Hi, everyone!

As you can see, my blog looks a bit different. I worked on it quite a bit over the weekend.

I hope you like the new header. I have been wanting to change it ever since I first started blogging. You see, the theme I use, called Tarski, is free. It comes with several choices to use as a standard header and the one I liked best was the one you used to see every time you visited my site. It was a pretty nice header. My problem with it, is that quite a few other bloggers use that same header, which made my blog look like so many others.  

But, now my blog header is different than everyone else’s in the world, because the pictures used to create this new header are mine! I took the one on the left from our boat while traveling on Folly River on our way to the beach. The middle picture was taken at Beidler Forest, part of Four Holes Swamp. The picture on the right is of Lake Marion.

I had tried several times before to change the default header to one of my own design, but had no luck. I finally forced the time over the weekend to figure out the errors and get it done!

I’ve also changed a few things on my sidebar. Please take the time to navigate down the side there to see those changes. I hope you like the Quote of the day, Word of the day and Pun of the day! Do you see the “Recent Comments” section highlighting the most recent comments to my blog?

I hope you also click on a few of the “Sites I Like.” Let me provide an overview of these. The first site listed is “All Recipes,” http://allrecipes.com/. If you have never checked out this site, please do when you get a chance. There are thousands of recipes available to use, with reviews and ratings! I have found many great recipes on this site that I use all the time. One thing I really like about this site is that I can search for recipes using a specific ingredient. For instance, (not that this has happened to me recently) let’s say I have been inundated with zucchini in the garden and I am sick of the 20 different ways I’ve prepared it in the past three weeks and I have more in my vegetable crisper getting ready to go bad.  I can type zucchini as my key ingredient and find lots of other scrumptious ways to make it!

 Another Site I like is “An Englishman in New Jersey,” http://englishmannj.blogspot.com/, a blog written by my friend, Graham Gudgin. He is an ex-pat Brit living in New Jersey. Sometimes his take on being such a fellow is quite funny!

The Beidler Forest Blog, http://beidlerforest.blogspot.com/ has stories and pictures about life in the swamp! Mark Musselman is an excellent photographer and I never tire of looking at his pictures.

The barbecue website, Blog-B-Que, http://blogbque.com/, is a relatively new site. It was created by a few of my friends, Shelly, Russ and Rick. It has great barbecue/outdoor cooking recipes and tips from regular folks like you and me. As a matter of fact, I have a guest post on their site (click here to see it http://tinyurl.com/mg4ox7) and plan to add a few more.

Frame by Frame, http://framebyframe.godlaughs.net/ is a blog written by my friend Dr. Rus Jeffrey. He and his wife Sandra preview a lot of movies every week and Dr. Rus writes a very thoughtful review. If you like movies, you may want to check out his site before you spend your dollars going to the movie theater!

Well, LolCats, http://icanhascheezburger.com/, is one of those sites that once you get there, it’s hard to leave! You can even create an account yourself and create your own Lolcats!

And finally, A Daily Wag, http://dailywag.marthastewart.com/, is one of Martha Stewart blogs, about the adventures of her two dogs, Francesca and Sharkey. It’s cute! I think my friend, Daneen, would like it, for sure!

I have made other changes to my blog, too. One, is a way for you to get notification when comments are made on a post. When you first make a comment, you will now notice a box at the bottom of your comment  allowing you to check it if you want to get notified when someone else makes a comment. So, when you say something funny or profound and want to know what others think about your comment, you can now get a notification via email. Try it out and let me know how it works for you.

Additionally, I have added a “Share This” button at the bottom of every post. This allows you to send a link to the story you just read to all of your friends! If you are on Facebook, MySpace, Digg, or a ton of other social sites, you can just click on the appropriate button. To send an email, click on the email tab! Send my story to everyone you know!

Also, dear faithful readers (you know who you are),I am always looking for something to write about. Please email me with your story ideas!

Caio!