"New Mamas on the Blog"

This must be one of the weeks I posted most often in the short and rather uneventful "life" of this blog, and I'm still not done! I guess that between the dissertation chapters, the paper abstracts, the conference and publication papers, and the blog posts, I'm really getting into the habit of writing, and that's good. I think this month will be one of the months I will write more in my life... and I want it to continue this way. I've always wanted to write, ever since I was 13 years old, but I digress...

I've been doing all kinds of things to the blog lately (besides posting tons of pictures of cakes and parties :) , I don't know if you noticed...

First, I added a Flickr badge (there on the right, above my blogroll), something I had wanted to do for a while* . Then, a Goals and To-do list (below archives, above flikr badge), and today I updated the blogroll and added the "New Mamas on the Blog" category, even though I'm planning to branch out and have more non-parent folks in my blogroll :) I will eventually move these blogs to other categories, since they already belong to one or more, but I want to add new blogs now and then, so a new blog category comes in handy. (oh yeah, some things are going wrong too, like the first post of my "Previous posts" which just looks weird - I have no idea how to fix that!)

Next, I think I may change the blog template. I love green, but I think there's a bit too much of it in this one. A template like Scrivener's (with green on the side, but the writing on white) would probably be easier to read. What do you think? For those more web savy than me out there (or those who have already changed templates) I have an important question: If I change the template, what will be lost? I haven't customized this template that much, if at all, I just added the links in the blogroll, Flickr badge, goals list, and tried to put my 100 things posts in the profile box (it didn't quite work as you can see). Anyway, is it OK to just switch templates in blogger?

After I do that then I want to have a new "masthead" (I guess that's what the part where the blog name and description go, right?) - inspired by Scrivenings again. I'll use my own pictures and present the different options to my readers to give their opinions like he did - that should be fun! One day... I hope to purchase a blog design (though I'm such a control freak that I don't know if I'll like it if I can't give a lot of input into the process - I truly wish I could do it myself!).

OK, I guess I'm really in a writing groove this week, I just don't want to stop writing. But stop I must, or nobody will ever read this :)

P.S. As for the Birth story post - it's not completely "done." I mean, there are still many things to tell, particularly about the incredibly hard first weeks, and I want to get to those sometime, but not now. It'll be a breasfeeding related post, so you know.

* Most photos are of flowers and plants, many from Brazil, 'cause I need to think through what kind of pics of me and my kids I'm willing to connect to the blog - there are several there though, if you want to take a peek.