The New Design and Thank You's!

My blog has a new design and I'm thrilled!

So far the changes are visual with the new background and header. There have also been a few  behind the scenes with more to come. It is definitely not an overnight process.

I started with my garden last fall.

Yes, you read that right.

I remember a time when monarchs were everywhere in this area during March and October as they migrated between Canada, the US and Mexico. Numbers have seriously dwindled in recent years, and I could imagine a post, or even a series, about my efforts to help. Butterfly pictures would of course grace those.

Later, I was working on an exercise from a book by Emlyn Chand about building an author platform. This particular exercise was about looking for themes in your writing.

I noticed that several of my ideas and works in progress deal with love later in life and second chance romance. This is when an image of a butterfly came to mind.

Then there's this whole process of doing something new, and the introvert in me needing to break out of my safe little cocoon.

Around the same time, my friend and fellow author Mario Saincic was working with an illustrator to develop an icon he could use on his page and books to let people know he supports rhino conservation.

Again, a butterfly image seemed perfect for my own page.

Hmmm. I'm noticing a pattern here.

I recently learned that some of my blog features don't show on certain devices, and one of the fonts I used didn't work on mobile or older browsers.

Time for an overhaul.

Or maybe metamorphosis is a more appropriate term.

But I didn't do it alone, and I want to thank the folks who helped (and are still helping)  make it happen.

Thank you very much to Mario, new friend and fellow author Natalie Herzer, and even my mom for the brainstorming sessions and input!

Thanks especially to Natalie.

She helped me with some of the HTML for a few items, but that's not all.

Out of the brainstorming sessions came the idea to create a monogram that was also a butterfly. After a few sketches of my own, I finally thought I had a great design for a logo. And everyone agreed. But while I was still working on the final version, Natalie came up with another.Her sketch became the basis for the design that now graces the header.

Thanks, Natalie. I love the logo!

From that point, Mario and Natalie have been a dream. Thanks very much for putting up with me wanting you to look at "just one more" layout, color combo, background photo, etc. etc.

Natalie also commiserated with me, and gave me ideas to try, when nothing was working with the new header. It looked beautiful on the PC version. But on mobile? Yuck!

The solution to that one, typical of such problems, came to me later when I was working on something else. Such is the way the mind works. LOL

Again, some additional changes are coming. Be patient with me and check back occasionally; it's a work in progress.

Oh, and that background photo - you'll see it again only not the muted version. I'm going to proudly display it on a new page soon. Hint - it has a surprise in it!