Blogging For Dummies

I am not even going to admit to you how long I have been trying to figure out this whole picture
size thing with Blogger.
It's an embarrassingly long time.
Ridiculously long.
Like I know most 8-year olds could have figured it out way before me.
Way.

I thought I had it all figured out for a while; I would write a post, add my pictures, which I had made
larger in Photobucket, then publish my post.
When I would "preview" my post on Blogger the pictures would be the nice big size I wanted but
once it was published, I guess blogger would automatically re-adjust my pictures back down to the smaller size.
Ughhhhh...so irritating.

But here is the part that really confused me; sometimes they would stay the nice, big size I wanted.
What the $#*% ?
You would not want to hear my mouth when I am trying to figure out this kind of stuff,
the technical part of blogging is NOT my thing, I love the creative side of it, but that is all.
It's not pretty.
But it is mostly in my head or mumbled under my breath, I am not cussing like a sailor in front of
the kids, I promise.


*I followed this little tutorial to go in and adjust my picture size in blogger.
I know there are other ways and easier ways but this works for me, no cussing involved.

But that was only problem #1.
You know it couldn't be that easy for me, right?
Right.
My next issue is when they are this bigger size they look blurry to me-or just not nearly as clear
as they are at the smaller size.
Ughhhh.
That's all the complaining on this topic for now though.

My first rose from one of my rose bushes.
Love, love, love my rose bushes.
We had beautiful rose bushes at our old house that had been there forever.
My two rose bushes at this house were both Mother's Day gifts from Eric and the kids.
I guess I am not a big fan of store-bought roses, but home-grown roses are a different story.

We did lots of work in the back yard last week.
Charlotte and Eric planted basil, tomatoes and radishes.
Charlotte did most of the planting and has been responsible for the watering and "checking on her
garden" every day since.
We made our little garden markers with these unpainted birds from Michael's; she painted them and then I hot-glued them onto popsicle sticks.

Last week I also finally found some affordable seat cushions for my patio chairs at Kohl's.
Here's the thing: Some of the ones I liked were $30 and up and I am not paying over $120 for seat cushions for outside. I fully admit to being cheap-thrifty, frugal...whatever you wanna call it.
This is Illinois- wind, rain, hail, tornadoes, you name it....and I am not going to remember to bring
them inside every night, so I am not spending a lot of money on them.
Also, the table sits under a huge maple tree which means bird poop will end up on them a lot
if the umbrella is not up.
I got these on sale plus I used my Kohl's card and a 30% coupon and got them for around $11 each.
Mmmmm hmmmm, proud of that bargain!

Do you see my little 70's-green canister set back there on the shelf?
I got them at a thrift store for $3.
I keep bubbles, gardening gloves, chalk, etc in them.

*********

Soon our little back yard will be fenced in and I cannot wait.
Can.not.wait.
You have no idea.
Privacy, total privacy. I need it.
Eric is doing it himself and he already did one section a while back, I am hoping it will be done in the next month or so.
I might have bribed promised him something in order to get him motivated to get it finished....
we won't talk about what that might have been though.
And yes, I really did just type that out loud...no shame to my game, I am so
ready for this fence to be finished.

This week I am going to figure out what else we can plant in a yard that gets very little sun.
Time to hit the gardening books and websites I guess.
Hope everyone had a great weekend.
Happy Sunday.