The Bermuda Triangle of Productivity.

Haha!  This is spot on!  If you substitute Google Reader for Twitter, you would have a clear picture of where the majority of my time goes these days!  See also this post entitled Why I Never Get Anything Done.

via Take Your Vitamin Z (via Kevin Cawley)

New Blog Header

Those of you who visit my blog through an RSS reader such as Google Reader or Bloglines will have missed a change that I recently made to the appearance of my blog.  Visitors to the website may have missed it as well, as it is a subtle change.  Have you figured it out yet?  Yep, that's right-- I have a new header!  The header is the part at the top of the page which shows the name of my blog.  The new header isn't terribly different from the previous one; I've popped the colors a bit (giving them a bit of a glow), added new pink polka dots, and fixed one typo that was glaring right at me.

Can you believe it?  I had a misspelled word that has been in the header of my blog for the last nine months or so.  Nine months!  I am horrified.  It is amazing to me that I never caught it, and moreover, that no one ever pointed it out to me.  I shall not tell you what the mistake was, but instead, present you with my new and improved header.

Ta-da!

Sometimes I regret both the choice of web address (http://www.elventryst.blogspot.com) and title of this blog.  The web address comes from my screen name that I have used since the days of AOL when I was sixteen. I was obsessed with elves back then!  


Dum Spiro Spero (pronounced Doom spée-roh spéh-roh) is a Latin phrase that means "While I Breathe, I Hope."  It is the state motto of my home state of South Carolina, and moreover, it is a reflection of my faith as a Christian.  I love that it comprises those two facets of my life.  My only regret is that neither the elventryst nor the Latin phrase are easily remembered, but at least I can hope that you will learn a new Latin phrase from this blog.


Finally, you may notice that in the folder's tab at the top of your browser that I have replaced the standard Blogger icon with a pretty pink butterfly.  It personalizes the blog and is actually pretty simple to do.  If you would like to change the icon on your blog, you can find all the information you need by clicking on this link.


I hope you have a lovely week.  Tomorrow I am heading up to picturesque New Hope, Pennsylvania to do a shoot for Redbook magazine.  Wish me luck!


XOXO,

For Fellow Bloggers

I just found out that there are tens of thousands of gadgets that you can add to your blog to personalize it. Ranging from pictures of the day, to weather, to games visitors can play, you can do some pretty cool customization to your blog. To learn how, watch this short YouTube video:

Meet the Internet

I'm quite proud of myself these days: Firstly, I started my own blog on blogger (I also have two travel blogs here), and have actually managed to stick with it since March.  Secondly, I've now gotten the hang of adding pictures, utilizing programs such as Flickr, to add some panache to my pages, and, as of a couple of days ago, I've learned how to imbed videos into my pages.  Add to that the use of Google's web tools such as Google Analytics, and even some tinkering around on Blogrolling, Feedblitz, and Feedburner, and I'm pretty proud of myself for figuring these things out.  For today's trick, I'd like to upload my first Picasa web album-- I made it last night as a web portfolio of my modeling pictures to send to potential agencies when looking for representation.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is me with a lotta makeup on, retouching, and good lighting.  Oh yeah, let's not forget photographers that know what they're doing.

Without further ado, I present my first Picasa Web Album:  (Yeah!)

And, while I'm on the subject of cool websites, my niece turned me on to this one: Picnik.  It's a free online picture editing website-- great for those of us who like to play with our pictures but don't have ready access to Photoshop.  Definitely check it out!

Endless Frustration

I have spent the last few hours trying to figure out how to set up an email subscription service to my blog.  I originally used Feedburner, but after a few days, it seemed obvious to me that it wasn't working.  Then, I made the switch to Feedblitz.  That one is also not working.  What is making things more problematic is that I want to add an email subscription to a private blog that I've started with my girlfriends, and I just don't seem to have any luck.  Using blogger's help page bears little fruit (and seems to be an issue they should clear up), and I've just sent an email to support at Feedblitz, so we'll see what we get back in return.  Until I get this set up, you'll just have to keep coming back to this blog.