Thursday, August 18, 2011

Company’s coming


I’m going to have a lot of company soon, and I have to get ready. In a couple weeks, I’m going to be a guest at another blog for the first time! I won’t tell you where yet, but this other blogger is awesome, one of my favorites. And she asked me to be a guest. I'm so excited! 

I know what you’re thinking. Mel, that’s not you having company. That’s you going over there. Yes, I know. But, in my dreams, all of her wonderful followers (or at least two of them) will click on a link and come visit my blog. So I have to get ready. Company’s coming.

I’m glad I already had my blog redesigned by Danielle. (She’s also awesome.) So it’s actually looking pretty good. There are just a few touch ups I want to complete before the guests arrive.

For starters, I want to add a sort of blog roll that lists all my favorites. It’s good blogging karma to recommend others, especially when I am being recommended. So I’m going to add that for sure.

Then, my About page needs some work. Other bloggers have such creative About pages with photos, graphics, doodles and other fun things. Mine is just okay. It has some nice pics of my family, but it’s not fun. I need to ramp up the fun.

My blog is also missing a headshot of me. Until now, this has been an intentional omission. But almost every blogger I read has a gorgeous headshot of herself on her blog somewhere, so I think I need to have one, too. But this poses a problem.

I know we’re all our own worst critics, but I seriously hate photos of myself. Especially close-ups. So adding a headshot is causing a bit of anxiety.

Again, I know what you’re thinking. Suck it up, Mel. You can’t possibly look that bad. But I can look that bad in pictures. I’ve been trying to work on having a more positive self image, so I won’t go into all the ten-thousand things I hate about pictures of me, so you’ll just have to trust me.

Oddly enough, the only photo of myself that I sort of like is my driver’s license picture. Weird, right?

I only included the photo and not the whole license because the whole world doesn’t need to know my home address or my driver’s license number… or my weight. Mostly I don’t want you to know my weight.

And it’s not just the current driver’s license photo. The last two or three have actually not been that bad. I should’ve just had the DMV guy take pictures at my wedding. He would’ve been much less expensive.

But I suppose it would look a little weird to have a driver’s license photo as my blog headshot. So I need to suck it up and get my picture taken.

Usually, when Q takes his long (and only predictable) nap in the morning, I throw my hair into a ponytail, jam a headband on my head, shimmy into some yoga pants and tackle my to-do list. But not yesterday. Instead, I used that time to flat-iron my hair and put on real make-up, as opposed to my usual mascara and chap-stick. Then I put on a decent shirt, and waited for Hubs to come home for lunch.

I gave him the futile task of taking a picture of me that I actually like. So for twenty minutes, he tried to work his magic with all the fancy camera settings to capture an acceptable headshot. I think we finally have one that will work, but I’m still not entirely sold on it. But it’s better than the ponytail and headband look, so I’ll quit whining. It’s just that company’s coming, and I want to look my best.

So check back here over the next couple weeks to see how I’m sprucing up the place, and to find out who’s having me over at their place. Oh, I'm SO excited!