freedom I feel when writing a blog post--there are no deadlines, no editors, no focus groups, (no audience to please ;) )

I find writing a blog post very liberating compared to fulfilling a contractual assignment. I think it is just plain fun. You may feel that way too. For me, personally, writing to a forum like this one is a bit more difficult because I know that someone will look over what I've written in a short time. With a blog you just never know--unless you start getting a lot of comments. (Perhaps I should be more discerning; I often find awful stuff in my old blog posts--especially the ones that I thought were good :oops: .)

As for your blog. here's a couple of suggestions. Switch over to Wordpress.com as jmcg suggested. You'll be able to generate a much cleaner blog. They have many more sample themes to draw from and have a number of very special media tools like a slide show tool that I think you'll like since it appears that your posts are photo inspired. Pay close attention to your photos---make sure they work with your theme and stay away from border line photos as much as possible (I know that is hard). Think about linking your photos into a story---it's still all about a story if you want folks to read your blog. (You might not care, your blog may be your own form of a journal. Finally, be sure to use the tag and categories features of a blog. It may not seem like it but as your blog grows you are going to find that your viewers will be relying more on the searching capabilities of your blog and by tagging posts you'll bring search engines into "old material". Don't let your blog get busy with all the sidebar stuff. Keep that stuff to a minimum--it only detracts. Stick with the photos and the storyline and pretty soon you'll have a repository of treasured memories that you, your family, and your fans will cherish.

BW