It seems like some bloggers start blogging, and as they get more into it, they decide that they want to jazz up their blog.  So they tinker around with the CSS and/or (X)HTML of their blog, making small changes.  Following this, they decide to go one of two ways:

• they hire a webdesigner to put their concept of a blog that screams “me” (whoever they may be) into reality or
• they teach themselves some webdesign skills, which they try out bravely on their own blog, people start to ask them how they did that and their confidence and abilities grow and voila!  Bam!  They’re a webdesigner, sometimes accidentally.

I like to think I’m in stage -1 of the second option (where ‘-’ represents how far from this goal I am).  This means that I’ve done a lot of reading online, a lot of source viewing, a lot of support forum visiting and many hours working on how to center my header logo, only to go to bed frustrated and cursing the steep learning curve I’m experiencing and swearing that I have a missing gene that just renders me unable to “get it”. Along the way, I’ve been priviledged to call on the expertise of several bloggers whose blogs and creativity I admire:

• Megan, who has just started a new site
• Miss Zoot, who I first bothered over a year ago
• Laura, who always answers my questions so patiently (and I keep coming to her with new questions!)
• Shelly, who I just started bugging yesterday.  I cannot begin to thank her for the detail of her responses!

Now what I really like about these women, besides their creativity is their openness to sharing their knowledge.  None of them make me feel like my questions are stupid, or that the responses are soooo obvious, or that I’m bothering them, or that they have to be careful what they share with me.  Instead they painstakingly explain anything that I am having trouble with and even offer to answer any more questions that I might have.  Even though I want to tear my hair out every night, at least it’s not because of the people I’m asking questions from; it’s because the process is long and frustrating. As you can see, I still don’t have a design up, but I’m getting close!  It’s pretty exciting and I just wanted these ladies to know that when I’m basking in the glow of “wow, I finally did it!” everyone needs to know that I didn’t do it alone and that I had a lot of help getting here.  And I’m very grateful.  And I’ll probably still holler at them from time to time!  They have been warned ;)

Filed under: Blogging, Inspiration, Web Design by jummy