Tales From The Bonny Blue House

Catholic New Media Awards

I'm really thrilled to have been nominated for a Catholic New Media Award in, get this, Funniest Blog category!  I love it. I'd rather be funny than anything else so I was just delighted, thank you to whomever nominated me.

Another thrill is that O Night Divine is again nominated in the best group blog category. This is a thrill for me since the Advent blog is a true labor of love and I am blessed by some of the most talented writers in the blogosphere as contributors.

There are many categories and many nominees in each, here are some that I love.

People's Choice
Catholic Mom

Best Blog by a Religious
Fr. Z's blog What Does Prayer Really Say

 Best Written Blog
Sierra Highlands
Shower of Roses
In the Heart of My Home
Via Media - Amy Welborn
(This category is going to give me some trouble, I love these four blogs)

Most Spiritual Blog
In the Heart of My Home
Danielle Bean
Shower of Roses
(Eeek, how to choose?)

Best New Blog
Building Cathedrals

Best Blog by a Woman
House Art Journal ( I get giddy excited when Regina Doman posts to her lovely home blog)

Best Group Blog
Catholic Cuisine
(This blog really deserves the recognition since it does such a beautiful job of leading us all to a more Liturgical lifestyle.)
O Night Divine

There are many more excellent blogs and many more categories but computer time is limited these busy days.  Please go over the site and check them all out

Faith and Family Live

I had a guest blogging gig over at Faith and Family Live today. I am really grateful for the opportunity to be part of such a great blog.

 

We are experiencing

technical difficulties.

The picture of our house in the previous post is viewable in Firefox but not Internet Explorer. I have been having a huge amount of trouble loading pictures to the blog from my new camera and even images from the web.

Any suggestions would be appreciated...

My even newer look

Do you love my new banner? Isn't it pretty? I love it. Alas I can take no credit. My new wonderful friend Amber took the picture I lamely stuck up there and did amazing things to it and now look. I feel so put together now.

Thank you Amber, you are the best!!!

New Look for Autumn

If you are reading this through a reader such as bloglines you might want to click through and see our new look for autumn.  This is particularly pleasing to me since I was actually able to do it myself without bothering my more typepad savy friend who is incredibly busy unpacking. She gave me such a great tutorial last time that I was able to change the banner with very little difficulty.

What I can not seem to manage, and it's driving me nuts, is changing the text in the banner. I would prefer that it be at the bottom of the picture and that it not be white. I can't figure out how to do this. Anyone with the secret, please share!

I have put some of our autumn reading selections in the sidebar and I will be updating them more over the next few days.

Have a blessed evening.

Sitemeter

Apparently having Sitemeter on my sidebar was preventing people who use Internet Explorer from viewing my blog.  I'm so sorry I'm the last person left on earth to figure this out. A few people emailed me about it but since they used the word Sitemeter in the RE: section of the email it was shuttled over to my spam folder.

Sheesh.

I deleted Sitemeter so all should be well now.

Thank you

From the bottom of my heart for all the kind words and prayers offered for this pregnancy. It means the world to us.  I tried to email everyone back but I know I missed a bunch. The fact is it's been hard to lift my head of the pillow and be coherent the last week and a half. The morning sickness has been relentless. So if I missed you please click on this and enjoy my sincerest thanks.

It is absolutely maddening to me that the text that I carefully lined up with the photos in my previous post will not stay that way when I save the post. It is driving me nuts.

Just so you know...

Links and New Stuff

I'm not feeling particularly inspired today so I'm going to direct you to some places I enjoy.

You've all heard me speak of Best Friend In The World (BFITW) and now you can know her yourself at her blog Burning the Candle at Both Ends. You'll see some familar faces there since many of her children's pictures have appeared here. 

If you haven't already pop over and offer congratulations to Suzanne and Elizabeth on their wonderful, big, huge, enormous news.  I'm jealous.

Cay Gibson has another wonderful idea. Go over and visit Author Fiesta. Every month Cay will explore a new children's author and/or artist. She even included a download to use as a binder cover. It's a wonderful idea from a very creative lady.

I can't get Jennifer's socks out of my head. They are so beautiful, I might have to endure the torture of trying to do this.

Check out some pictures of the rehearsal for Twelfth Night, our homeschool group's spring production. Here are pictures of last year's performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Here is a free presidential elections lapbook download. Thanks Julie!  The whole site is a treasure trove.

Meredith is posting Daily Devotions to Our Lady. Meredith really loves our Blessed Mother and she is so talented at leading our children to Mary. She has some beautiful things posted there.

Some blogs that are new to me, I'm enjoying them immensely..

Pleasant View School House
Beauty That Moves
Nesting Place (total eye candy)
Catholic Cuisine - This one is so much fun. A bunch of talented ladies got together and are posting recipes for feast days. It's a wonderful idea and really well done.
Warm Pie Happy Home - She has a kitchen to die for!

Hope you find something to delight you.

Have a blessed day.

Under Construction

The blog that is. If you've visited in the past 48 hours you might have noticed some weird goings on.  Sidebars changing colors, pictures disappearing and reappearing, text getting larger and smaller.

I have no idea what I'm doing.

Fortunately I have a friend who is waaaay smarter than I am and very generous in sharing her knowlege. She actually took time this morning, from her busy day, and walked me through some changes on the phone.

Thank you Meredith.

Over the next few days I'll be updating and fixing up the sidebars, which are shamefully out of date.

Let me know what you think of the new picture. I took it last spring and it just reminds me so much of spring here in the bonny blue house. We move into deck schooling mode and spend as much time in the yard as possible. I also hang most of our laundry and this year I think I'm going to need another line. The 100 feet we have just isn't cutting it anymore.

Thanks for all of the emails and prayers, we are recovering slowly. I do think that we will cough until summer though.  The cough is relentless.

Have a blessed day.