A Blogger's Toolbox ...

As we all know, a lot of hard work and valuable time go into creating a blog and maintaining it. Of course, there is nothing written in stone about the maintenance part -- it's strictly up to the blogger how much time he or she wants to spend on it. But if you're like me, I try to post something new (and, hopefully, interesting) every day, and that's not easy to do ... at least, it isn't easy for me.

Thank goodness, there are a few tools we bloggers have at our fingertips which make it less stressful -- and more fun -- to create our masterpieces.

For instance, I have an icon on my desktop for Webster's Dictionary and Thesaurus, and it's practically worn out. I'm always clicking on it in hopes of coming up with new and eloquent words to replace the tired old adjectives that I find myself using over and over ...

And I really can't imagine creating a blog post without my camera and Photoshop Elements 7 program ...

And my books that tell me how to USE my camera and photoshop program (oops ... I should have removed the "For Dummies" books!).

And then there's the No. 1 blogger's tool ...

Can you imagine writing a blog without Google? I also use Google's "Image" Search" feature a lot.

And, of course, what would we do without Blogger and all those wonderful little widgets ...

And then there are the fun tools that imaginative bloggers have created themselves to stimulate imaginations and creative writing skills. Such as the "Memes," where we can confess our innermost secrets or vices ... and "Theme Days" for every day of the week where we can write about our Blue Mondays, Red Fridays, and Pink Saturdays.

Or the "Show and Tell Days" when we can talk about our latest flea market find, or "trash" that we've transformed into treasure, or our elegant or whimsical tablescapes.

There is even a "Wordless Wednesday Day" when we don't even have to write anything... we can just show our prized photos depicting the "word for the day" (I hope to participate in that one soon).

Another great tool I use is Blogger's Help page ...

It has simple, easy-to-follow (aka "for dummies") tutorials that show you how to put pictures in your header, edit templates, insert a background in your blog, and lots of other good information.

I created my blog less than a year ago, on April 21, 2008, and wrote my first post which was called Only a True Southerner Knows the Difference. It was about as "plain Jane" as you can get (not one picture, can you believe?) ... and I was thrilled when four sweet ladies left comments about it. I couldn't believe they even found it, much less took time to leave a comment. Bless you, Judy, Nancy, Rue, and Dot!

I'd like to think that I've come a long way since that first scary post ... and I'd like to thank my blogging friends for the encouragement, kind words, and inspiration you've given me since that first tentative step I took into the world of blogging. You, my friends, have been my greatest "tool" of all!

Sincerely,