granny~rectangle?

lapghan #3: Done

tinkering

So I decided to experiment with a few stitches and designs.  I came up with this, which might not look different from the other squares, but if you enlarge and look at the detail, you'll see a difference.

squares

What I did today?  Four squares toward lapghan #3:

lapghan #3, and so it begins

This is the first block for the next lapghan.  I wanted to show the back and also my nails that I had done today.  And of course, the front.  And my toes, at the end of my fat lil peasant foot!   I had a pedi today, too.  My leg seems impossibly long and it's just my shin...alllllllllllll in the perspective.  And yes, I need to shave.  Click to enlarge for detail {ya know, just in case you want to count the hair that is long enough to braid}.

border

lapghan #2, all but the edging

Yeah so I spread this out on the bed and I thought, "dude, there is something missing, what is missing?"  And then it occurred to me, the edging, debra, the edging.  And yes, that will tidy up the border of these squares and tie it all together.

twelfth square

Summer Solstice

  Look what my husband got for me!  It came today.  We saw it on a site dedicated to rescuing animals and saving pets.  It's a lovely windchime!  The autumnal leaves are ceramic, and I just love it.  I didn't realize how very awesome it would make me feel.  He's so sweet to me.

{sigh}

*blush*

square hat

I started to do a square, got lost in a movie, ended up with a hat instead.  Here is my stunning husband, modeling for me once again:

hip, hip to be square

Square #5

Pattern Binders

My printer is doing all sorts of fascinating stutters and whirring.  I think it may be dying.  This makes me sad {sniffle}.

So this means that I've been unable to print a few square patterns for a crochet~along I'm doing with a couple of fun ladies on~line.  Then I remembered late last night that I have binders.  This makes me happy {yea}!

I've not thought of these binders full of patterns in ... quite some time.  The one open on the table is full of granny squares.  The one closed is just dishcloths and doilies.  Since many of those items could be interchangeable, I got both binders out to start browsing thru.  This makes me pleased {humming}.

Also pictured are my other binders.  Afghans, filet, special stitches, sweaters, tunisian, knitting, looming, wearables, and something else that I'm not remembering right off the top of my head {I could go look, but I'm too lazy at the moment}.  Since it's been years since I opened these, I'm eager to see what's in them.  This makes me excited {grins}!

So today, and for the rest of the weekend, I plan to tinker about, looking thru these binders, picking patterns, crocheting squares to be used in lapghans for the VA Vets in Jackson, drinking tea, watching some TiVo'd CSIs, Criminal Minds, Law & Order, L&O:CI, and movies.  This makes me delighted {wahoo}!

hip to be square {squared}

See?  Doesn't this look nicer than the last post?  Well, at least different...

hip to be square

This square didn't turn out like the pattern, cuz I already reached 12"x12" well before the pattern does.  Hm.  I fix that, now!   While I go do that, here's this one:

lapghan #1, DONE

There are a few things I'd do differently, if I use this design again.  Like extend the blue field past the "S" or ya know, move the "S" to the left some so that the blue extends like it does behind the "U".  But here it is!

lapghan #1, inching along

I'm still slllllllllloooowly working on the lapghan.  There are about fifteen rows left.  These pix show what will be the back side of the lapghan cuz the letters that are coming along are "SU".  However the flip side, which will be the front, will feature something that makes so much more sense {"US"}, considering the theme of the lapghan and whom the recipient will be.

reading, yes READING, and crocheting {at the same time!!}

In my car, I carry a complete set of crochet hooks, scissors, stitch markers, round looms, etc.  This is so that if I have time to kill, I can work on a project.  Currently, my project that I've been working on here at home is the lapghan that I've graphed and it is NOT a project I want to be carrying around with me.

So this afternoon, after my appt this morning, I stopped at WalMart to get a skein of yarn so I could tinker around with doing some squares in the round {think granny~square alternatives}.  Red~Heart's Super~Saver Warm Brown was on clearance for two bucks per skein!  Yeah, I'm allllllllllllllllllllll about that.  So I scarfed up those seven skeins and gave myself high~fives all the way to the check~out.

Then I went to a coffee~shop located in a locally owned and managed book~store on Main Street.  I settled down with my skein and my hooks and got busy.  And quickly got bored.  Cuz there was nothing to occupy my other senses while my hands were flying around with the yarn.

But then my mind drifted to something it sometimes has been tossing and turning and tumbling around.  See, I always say that I listen to audio~books while crafting cuz I haven't mastered the whole reading while crocheting thing.  But my friend who is blind learned to crochet last year and the stuff she does is all granny~square.  Which when ya think about it makes sense, this would be the ideal; cuz you crochet into the space, not the loops of the stitches in the row below.  I thought, dude, if she can do this, with practice, I might be able to as well.

So I tried to feel with my fingers the space between stitch clusters and I discovered that with a few glances, I was able to do an entire cluster of three stitches {one square was double crochet and the next square was treble~crochet}.  I was all like, wow!  Dude, look at me!

So then I decided to put myself to the test and READ my book while doing the granny~squares.  I shocked myself!  I think with practice, I could really improve and fly right along.  It's like most any activity, gets better with practice.  I mean, how many times did you think when you were first learning to type, I WILL NEVER GET THIS!!  And now you just type/text without even paying attention all that much.

Also at the cafe were about twenty bridge~playing women.  A few came over and talked with me.  One of them said that her granddaughter just moved here and likes to crochet but cannot find anyone who does too.  So I gave her my number and confirmed that there aren't any crochet groups in the area {some church groups do some various crafts, yes}, there are a few quilting guilds, a few knitting circles, but no crochet groups.  I told her to tell her granddaughter to give me a call and we could get together and stitch a bit.

lapghan #1, half done {for real this time}

So here is the first lapghan, half completed.  The lower half, which is pictured here, is the heart of the Coast Guard emblem, a shield.  I designed the top half a few days back and am ready to get started on that.

Earlier today, my husband handed me a package from Knots of Love!  They're the organization for which I crocheted the ten hats to go to the Veterans.  Knots of Love had a nice lil welcome to the team package and note.  Way cool!

Sophie and Phredd, hanging out

My husband called my attention to the below scene.  I grabbed the camera and snapped this pic cuz it is just way too cute and sooooo appropriate.  Sophie hanging out with her best~bud, Phredd.

Avoiding the Twisties cont'd

What other options might be available to me when I am working with multiple color changes in the same row, Debra?  Answer me that!  Well, one method that comes to mind is one that works quite well for some folks.  They cut the yarn and later weave the ends in for each block of color in one row.  This doesn't really set well with me, cuz I find it a lil labor intensive and dislike having multiple ends poking out.  Plus with more ends, the risk of the piece unraveling is more likely.  That's not pretty.

Yeah, so, then ya say, "what the hell, Debra?  My afghan is getting to be too large to go flipping and it gets tangled cuz it's so heavy.  What now, huh?  huh?  HUH?"  Easy there, dudes!  Here's another thing that I do when my king~sized afghan progresses to a nice length and weight.

As I go along my row, when I'm done with that ball of yarn color for the row, I actually just plop it down on the piece.  And the next one and so on and so on.  When I finish the row, all my balls or skeins of yarn are now actually sitting on the piece.  Are ya ready?

I spin the piece around so that the left is now the right and the right is now the left.  It's a 180 degree spin, that makes the end now the beginning.  I'm all ready to start the new row.

The last time I worked on a large project where this was the case, my husband had asked me to come into the kitchen and I said, "ok, just let me finish tucking in my balls" referring to the yarn and the piece before I spun it around and got it ready to start the new row.  Things got really quiet as my husband cleared his throat and said, "come again?"

snicker.  I take the chuckles where I find them, ya know?

One year since the wreck

Long time readers will know that my husband and I met in mid~December 2008, married at the end of October 2009, and then my husband was involved in a wreck in mid~June 2010.  He made an amazing recovery and many things have happened and changed and strengthened in our relationship as a couple, and personally as individuals, since then.  Most stuff is in this blog, but quite a bit of stuff is not; cuz it wasn't my info to share and most of the drama was just that...drama that wasn't and isn't ours.

I'd planned to take my husband to a steakhouse for dinner Friday as a surprise, to celebrate his wonderful recovery and what an amazing man he is.  But he really had a stressful day and even left work early so that he could come home and work outside.  The physical activity helped him blow off some steam and get rid of some of his frustration and lingering ickyness from earlier in the day.

So I decided to take him to Old Hickory on Saturday afternoon/evening {they don't open til 4p}.  Before we had gone for dinner, while I was running some errands and picking up some produce; my husband spent the morning outside doing some very nice sharp detailing to our yard.  He enjoys doing that and it's a point of pride of ownership.  It's also a celebration of how far he has come in this past year.

Also before dinner, we worked with some Great Stuf {very sticky spray foam which expands and hardens, making a good insulation for gaps and such}.  It's a two person job to clean up before it gets too tacky and move quickly enough so that the foam doesn't block the application tube, rendering the can useless.  Next weekend, he'll paint the new crown moulding we plan to use as trim around the opening between the breakfast nook and kitchen.  He wants to install it then too.  Our home has settled over the years and the reroofing has revealed a bit of a gap between the halves of the main part of the house.  So we're addressing that properly instead of just slapping something up to cover it...it's our peacefully soothing home and we want to keep it that way.



Yesterday, late afternoon, I took him to Old Hickory, a small steak house in Columbus, MS.  If you've any taste for steak, you will love this place.  I've not been for a few years, but have always enjoyed it, whenever I've been there.  We had a great meal and were able to relax for awhile.

Then we drove around and visited a few sites that will be interesting to spend more time at in the future.  When we finally did come home, we watched a movie that he'd TiVo'd from the free channel.  It stormed a bit and we felt all nice and snug under our new roof.  We were a lil disappointed that we didn't hear rain falling on the metal roof, but that means that there most likely is more insulation than we had thought and that's a good thing!

As we were snuggling down for the night, my husband said that he was glad to have had the afternoon and evening, but let's not celebrate the wreck on an annual basis.  I agreed.  We are ready to put it behind us and continue moving forward.

Today, I've done a lil crocheting on the graphed lapghan, but to tell the truth, I'm a bit bored by it right now.  I don't want to set it aside, as then I won't dig it out again and it will languish as a work~in~progress, perpetually.  So I'm gonna get started working on it again and maybe the fun of it will come back and replace some of the residual unease from Friday's stresses.

All in all, it was a great weekend!  I hope yours is too!

Avoiding the Twisties

Some folks have asked various questions regarding working with various skeins of yarn and I thought I'd address some of them here in my blog.  This is a long post, but eventually I get to the subject of how to avoid twisting and tangling and knotting up your yarn when working with multiple skeins.  I promise.

First off, there are various ways that you can change color and continue to work with them, when using multiple colors in the same row.  Two of the more popular methods are entrelac and intarsia.  Without going into great detail about those methods let me sum them up here:  one method involves carrying the unused yarn along within the stitches til you need to use it again and the other method involves dropping the unused yarn til you need it in the next row.

The method I developed for me is a combination of the two.  I actually didn't realize that there was an intarsia and had never heard of entrelac til sometime last year.  Up til then, I just did what I thought made sense to me, when handling various colors within the same row.  There are other methods besides these so if you find one that works for you, there are no crochet police coming to force you to switch from your method to another, k?  I promise.

I don't usually like to carry the unused yarn over great distances cuz you can see it thru the stitches {well, I can, you can too if I point it out to you, which I'm likely to do cuz I'm like that girl that goes, "is my cowlick noticeable?" except with yarn and my other creative pursuits~~you will never hear me ask, "does my butt look big?" but you will hear me say, "dude, that yarn there is soooOOOooo obvious, isn't it?" and of course you have to say yes, cuz now that I've pointed it out, how can you not see it? hm?  yeah, that's what I thought too}.  I don't like to carry the unused yarn for only a few stitches, cuz I think the tension gets weird {not the mood, but the actual tension or tightness/looseness of the yarn and the stitches}.  I'm sure some folks are all like, dude, I never see the unused yarn when I carry it.  And that's great!  For them.  It most likely is cuz they have a really tight tension, whereas most of my stuff is meant to be drapey and have a looser tension so that you are more likely to actually use the afghan instead of letting it cover the back of the sofa while you grab a more cozy comfortable blanket to drape over your shoulders and lap and cuddle and snuggle into.

Wait, was that bitchy of me?  Yes, most likely it was.  So let me restate:  if it works for you, great!  I'm saying what my experiences are and my preferences and why {which links back to experiences, see how that all works together?  yeah, I thought so too!}.  Besides, you can quit reading any time and go check out some other really cool sites on crochet, techniques, stitches, yarn, etc.  I won't get upset.  I promise.

So the other method, the dropping the unused yarn and changing over to another color method, often yields incredibly ugly messes with a definite back or "wrong side" of the piece.  Many people find this totally acceptable and take care not to wear their stuff inside out or make their beds with the ugly side of the afghan showing.  Me, I like my work to look just as good on both sides.  It's my preference cuz I want all my pieces to look good, no matter which way you hold it, wear it, use it, etc.  To me, it's more practical not to worry if the ugly side is up or am I holding this right or displaying this side or what...that's just how anal I can be.

So I work with multiple skeins when necessary.  One skein for each section of color in each row is preferable.  It yields a nicer, more consistent, beautiful piece.

Now, as to the actual method I use, mostly it is a drop the unused yarn; but instead of twisting the yarns when changing colors and leaving an ugly mess, I pick up the unused yarn from the row before and carry it thru the few stitches in the new row to the new location where it will be used.  I'll explain and demonstrate this in some other future post.  I promise.

So that's one way I avoid the twisties.  However, I think that what most folks want to know about avoiding tangles is how to keep the multiple skeins from getting all wonky~weird when I flip the work over to start on the next row.  PRACTICE!

Actually, since I have a large table to spread my work on, I take advantage of that.  I very rarely hold large pieces in my lap and settle into a recliner and work that way.  If I did that, I certainly would not be working on eleven skeins at the same time.  It'd be a huge mess and very frustrating, which is soooOOOoooooooo not the reason I crochet.  In fact, I crochet to help me destress from those things I find frustrating.  As for messes?  I think we all know how I feel about them.  {shudder}  Don't we?  yeah, I thought so too.

So I have the piece with all eleven skeins connected to one row and am at the end of that row, ready to flip the piece and start working on the next row {scroll down to a few previous entries and view the pix of this latest project for a visual of what this looks like}.  How do I do this?  Okey dokey, first, I tend to flip by moving the left side of the project over the right and moving the right under and toward the left, simultaneously.  However you flip, do what works for you.  There is no right or wrong way, I promise.

Now, all the yarn is crossed over and seems like it could tangle and get messy, but it's not at the moment.  So what I do is I pick up the skein all the way to the left and move it over to the far right, that becomes the first skein.  Then I pick up the next skein all the way to the left and set it down to the left of the first skein {the one I just set down to the right side of the work}.  That skein becomes the second skein from the right.  Then I pick up what has become the last skein on the left and move it over to the right, setting it down to the left of what is now the second skein from the right.  That skein I just moved is now the third skein from the right.  I continue in that fashion til I've reached the last skein that had been the very first skein on the far right of the previous row.  Then I am ready to start to crochet the new row.

If this sounds confusing, line up some objects in front of you.  Say it's crayons.  Your old row is like this, viewing them left to right, just like you most likely read:
red orange yellow green blue purple

You are going to flip the work over to start on the new row now.  So you flip your work.  Now you need to line up the skeins with the current segments so that you don't get your yarn all twisted and tangled.  So you move the red skein on the left all the way to the right.  Now your row of yarn skeins look like this:
orange yellow green blue purple red

Next you move the last on the left, orange, to the right and place it on the left of the first skein, red.  It looks like this:
yellow green blue purple orange red

Next you move what has become the last skein on the left, yellow, to the right and place it to the left of what has become the second skein from the right.  So now it looks like this:
green blue purple yellow orange red

Now you continue that until you end up with what started off as the very first skein on the far right of the previous row, purple {see the first strip which had been your old row}, being your left most skein for your new row.  It will look like this:
purple blue green yellow orange red

Hopefully this makes sense to you!  Reread and follow along with the last few paragraphs and give it a try as you do it.  Take it step by step and it should feel more comfortable.  If not, lemme know, k?  I'll clarify.  I promise!!

Roofing, day 3

All but done:

lapghan #1, half done

This is just short of half done.  I need to do a few more rows of stripes and then the solid blue field that forms the top portion of the shield.  Then the first lapghan for the VA in Jackson, Mississippi will be completed.

reroofing, day 2

So, there is a new roof on the addition, and they did the back half of the main house and a portion of the front.  I went out to see how they were doing around 3:30pm, cuz they've been here since 6am and with this heat {103F}, I figured they'd be beat.  And they are.  But they cleaned up the yard, wrapped all the supplies up, threw a tarp over everything, and put their tools away.  I glanced over and saw this and just HAD to post it!  It's the dying plum tree that my husband cut and one of the roofer's hat and sunglasses.  I love it!

Here's a view of the back and a portion of the front:

lapghan #1

Okey dokey, so what I posted the other day was a first~try mini~version of a graph that I did of the heart of the Coast Guard emblem, the shield.  Mine only has nine stripes versus the thirteen on the shield.  I'd asked my husband {a retired Coastie} if he thought anyone would be offended by my not having the exact number of stripes.  He'd said that he didn't think so.  I might go ahead and revamp the graph so that I can have the shield be more accurate on the next time around.


But for the time being, here is the second attempt at using the graph, the first time I'm making it to lapghan size.  Here are the first few rows at the bottom.  See how much straighter my stripes are?



These lapghans are for the VA in Jackson, so that the vets can choose a lapghan that is special to them.  I plan to incorporate or isolate elements from the official emblem of all five branches of the service.  Plus do a few that are patriotic {red, white, and blue}, a few that are green/brown camo themed, a few that are black/white, a few that are featuring blues, etc.  And I probably will do a few that are more feminine too, cuz not all our vets are manly men.

reroofing, Day 1

I am very impressed with these roofers.  They came in the morning, replacing the roof as they go, fixing rotted underlying areas, non~invasive, low~chatter, fast, clean, clean, clean, and great work.  Tomorrow they will be here bright and early, which means Sophie will start to actively guard the house with lil barks and running about inside.  So I'll be ready to get up early too.  Here's what they did today:

mah crojo? it ain't workin'

Dude, this has got to be the best statement, evah; cuz it is so appropriately descriptive {sigh}. 

My crojo ain't workin'!

David Burchall over at "A Yarnified Life", the master of all things slip~stitch crochet, coined this {well, as far as I know} and I am loving it!  Cuz I can't tell ya how frustrating it is for me not to be able to clearly convey the state in which nothing yarny is coming together for me.  And in one crystal clear moment, aha!  I see exactly what he means.  It's such an apt statement.  Thanks, David~dude, for imparting this nugget.  I will use it wisely.

failed.

Well, I'm not too happy with this, I think that I need to tinker with it some more.  I was going to start lapghans for the dude{tte}s at the VA hospital in Jackson, MS.  So I was graphing out some of the emblems from all the branches of the service so that the Vets could choose a lapghan that was special to them.  In addition, I am going to do some lapghans that feature the good ol' US of A's red, white, and blue color schematic.  However, I did the center shield, the heart, of the Coast Guard emblem earlier and I must say that I am not too pleased with the technique I used for this.  I think I might have to do something else in order for the vertical bars to look like stripes and not wavy smears.  I have a plan tho, actually, I have several.  I will make this right, I promise!

zennioptical.com

A few folks have asked about where I got my specs and I got them from www.zennioptical.com  Zenni is wonderful!  A few years ago, I checked out their site and discovered way too many choices with all sorts of options.  I thought about it and decided that since most of the eye~places you go are not places that grind and fit your lenses, but rather they often send off to someplace like Zenni themselves and then mark up the same pair of glasses lots; well I thought I'd give Zenni a shot.

So last fall, my husband's daughter was staying with us for a few months.  She needed some glasses.  So she went to a local examiner and brought a copy of the prescription home with her.  Then she browsed thru Zenni's thousands of frames and saw the options they gave her.  She uploaded a picture of her face so that she could try on the glasses and then picked out a pair.  She ordered them and they came in a few weeks, for less than fifteen dollars.

A few months later, my husband had his eyes examined for free on~campus {he is an employee and a doc was doing free eye~exams for students, staff, and faculty}.  Then he too went to Zenni, uploaded a pic of his face, found some frames he liked, and placed an order for two different pairs.  He wears bifocals, and both pairs ended up running about $65 together.  You can see one pair in the pix where he is modeling my hats.  Now I want to be clear, he prefers bifocals, but there are also progressive lenses available at the site {that's the sort that don't include the line but rather are gradual change from far sight at the top to close up at the bottom}.

So a few weeks ago, I got my eyes examined.  I asked the dude to also note my pupillary distance {PD is the distance your pupils are from the center of your nose, or from pupil to pupil when staring straight ahead}.  If you forget to ask for this, you can note it yourself.  You can either mark it on the mirror or have a friend measure, it will be in millimeters.

Then I went to Zenni, uploaded a pic of my face, and tried on pairs til I found some I really liked.  Now, for some, uploading a pic of their face might not give them the same feeling of security that they get from actually trying the frames on.  For me, I hated being at the place and then the person would plop a pair of blank frames and say, "how'dya lahk em?"  Ok, dude, I'm there at the eye~place cuz I need glasses, which means I can't see the frames you just plonked on my face unless I get two inches from the mirror, so I can't really tell ya that, now can I?  Some folks really like that option tho and they might take someone with them who can say, "stunning, darlin', you are sooooOOOooo stunnin'!"  In which case, I suggest trying on some frames, jotting down the numbers/brand and looking them up online later.

Or ya know, have that friend take a pic with their phone and then go home and find a comparable pair online.  It seems most everyone has phones that take pix and all sorta other apps.  Me?  I use a cell for emergency purposes to actually make or receive calls.  But I'm a technophobe of sorts.

I digress.

So after I decided what I wanted.  I placed the order.  Now it is on the order form that you will notice a butt~load of options.  I chose to have a pair of prescription with 80% tinted lenses.  You can choose no tint, or 20%, 40%, 60%, or 80%.  There are different types of tints too.  I choose rose, but there is brown, gray, amber, blue, etc.  Also, if you want to have the magnetic sort of shades that can be placed onto your clear glass frames, you can do that.

Options, options, options.

Also, frames start at $6.99 and move up to $9.99, $12.99, and so forth.  Mine were $6.99 frames.  There are lots of frame styles to choose from, but I liked the one style so much, that I got two pairs of the same style.  They are different colors, but the same style.  Both pair, one Rx~sunglasses, and shipping were $28.

After I ordered, it took two weeks to receive the glasses.  That was cuz they contacted me via eMail to make sure that I'd entered my Rx correctly.  To make sure that I really did mean -5.00 and not -0.50.  Since I can be fanatic about record keeping, I went to my files and compared older prescriptions with the current one.  My eyes haven't changed all that much, and yes, it was -5.00.  But I did appreciate Zenni asking, just to make sure.

Zenni sends the glasses in their own cases in a bubble~bag.  They send it confirmed confirmation delivery.  You don't need to sign for them, the mail~dude just scans it in and confirms that the envelop was delivered.

And that's the story of Zenni and the Wolf pack.

meet Phredd

Sophie, our lil chiweenie, is now eight months old.  Her favorite toy was an elongated dachshund~like monkey~faced squeaky that also gave monkey~ahh~ohh~ah~AHHAHAHHHz if squeezed in just the right spot.  We called the monkey "George" and Sophie LOVED that thing.  When I first brought it home for her in January, it was actually longer than she was.  She has grown over the last few months, so she now is bigger than George.  Well, Sophie started choking the other day and I pried out some fuzz from her lil throat.  I examined George and he was missing a bit of stuffing from just behind his neck, where Sophie would put a strangling hold on him.

After I put him up on the counter, Sophie sat just beneath him and whined and whimpered and sounded rather sad and pathetic.  So I asked Jerry to get Sophie another similar toy, but he'd already put it on his list.  Great minds think alike!

So meet Phredd!  Phredd is considered a loofah~dog by MultiPet International.  Loofah~dogs come in different lengths, colors, etc.

Sophie loves him!  She grabbed him out of Jerry's hand and raced with him to the chair and settled her body down next to his and started to nosh on his ears right off.  Phredd is a good bit bigger than George was, once again, being longer than Sophie.  We don't think Sophie will grow much bigger, she's pretty much topped her range at fifteen pounds.  She already has designated Phredd as her favorite toy, placing him on her lil bed when she is done playing with him.

Feed the Blitz, getcher alerts here!

Some of you are automatically eMailed my entries as I post them.  However, I only have ten addresses that may go into that internal service in my blog.  So I'd like to let you know how you too can set up a wonderful account with FeedBlitz so that you can do what all the cool kids do {and by that I mean me, cuz I'm a cool kid in my own book, regardless of my own techno~phobic ways}.

There are several blogs and other websites that I really like, but don't want to check continuously for updates.  I have a life and other better more important things to do, like ponder my ever expanding belly~button which seems to be getting deeper as I get fatter.  So, I use FeedBlitz.

Here's what happens:  I think, "oh hey!  I really like this uber~kewl site!"  So I go to my account with FeedBlitz and add the site to my subscriptions.  Then whenever there is a new post to that site, I get a notification in my eMail with the entire new entry!  Wahoo!

This works for any site that has new info posted, when it is posted.  Did I say, "wahoo!" yet?  Yes, I did!  And I'll say it again!  Wahoo!

"Well," you say, "it sounds sorta complicated, Debra...why would I want to do such a thing?"  No, I say, it may sound sorta complicated, but it's not!  Here's the skuupp so that you too can be like me, uber~kewl kidz unite!

If ya look to the left, you'll see a bar of links.  One of the is "Feed the Blitz, Getcher Alerts Here!".  Click on it and you will go here:  http://www.feedblitz.com

Once there, you can poke around the site and learn all about FeedBlitz or you can immediately say, "well, hey, Debra recommends it, so that's good enough for me" and start setting up your FREE account.  Register here.

The screen will have three places for you to complete.  One is your eMail address.  Then you enter your password for your new FeedBlitz account {choose a different one than the one you use for your eMail account, k?  or not, 'sup ta ya!}.  Then re~enter that same password for your new FeedBlitz account.  Go to your eMail, check it for a message from FeedBlitz, open it, click on the lil link that should open and confirm a new account with FeedBlitz for you.

Easy peasy?  Why, yes, it was!

Now, there are TONS of things you can do with FeedBlitz, but I primarily use it to get my alerts of new postings sent to my eMail.  To do this, you just go under "subscriptions" and copy/paste the link to that page or blog or site from which you want to receive updates.  For instance, for my blog, you would put "http://debrasdose.blogspot.com" into the appropriate space that asks for which site you would like to subscribe.

Then the next time I post an entry, you will receive an alert and copy of my post to your eMail from FeedBlitz.  Easy peasy?  Why, yes!

Now, if for some reason you still say, "Debra, that is way to complicated for me...what can I do?"  A couple of things, one option is that you can grab some ultra~techophile and say, "here, read this entry and do it for me!"  Another option is for you to just bookmark my site and continue to check it.  Another option is that you can add it to your blogroll if you also have a blog with blogger/blogspot.  Another option is to .... well you get the idea.

Now, if I already have you listed on my internal service and you have been receiving my posts in your eMail, don't worry.  You'll still continue to receive the eMails.  However, do keep in mind that I am limited by blogger/blogspot to ten eMail addys for my archives.  That's why I urge you to set up a FeedBlitz account so that you can receive all your alerts and not just mine.  Cuz ya know, I've run out of my allotment.  And just added the last person I will be adding.  However if you do create an account and opt for another way to receive your alerts that I've posted a new entry, please let me know so that I can take your address off my internal archiving system, k?  Much appreciated!

You can let me know by leaving a comment or eMailing me.  See on the left?  Where it says, "View my complete profile"?  Click on it, it will take you to...uhm...my complete profile.  Once there, on the left under "contact" it says "eMail".  Click on that and wow! there is my eMail address.  k?  K!

Go, go now!  Do it!

By the way, the short list of "blogs I follow" on my profile is not accurate.  Why?  Cuz most of the blogs I do follow are listed thru my FeedBlitz so that I receive the alerts that way.