Whose Blog Am I Visiting?

‘Cause this sure doesn’t look like mine! I love the change, don’t you?!?!

I’ve been wanting a 3-column blog for, oh, all of my blogging life now. The ones that WordPress offers are great…they’re just not my style. You know, all colorful and individual. So I went with the best standard one they had: Rounded. Wow, take a look at that. Doesn’t that bring back memories? The only problem with Rounded is that it’s two-column. And I have a lot of junk in my trunk sidebar. I wanted three columns to be able to show off all that junk in its glory. I emailed the designer, begging him to please, pretty please create a 3-column Rounded. Crickets. Or les crickeets (he’s French I believe) What’s left to do but learn CSS and redesign a WP standard to my liking?

So I set off to learn CSS. I know just enough HTML to get me in trouble. I can design a basic website, but once it gets into cascading sheets? What the heck does that mean? And then there’s the problem of creativity. Uh, I have very little to none on a daily basis. What creativity I do have seems to be spent on Sew Petit. Even if I became a CSS legend it wouldn’t matter if I couldn’t come up with a sweet design for Not So SAHM.

So I set off to learn how to create one. I dabbled in digital scrapbooking. I did the best I could with Microsoft Paint (you know, the free addition that comes as an “accessory” like the calculator on your computer?). I came ohsoclose to buying Photoshop. That’s when I realized: I’m spending way to much freaking time on this when there are talented people out there who are just waiting for me to contact them! Plus I have to get on with this moving thing that we’re supposed to be doing.

So I set off to find a great blog designer. Googling brought me tons of designers…all designing for Blogger. Darn Blogger. What kind of hold does it have on the blogging public? I’m a WordPress chick and I like it! I ended up finding some WP themes. They were ugly. The ones that were cute were two-column. What to do? I resigned myself to the idea that there may just not be a designer out there who was lovin’ WP like me. I went into a deep funk. And I was determined not to switch to Blogger. I’m stubborn that way.

In comes Shauna (lights, glorious music, angels singing, birds chirping, world comes to a peaceful halt). I stumbled across her See My Designs By Shauna ad and clicked. I assumed the search position: hunched over my laptop, lip biting, rocking back and forth, heart palpitating. Would Shauna be the one that could design cute themes for WordPress? Da da da da! YES! Her work is just what I would create if I were creative! And her prices are, shall we say, AMAZING! I mean, I found one designer who wanted $1,000. Yes, you read all those zeros correctly. I threw my money at Shauna and told her what I liked. Within days I had an awesome new look. And she didn’t mind that I did end up messing with some of the CSS, I just can’t leave well enough alone.

So, now I’m setting off to go stare at my blog. Is that weird? Feel free to join me.