What do I do all day? is ugly. With a baby shit yellow template, brown links and a couple big widgets, frankly, I've seen more attractive items floating in the commode. Really. Throw in some corn and it's a dead ringer.
The blog's premise, however, is intriguing. Theresa and her husband moved to Mexico after they retired. This captures my imagination. She's doing what many people only fantasize about: pulling up stakes and living their dream. How many retirements end in boredom, despair and illness? Retired people often find themselves staring at the TV with their only break being a trip to the doctor's office or grocery store. Not Theresa, she's mañana-minded.
Theresa's content is versatile, covering gardening, cooking, speaking a new language and her transition to the life of an expatriate. Her grammar and style are nice, but you can ruin a good pot by overstirring. Mark Twain said, "A tale shall accomplish something and arrive somewhere." Take that to heart, please.
Here are some hints:
Here are some hints:
- Your header is uglier than the backside of a hairless dog, but then again, #f6f6f6 has never been my favorite color. Try FFP933 or maybe FFCC66 for a better result. Check out a hex chart and pick a color. Email me for information if this geeks you out.
- Right justify your header text, which would move it into the yellow side of your header. If you can't do that, try to do it with spacing. Get it over to the right so that it shows up.
- Look for a thinner weather widget. By the way, do you even need that weather widget? We all know that your weather is better than ours most of the time. You're just rubbing it in, aren't you?
- If your poll is closed, delete it or create another poll. Polls are like a diaper, you have to change it often or else it starts to stink.
- Consider a tabbed blog for your links and some of your other information. Tabs are great for navigation. They allow you to make your blog a prettier place to visit. However, once you free up your sidebar, don't muck it back up with junk. Keep it neat: navigation links, a subscription button and other essentials, farm out the rest to the tabs. Be careful before you go with a non-blogger template. Back up your current template first.
- Simply put - chose your words carefully. Make each word sing.
I am giving you a bright shiny
for your enviable journey. Save me a hammock, will you?And a big old
for your tidy bowl template. It's time to clean it up, my dear.
LOL....actually, my weather tends to worse than yours,unless you like 99 feels like 120. We have about 5 months of nice days and another 7 months of fairly nice nights and really nice mornings.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the tip on the header, I couldn't figure out how to move the text. I have much brighter colours on my cooking blog but even I can only take so much magenta and teal trimmed with purple.But I will see about the colour changes.
I don't understand the Mark Twain comment, I need small short words, pretend that I am not a native speaker and explain it again, please.
Yeah, I was just looking at the poll, I keep meaning to erase it or post about it, but I think I am going to erase it. Thanks.
regards,
Theresa
"Your header is uglier than the backside of a hairless dog". That's awesome. I'm going to start saying that, but I'm going to change "header" to "face".
ReplyDeleteI'm gonna go read her blog now... Good review.
I really do like polls, but I would freshen it up some. They do bring a reaction from people. Do some hard thinking to create a poll that generates interest.
ReplyDeleteAs for Twain, just keep track of what you're writing and be sure to keep to your tale and not throw everything and the kitchen sink into your post.
I am quite proud of your big move and your posts have a subtle touch of humor that I really like.
As for the weather, we had frost on the pumpkins last night, I wish it was warmer, but we have to grow where we're planted.
I think my readers are not poll takers. Or maybe I am not good at polling. I average something like 95 readers a day and less than 25 took the poll.
ReplyDeleteThe only way I could move the wording was to add the dashes, spacing for some reason doesn't work and there is no option for justify right or left.
The well off people live here from November to February, the rest of us get used to the heat and put on sweaters when it's in the 70s. It's hysterical to see out friends from Calgary shivering when it's only 68.
regards,
Theresa
Cal and I live in the southern U.S., so we are familiar with the phrase "hot & shitty" to describe the weather. I was in Rochester, NY all week, and it is already fall there. I can only imagine.
ReplyDeleteI like the new colors, Theresa. They REALLY say Mexico to me.
Theresa, send me your image and I will photoshop the text next to it. This will create an entire banner and you will not need to add the text and you use it with your sanddollar template. I can pick up the same color from the right side.
ReplyDeleteYou have my email from my first contact with you, I think.
How nice is everyone here. Even I was infected and was about to make a header suggestion, when I realized QM went one step further, actually designing a new header... What's going on here? What have we become?
ReplyDeleteMaybe it's the refreshing lack of "Look at my great blog and give me a review, and if you hate it then you're dumb" attitude most bloggers have.
And about the colors of the blog, one of my favorite blogs uses pretty much the same design, and I never had a problem with his writing. I don't think it's the colors. I think it could be that the lines are too long.
Make suggestions, I'm sure she'll appreciate it. She hasn't emailed me. I am glad I took the screen shot because her site has changed so drastically in the last 24 hours that no one would have any idea what I was talking about if I didn't have that reference image.
ReplyDeletePeople: I love that blog layout that you linked to, well, I love the header, he needs some other work, but the design is nice.
i hope the review isn't as painful as the waiting period.
ReplyDeleteI now have a beautiful header!!! Queen Mutha rocks! Thank you!
ReplyDeleteregards,
Theresa
Theresa, I hope that it works for you. I took a screen shot of your current site and matched the colors in photoshop. It took all of about ten minutes to work up, so no biggie. I firmly believe that if someone is trying to fix things, it's good to help if I have the time. This may not be a seamless fix, let me know if things look off.
ReplyDeleteSid, I'm sure that the wait is worth it. We have gotten into a culture where just the wait between commercials is painful. Have patience. Be grateful that we're not brain surgeons and you have a stage four cancer waiting for an OR.
Even if I was having a brain surgery, I wouldn't know I was going through one. This is like the absurdly long pause before the announcement of the winner of Indian Idol or the contestant who has been eliminated (American Idol has shorter ones I think).
ReplyDeleteJesus freaking christ! All the other three were reviewed with clockwork precision timing! Has anyone decided to make a special project out of mine?
ReplyDeleteSid,
ReplyDeleteApparently, Bitter Mistress wasn't able to review you. I was traveling all week, and didn't do a review this week. Guess you'll have to grin and bear it.
If you were wise, you'd use this time to fix your blog up, rather than bitching.
Why am I not surprised!
ReplyDeleteWhy didn't you just say so in the first place?
This sounds like someone bitching at the waiter. Maybe it's just PMS hitting me, but it irks me when we do a free service for these bloggers and they bitch about timing.
ReplyDeleteI think Sid deserves special treatment.
ReplyDeleteBloody misinterpreters!
ReplyDelete