2014 Update

Hello everyone!

I have not blogged in so long and have been meaning to give you an update on what I've been up to and what my plans are for the future of this blog. Please keep reading and provide your feedback in the comments for this post.

So what have I been up to??

Hanging out with this little guy:

And getting ready for this little guy to come!!

Last fall I spent most of my time feeling sick and just trying to get through each day. In December, I was finally feeling better and tried to catch up on housework, get ready for Christmas and get ready for January when it was my turn to teach preschool for my son's co-op.

I must have overestimated how much I could handle because Christmas morning came and I started to feel a sore throat coming on. That sore throat turned into a horrible cough and cold, the kind of cough that makes your whole body ache from coughing so hard. And since I was pregnant, there wasn't much I could take to relieve the symptoms. My cough was so bad that it kept me up for hours every night. I wasn't getting any sleep and so it lasted for weeks and weeks and weeks with no sign of improvement. I went to the doctor but was told it was just a cold.

January came and it was my turn to teach preschool for my son's co-op preschool. (All of the moms teach a month.) All of my energy went into teaching and planning those lessons, all while still pretty sick. It was terribly exhausting but I survived and the kids had a lot of fun, I hope anyway. :)

By February, my cough finally started to calm down and I was finally getting sleep at night. I tried to relax and take care of myself but I also had so much to catch up on. During this time, my husband decided he wanted to go back to school. I totally support him in it and really think it's what he needs. But it means that we will have a major financial setback. So I thought to myself, I can't quit my blog completely. I've got to find a way to keep it going, add some ads, find a way to contribute to our income. That is when I posted my big news of coming back to my blog!!! Woohoo! Right?

But as much as I wanted to come back, I still have so little time for it. I replied to months worth of emails, but haven't gotten back to it since. I can't stay up late like I used to because my pregnant body just can't handle that anymore. And honestly, it is hard to get back into a blog like this. I don't really know where to start. However, here's what I came up with:

My future plans for this blog:

A. I want to continue posting, myself or with guest blogger contributors. I won't be able to post often. But I hope to have a post at least once a month from me and possibly once a week from guest bloggers to help to keep this blog up to date. This means I need 2 things from my readers:
    1. I need your ideas and suggestions. What tutorials do you want to see? What old tutorials do you want me to update? Do you want any more designs? Do you want to see posts about anything other than tutorials and designs?

    2. I need contributors. I was slow to reply to contributors that replied last time but I will ask again. Would you like to make a guest post with a blog design tutorial or other blog related topics? Send me an email to blogdesignsbydani@gmail.com.  Include your tutorial ideas as well as a sample of your writing. Feel free to email me with any questions.

B. To keep this blog going, I need advertisements to help pay my hosting fees. If you would like to advertise your blog or business in my sidebar, please send me an email at blogdesignsbydani@gmail.com. I will email you my current rates. (I will only allow advertisements for companies or blogs that are wholesome and clean as well as relevant to my readers and myself.

C. I would love to be able to help readers that have technical problems when following my tutorials. However, those requests are incredibly time consuming. I have to go through another person's code, try to figure out what they did, what they did wrong, try to fix the problem on my computer and then try to help that person to fix it on their blog. I love helping people with this but I just don't have that kind of time. In the future, if I am able to, I would like to do this, but I may need to charge a fee. Please tell me if this would interest any of you.

D. I need to update this blog. I know it could use some improvement. In terms of usability, what improvements would help you to better navigate this blog? Are there any improvements that would help you to get more out of this blog, besides more tutorials? 

E. Now, I am due in the middle of May and I do not anticipate getting back into things much before then. But once I get into a good routine with my new baby, I will try to work on what I mentioned above.

These are my thoughts for my blog. I hope that you'll leave a comment offering your ideas and suggestions. Thanks for still following me!!

~Dani