Extreme Makeover; blog edition

You've probably noticed by now that we did a little remodeling over the weekend (a huge thank you to my friend Amy, over at Muddy Boots, without her I would have never gotten a move on it). Some of you love it. Some of you hate it. I myself, I love it, but I can see how a few of you might not be so quick to jump to say the L word. Its different.

First, real quick, lets just all get into the DeLorean (which by the way, I thought was pronounced delorium? I fell into a fit of laughter when Christopher corrected me. I'm obviously awesome right now) and take a ride back to the beginning of our blog. ChristopherAndTia- March, 2008 (scroll all the way down to the bottom for our very first post). I wish I had a screen shot of what my blog must have looked like back then, but at that time I don't think I even knew what a screen shot was. Based on content alone though, you can see that things have come a long way. My photography, my topics (I had no energy back then, and was plagued by my health problems and obesity), my amazing run on sentance skills (ok so maybe they're not amazing, but would you be able to make sense of anything that I write without them?).

Want to know why I started my blog (I'm about to tell you anyways, whether you soundlessly said yes or no)? ...To promote my Etsy shop... Yes, really. But in the 19 or 20 months since then, I've realized that I am much better at keeping an online interactive journal than I am at trying to sell my handmade (and lets face it, not so fantastic) crafts. I'm not really that good at crafting anyways, especially when I'm trying to make something for somebody that I don't know on a personal level. Plus, I hate putting a price on something that I've made. But I do like to take pictures and write. So somewhere in all of that, my talent and direction evolved.

So back to the blog makeover- What I love most about my new layout, is now I don't (and neither do you) have to scroll all the way down past all of the posts to see the things on my sidebar. I had been wanting to try a 3 column template for awhile now, but was too chicken to do anything about it, fearing that I'd erase everything that I had ever written. So my sidebar just kept growing, and growing, and growing- until one day a blogger friend of mine (Hey Amy!) emailed me and asked me if I could maybe use a hand with it? "Yes, please!" I begged.

Up at the top there, above the banner (which is enormous now, I know, much bigger than my last one, which is another feature that I love about the new look) you'll see a long bar of links. One for Flashbacks, one for gluten free recipes (which I'll be doing a lot more of in the near future), fitness (yeah, I'm going to drag you all along with me while I break a sweat), my Etsy favorites (even though I don't sell on Etsy anymore, I still support handmade, absolutely), giveaways (speaking of, is anybody interested in sponsoring an upcoming giveaway? hehe), and then a link to a page of all of my favorite posts.

Over there on the right ---> you'll see our sponsor spots *waves*, links to friends blogs, other blogs that I write for (ok there is only one link for that, but-), a couple of diy tutorials, the archives, blah blah blah, things like that.

Down below, is the follow box (I still get so excited when somebody follows me, hehe), my contact information, and a grab-our-button thing.

Ok, so now that you've had the grand tour and you're a little bit more familiar with the new look, what do you think? Likes, dislikes? I'd love to hear your feedback. Things aren't completely finished, I've got a little bit of tinkering to do, but since y'all are the ones that come here and choose to look at it, your opinion matters to me.