MAPLESTONE

As if you can see I have made some major changes. Of course the name

Home Sweet Home-No.14

Why did I change the name? I was ready for a change plus I just love the way the No 14 Ivy Stone Lane sounds on my reading blog AND well . . . This is the 14th home that we have lived in. Neat, huh? Might I add that my favorite decorated home was the very first home we purchased. Maybe it is the fact that it was our first home, (this home is the second purchased home) or maybe it was the fact that the decor fit DH and I to a tee.

I have to say quickly
WOULD SOMEONE PLEASE INFORM MOTHER NATURE THAT IT IS SPRING!!!!
Plus, I am so excited that baseball season has started, I love watching my grandson play :o)

I have transferred my recipes and my most popular post from Our Home in the Maples to here. You will find OHM most popular post in the footer section. The recipes from OHM have are in my labels drop down gadget (more about that later) in my sidebar.

Now, back when I posted about this decision on OHM I had mentioned MAYBE I would go with wordpress. WELL!
I went over, signed up for a free blog,
thought to myself, not to bad.
THEN,
I started exploring, to see how I could tweak this and that. I soon realized that in order to tweak I had to pay!!!
UUMMM
NO I DON"T THINK SO!!!!

For those of you that don't like to play around with html and css code I am sure the free is fine for you. But as for cheap, frugal, cheap (I already said that) me? I will stick with paying $10.00 a year for a domain name and the ability to play with code. No biggie!

Quickly before I change the subject and forget:
I have provided a redirect on Our Home in the Maples; PLUS
OHM and the redirect will only remain open/up until April 20th!
After that it will be gone forever :(
I was going to keep it open longer BUT my yearly subscription for my domain  is up the end  of April, so might as well just cancel instead of paying for another year, then wait for a reimbursement.

Now back to this blog . . .
Hey, for those of you on blogger, did you know that GFC followers gadget has moved to the 'more gadgets' category? Yeah, they hid it, since the really want you to use Google+. BUT with a little research I found it. HAHA! However, I cannot transfer gfc followers, so if you followed OHM through gfc I would LOVE for you to refollow on HSHNO14. Now I know they are doing away with GFC Reader, so if you would prefer to follow some other way, feel free!  I kept all my followers from the Linky Followers widget/gadget, whatever you want to  call it. :oD
As for facebook, well, I have it open/up but not sure if it will stay open for very long.
 Why?
Well, I barely post on my personal face book page, so who knows how I would be with another page! If you want to subscribe to receive posts in your inbox, or follow on Bloglovin, Pinterest or Hometalk the buttons are provided in the Stay Connected section of my sidebar.

Speaking of Pinterest. Have any of you updated to the new look? If so, what do you think? I really like the larger images, and buttons.

Let's see . . .
OH! Labels or categories or tags what ever you want to call them will also be different on here. I tried to find a gadget that I could use with the ability to handle categories and subcategories . . . I did and it worked but I couldn't figure out HOW to add more categories and the supposed help page was worthless!!
Don't you hate that?
So instead I found a code to turn the labels gadget into a DROP DOWN MENU!!!
Cool,  huh?
Can you tell I am excited?
I am actually more excited about this new blog then I was when I first started my other blog!!
:oD
Anyways my labels will be different, hopefully less labels but better organized.
Just a little explanation of what you will see. Unlike Wordpress blogger does not give you the opportunity to add a tag or label to your categories; nor is there a gadget that I could find, I have already said that, didn't I? So I decided to improvise.
If you look down at the post footer you will see:
FILED UNDER - labeled:
Now, except for this post, all other posts will look like this:
FILED UNDER - Labeled:  GOOD EATS - pasta
For purposes of this post I have color coded the different categories and labels. The first part (in orange, all Caps) is the category that the post is filed under (Good Eats) then the dash, then the second part (in green, all lower case) is the label for that specific post. I felt doing it this way would not only make it easier for me but for others as well.
OK . . . part of my new categories has been exposed. Yep! GOOD EATS is one category.
To tell ya the truth I have a sneaking suspicion that this is NOT going to keep me from having fewer categories BUT what the H-E- double hockey sticks. It will be better organized and it's just a fun idea!!!
:oP

 I have streamlined the menu bar too, which is placed directly over the post, of course you probably noticed that already. The menu tabs may expand in time. But for now there are only three.
 I am still working on the home tour page; Just can't seem to get that blasted page to look right . . .

As for the colors and the background? Well . . .
 I was just drawn to the yellow and green look. I have 2 other backgrounds that are the same colors, only the pattern is different.
Is it cheery enough?

Projects/ Posts
For the past two months I have been working on my projects; on some I have recruited the help of my kids and grandson. WHY? I needed to get as much finished before yard season started. You see this year our yard is going to require a LOT MORE TENDER LOVING CARE. The weeds have gone crazy, we think my Maple trees are diseased,  and we are loosing/lost several of my boxwoods.

 Now since I had to kind of work on smaller projects before the larger ones, my post may seem a little haphazard.
Once a project was finished I would write a post. that means the time between projects and room reveals may be a while!
I am trying to get them organized, it is just taking some time.
:o|

OK, umm, well . . .  I do believe that I have bored y'all long enough. But I am just so happy with the way it looks, that I just can't help myself.
Maybe I should develop templates for blogs? NAH, I would probably get bored or frustrated or I would neglect what needs to be finished around here. And we don't need  that, we have lived in home diy limbo LONG enough!

So, thank you for stopping by.
Y'all come back now, ya hear?! (seriously I need to stop channeling tv shows)