blogging dilemma!

Those of you who blog,have you ever faced the dilemma of  "To write or not to write" a particular topic!
There are so many articles I read which I want to write in my own words,expressions,interpretations but I feel the twinge of guilt for possibly being a plagiarist!.....................I feel awful taking on somebody else's idea & churning my own post out of it!
But then I saw this.......

I love love this...............the deep meaning behind these seemingly simple lines especially this one "Authenticity is invaluable,originality is non-existent"

Most of us bloggers are no writers,we just come here to pour our hearts out..................there are SO many times I have deleted my posts because I felt I was sounding like some other post I read & admired.................I need to let go & realize the fine line between copying & getting inspired enough to write it in your own words!


I blog for myself,my friends,YOU & I am sure you are not judging me by my posts ,the occasional poor grammar,the overtly simple unimpressive language,sometimes I have nothing to say but just rant about things not being as I want them to.............................sometimes I just DO NOT want to write anything & my blog sits like the neglected wife when the other things in life take over me like the possessive mistress!

How do I deal with it................I am learning to let things go,not get worked up if I don't post for a while,if my blog is not picture perfect,if my posts look like a shadow of another famous blog!
And at the same time accept that it is OK!.............I have no idea what triggered my mood to get serious & write this which I usually don't but I am learning that it is also OK to share by deeper darker thoughts with you all instead of the happy,lighter moments I usually do!

Free twitter icons

OOhhhhhhhh......................I found the cutest twitter icons .They are so much cuter than what you get at the twitter site itself.Have a look.

 You can get these icons from here....http://www.productivedreams.com/free-twitter-bird-icon-set/
Look at these too

Available here.........http://www.smashingmagazine.com.
Have fun uploading them:)
Oh...........do you know how to do that??????
I didn't:).................well this is how you can.

Adding a favicon to your blog

Have you noticed that some blogs have a very snazzy icon in the URL instead of a regular e in blogger blogs?????

See mine.I have a flower from my header.............this is called a favicon.I always wondered how some blogs had it, it really stands out.I recently found that it's called a favicon,I tried to find a tutorial on how to do it & frankly most of them were very confusing!.

I did not want to mess with my html with no idea of the output!!!!!
Finally I figured out how to do it & decided to share it with you all:)

The problem I faced was all the tutorials asked to upload some icon pic......now where  to get a pic which matches your blog that too in such a small size had me baffled & I didn't want to add any random pic!!!
Now the tutorials ask you to insert the URL of your icon file,here's how you can find the URL.
Go to your header,it is the picture at the top of your blog,right click it & click on the option "View background Image" .The image will open up without the text,this is what I got for mine.

All you have to do is now copy the URL of this pic & replace it in this tutorial.Its amazing,the code chooses a part of the big pic itself,I have no idea how!!! But as long as it matches with the theme of my blog I really don't care how:)
Its just 1 step coding & voila!!!!!

I also made a banner from this pic using picnik.Those of you who do not know what picnik is ,it is an online photo editing service,very simple & effective.It allows you to upload photos from your computer or from website that you have accounts with like facebook , myspace ,flickr. You can then edit and add a lot of special effects to the photos.I am a lousy lousy photographer but picnik has saved many a pics of mine;)
I made this banner to join top mom blogs ,ain't it cool:)

Adding navigation pages

I found this totally cool way to add navigation pages to the blog:))))Doing a happy dance right now;)
It looks so much more cool.............& professional.See at the bottom of my page,you will see this

Want to get this?????...................I wish I could say I designed it but despite being an engineer the only coding I can do is apply others codes to my blog from tutorials:(

But still its better to copy from FREE tutorials instead of having a plain old boring blog!
This is where you can get the tutorial.Actually its much easier than  other tutorials where you have to fiddle with your HTML coding (every time I do it,I am scared that as soon as I click "save" it will all go whoosh!!!)
So whenever I am adding some widget or feature which needs to alter the HTML code I hold my breath & keep my swear jar handy...just in case;)

But this one was super cool,its one click:)
All you have to do is don't hold your breath,stash away your swear jar in someplace safe for next time;)& click the "one click installer" and it's done!!!!!!

It was so easy I had to actually go back & forth a few times between my design settings & blog to see that it actually was working:)............& in case the installer does not work there is also the swear worthy method of fiddling with the HTML code;)

There are many more tutorials there.................I am off to see them now:)

Thank you Leelou:)

Hi all
My computer is infected with virus!!!!!!!!
So here I am on my husbands laptop.................its so unfamiliar:)
Anywayz today I  want to thank Leelou........................she is an ahmaaaaaaaaaa............................zing blogger.
I recently came across her blog,I had been wanting to change the layout of my blog............I had a wonderful template but it was 2 column...................all serious bloggers know that is a big NO NO:)
So in my quest for a good 3 column FREE template I came across a very beautiful blog................don't remember whose was it!!!!!!!!!!!
I saw it was made my Leelou blog,out of curiosity I visited the blog & boy!!!!!!!!
There was this treasure house of yummy templates..................& all FREEEEEEEEEEEEE !!!!!!!!!!!
I need not put a link to her blog,its there right on top of my blog:)

She just doesn't have templates........she has lovely backgrounds for twitter,blogfrog & icons for fb,twitter,blogfrog,YouTube  which you can add to your blog & link them to all your social networking sites!!!!!!!
She also has free blog designs,blog buttons,desktop themes:)
Did you know that by adding this to your html code you can hide the nav bar?????