Scheduling Ahead

My normal blogging routine is to write my blog posts on Sunday. I may get a post or two done ahead of that, but for the week, I have things finalized on Sunday. 

Except this week. (I took a lazy Sunday and read all day. It was nice.)

I am writing this on Tuesday. I am going to schedule this to post Wednesday. 

If you're on Blogger, you probably already know how to do this. When you open up a new post, "Published on" is right there in the Post settings sidebar. 

If it's not open, just click on the arrow. (It's usually open when you open a new post.)

"Automatic" will be selected, and the date and time will be the current date and time. As you can see above, I've clicked on "Set date and time". Then I selected the date on the calendar thingy. (If you want to go ahead months, use the little arrows next to the month and year at the top.)

Once you've selected the date, you can select the time. (You can select the time first.) Just click on the time, and a wheel with all the hour and half hour times will pop up. (You can type in a time instead.) 

And that's it. Type in your post as normal, and then hit "Publish". 

It'll show on your posts screen as "Scheduled" with the day it's scheduled to go live. And that's it. It's ready to go. 

Now I need to go and get Thursday's post ready... 

Using Pages

For my last blogging tips post of the summer, I'm going to compile all my posts onto a page for ease of finding. 

(Our first day of school was Monday, and I managed to snag an assignment, so next week my posts will return to the substitute teaching of it all.) 

In case you weren't aware, you can create static pages, like a blog post, but filed separately. It's a great way to stash information out of the way of the daily posts, but within easy reach for when it's needed (like a press kit for a writer or a spot where you can keep track of the blog hops you're involved with). 

My pages appear at the top of the blog, just under my title. 

To add pages to your blog, go under "Layout" and then click on "Add a Gadget". 

Then find "Pages". 

Following the instructions, you can place the pages where you'd like. But, in my case, the pages already exist, so I'm going to just add one. 

It's easy. It just looks like the "Posts" page, only it's under "Pages". I clicked on "New Page".

And I got a blank page that looked exactly like a post, only with fewer settings. 

I created a page with links to all the posts I did this summer about various blogging topics. At the moment it's pretty bare bones, but I can go in later and spruce it up. Just like editing a blog post, you can modify the page and "Update" it. But the page is not up and live on the blog yet. I have to put it there. 

First I went into "Pages" from "Layout".

I clicked on "Edit". (It's hard to see with these small images, so click on them to make them bigger.) And I got: 

I clicked on "Add a New Item". You'll notice that I can reposition my pages to the sidebar if I choose. I happen to like them under my header, so they'll stay there. 

Under "Add a New Item", I got a blank form. I clicked on "Page name" and that list popped up. I clicked on "Beyond Blogging Basics", the title I gave the page, and the URL popped up. Then I clicked "Save". 

And now the page is there. As it's configured now, the page is last. Do I want to keep it there? I can use the arrows to move it. 

I think I want my A to Z completion trophies last. And... I played with it a bit, took a look at how things looked on the blog live, and then I decided on: 

I put it third. I think that works. For now, anyway. 

I mean, it's really easy to change. So, if I decide I don't like it there, I can modify it later. 

So, go ahead, scroll back to the top of this post, and click on it. You'll find a list of all my about blogging posts in an easy to reference spot. 

Do you have pages on your blog? If not, have I now given you ideas? 

Sidebar Refresh

When was the last time you took a look at your sidebar? 

The sidebar is one of those things that we set up when we set up our blogs, and then we kind of forget about it. Perhaps you add something to it from time to time (like when April rolls around), but then you don't think about it again. So, today is just a friendly reminder that it might be time to take a look and weed out some things. Do all your sidebar bits still work? 

First, go take a look at your sidebar. You can either click on "View Blog" or click on the eye icon on any of your posts. 

Slowly scroll. Is there anything there that no longer works? Is there anything there that you no longer want there? Back in April I noticed I had a lot of A to Z Challenge trophies that took up an awful lot of space, so I moved the majority of them to a page and only left the most recent on the sidebar. 

Adding to or deleting from your sidebar is pretty simple. First, go to "Layout".

Then, scroll down to the sidebar. 

Anything you want to delete, first click on "Edit". Then you'll get the choices of "Remove", "Cancel", or "Save". "Remove" will delete it. "Cancel" will leave it there. "Save" is if you make any changes to it (although, when I just check it, I generally click on "Save" just to be safe). 

Of course, not all of my gadgets have labels, so if you're anything like me, be extra careful if you're planning to delete anything. 

Speaking of, have you looked at the gadgets lately? 

Now might be a good time to add some of these. Or update them. 

The main one I want to point out is the HTML/JavaScript one. That's how you can add things not from Google/Blogger to your sidebar. You just need to get the HTML code. Most of the time, if you're adding something that you're getting from another blogger (like the A to Z Challenge trophies), they'll provide the HTML for you. 

If you add a gadget, you can just put it where you want it by dragging the box. Make sure to hit save (the floppy disc icon). Then go back and look to make sure all the gadgets are positioned where you want them. 

What do you have on your sidebar? (Is there anything I should add?) When was the last time you checked it/updated it? Is there anything on my sidebar you have questions about? 

Customizing Blogger

Danielle asked about templates on Blogger. Alas, I have no idea what those are. When I searched for them, I got a bunch of third-party sites and designers doing various things. If anyone has any expertise, I think there are many who would appreciate a blog post about how they work. 

So, in lieu of writing about templates, today I'm going to talk about customizing your blog. Because that is something I know how to do. 

From your first screen, click on "Theme". (If the sidebar doesn't pop up, click on the "hamburger"--the three lines--in the upper left hand corner.) You can click on each of these images to make them bigger if needed. 

I think most everyone has gone through and picked a theme that they like. And that's cool. Personally, I like to keep a background image of something I knit. My current background image is of a blanket I knit a little over a year ago. (I like to switch that out every so often. I haven't knit anything that would make a good blog background recently.) 

To use your own image, you click on "Customize" and "Background", then you can add your image there. 

This bit requires some trial and error. Because, depending on the image you use, you may wish to adjust how you do "Alignment". I have mine as "Tile" and "Scroll with page" because that way you can actually see the knit piece in the background. Other types of images will work better with different configurations. 

You can also adjust the "Layout", especially if you want to add things to a sidebar. (And it is a good idea to clean up your sidebar from time to time. When was the last time you checked to make sure everything was current and working?) 

The last tab, "Advanced", is where you fix fonts and colors. From my image, you can see Page Text, Backgrounds, Links, and Blog Title. The rest of the list contains: Tabs Text, Tabs Background, Post Title, Date Header, Post, Gadgets, Footer, Footer Links, and Add CSS. 

Click on the item you want to play with. Up will pop the option to change the font and/or colors associated with it. 

If you plan on playing with this a bit, set aside some time for it. You might be surprised by what you can do. 

There is one last bit that I kind of skipped over. The arrow next to "customize". 

If you click on HTML, you get the code behind the whole blog. Which is fascinating to look at, especially if you kind of understand how HTML works. I wouldn't change anything there unless you know what you're doing, but if there's some formatting issue that you're continuing to have issues with, that would be your final way to fix it.

Have you customized your blog? If there was one thing you could change on your blog (that you haven't attempted), what would it be?

Following Others' Blogs

How do you keep track of all the blogs you follow? 

When I started blogging, someone wrote a post about how they kept track of the blogs they followed using a feed reader. (At the time it was Google's Reader, but Google killed that off over a decade ago.) 

A feed reader is an app that uses RSS (which stands for Really Simple Syndication) to collect all the sites that regularly publish material in one location. So, rather than having to go to each website, you can go to the RSS app and see a list of all the articles published since you last checked. 

Some more info: The 3 best free RSS reader apps in 2025. Follow your favorite blogs, sites, and feeds for free.

I use Feedly. On any given day, I open Feedly, and there is a list of all the blogs that have been published since I last checked. I click on a title, and it pulls up the post. I can then click on the title of the post and it'll take me to that website (so I can comment there). Once I've read the post, I close it out, and that post disappears from my reader. Then on to the next. 

There are other readers, and they work similarly. To add a blog, I click on "Follow Sources" in the sidebar, and I add the website to the box that pops open. Then I add it to one of my "Feeds". 

I have several topics under "Feeds". I find it's easier to group them, so certain sites that I don't always read I can delete in one click. It's way easier to get all the feeds at once and delete those I don't want to read rather than having to check back on each blog daily or weekly to keep up. It just wouldn't happen for me that way. 

How do you keep track of the blogs you follow? If you use a feed reader, which one do you use? 

Some Basic HTML

I initially started my blog on MySpace. Remember MySpace? 

It was 2006, and I wanted to blog. I had no idea what I was doing. People were doing all sorts of things to "their space", and I wished I knew how to do any of that. 

At around this time, I was covering some computer class, and on the board the teacher had left a link to a thing called HTML Goodies. Curious, I checked it out. I found the tutorials for beginners, and I worked through those. (I just looked. It still exists! But the links appear to be broken 😢) I think I did a couple a day until I completed the seven. 

That was enough information for me to blunder about. I was able to personalize my MySpace page and my blog. At least, for a little while. 

Alas, the MySpace blog was buggy. I'd write out a whole post, go to publish it online, and *poof* it would vanish. Not saved anywhere. I'd have to start from scratch. 

I'm not sure how many times it did that, but at some point, I was done. And that's when I joined Blogger. 

The point of this story is that I came to Blogger knowing a couple HTML tricks, and they've helped. If something isn't quite looking right, I will go into the HTML part and I can usually adjust something there to make it work. 

where to find the switch to HTML

then highlight "HTML view"

A couple weeks ago, someone on Bluesky created a how-to "book" on creating a website (aimed at artists and creatives). (Here: Let's Make a Website) It looks like the stuff that was on the HTML Goodies tutorials are in chapter 4. Basically, that started with how to add space, make things bold/italic/underlined, and how to add hyperlinks. 

The cool thing about knowing that is that you can actually use those in Blogger comments, too. (In case you didn't know how to do that.) So, if you wanted to add a link back to your blog in your comment, you could. 

To make something bold/italic/underlined, you surround the text with tags. A tag is something surrounded with the carrots (< tag >). You begin what you want adjusted with the tag, then you end with a / (< /tag >). It's really easy to remember what to use for the tags, too. Bold = b, italic = i, underline = u. 

And if you want to add a link, it's only a little more complicated. 

click to enlarge to see

It is critical that you use the carrots and the quotation marks. Otherwise it won't work. 

For those of you who this is new to, I challenge you to use something of this in your comment. Underline something. Or make something bold. And include a link back to your blog. 

Responding to Comments via Email

Note: Today I will be getting on a plane and flying to Ohio, so I likely won't check in with you all. I should have time to catch up on Thursday. See you then. 

How do you respond to comments on your blog? 

I generally prefer to respond via email. Not everyone is going to go back to the various blogs they visit just to check and see if a response was left. And a longer conversation can happen via the privacy of email (as private as an email can be) rather than being left in a public-facing forum. 

However, not everyone has their email enabled, so responding to all comments via email is not always feasible. And then Blogger decided to make that even harder. 

But, it is still doable. And how to do it is my topic for today. 

If you want to be able to receive emails from your comments on various Blogger blogs, you have to enable them. Under "Settings", find "General" (all the way at the bottom of the page), and click on "Edit Profile". 

click to enlarge

Under "Privacy and Identity", you should have a contact email address. (If not, click on it, and you can add one.) Then make sure "Show my contact email address" is toggled "on". Your email is not actually shown. There's a link shown in your profile that someone can click on and email you. 

click to enlarge

Of course, many people don't want to be contacted from blogs, and that's completely understandable. I have found that I don't get a lot of unwanted email this way. Of course, I also have one email that's dedicated to blogging (mostly), and I have other email addresses for other uses. 

The part that Blogger "broke" a few months back can still be accessed albeit a bit differently than before. (Much thanks to Pradeep Nair of Time and Tide for discovering the solution.) 

If you want to respond to comments via email, you first have to get the comments in email. To do that, in "Settings" find "Email" (it's about halfway down the page). Under "Comment notification subscribers", you should see your email address. (Mine went missing a couple months ago, and it took me two tries to get it to remain.) If it isn't there, you can add it by clicking on "Invite people to comment notifications" and adding your email. You then have to accept this via your email, and then you'll get an email every time someone comments on your blog posts. 

click to enlarge

Once that's set, you can forget about it. 

Now, whenever someone comments on your blog posts, you'll get an email. For me, this becomes a kind of group email, with a bunch of emails under one topic. Each commenter's email appears to be <noreply-comment@blogger.com>. 

Those commenters who don't have email enabled were always "noreply-comment". But those whose emails are enabled can still be replied to. 

Go to the comment you want to email reply to and hit "reply" for just that one email. (If you've ever gotten one of those email chains where someone sent an email to everybody and then someone did "reply all", you understand how to be careful here.) If you can reply to the comment, the "noreply-comment" email will be replaced by the commenter's email. And you can reply. 

It's an extra step, yes. But it's still possible. If you want to do that sort of thing. 

A 2000th Post

Back in August, I noted my 1900th post. And I said, "I'd wait and say something when it hits #2000, but knowing me, I won't even notice until that occasion has passed and I'm on post #2003 or something". Turns out I was wrong.

Well, to be fair, I've been paying attention since then.

Yup, this is post #2000.

via GIPHY

And to honor the occasion (since the Star Wars beanie isn't quite done), I thought I'd post my blogging "tips". Not so much tips as the things that I do in blogging that work for me.

People post these sorts of things from time to time. I like to peruse them as sometimes they have something that'll work for me. Or, it can be modified to work for me. It is in this spirit that I offer this list. 

So, in no particular order:

1. I write this blog for myself. While I appreciate those who take time out of their busy days to stop in and read my words (and I especially appreciate those who take the time to comment), when I sit down in front of my computer, I'm writing for me. If I didn't do this because I wanted to, I wouldn't still be doing it.
2. I have a schedule. But it's not too terribly rigid. It's a guideline of what to post when, so when I don't know what to write (school's not in session or the classes are too well behaved), I have a place to start. (I do have the schedule posted if you're interested.) 
3. Even though I have a plan for each day of the week, I don't feel the need to post each day of the week. Some weeks I'd rather only do three posts. And some weeks I have enough stories for five. It just depends. 
4. My plan changes as my life changes. At the moment, I'm still trying to figure out a good theme for Wednesdays. (Which is why if I'm skipping a day, that day is usually Wednesday.) At one point my "what if?" questions were on Thursdays. And I had three or four themes for Fridays until I happened upon the quiz thing. 
5. I write my posts for the following week in one or two sittings. By Thursday I like to have an idea of what each day's post will be. (Although I tend to save the Friday post for what transpires in school on Friday. For some reason, some crazy stuff tends to happen on Fridays.) I usually sit down and write out the posts over the weekend. (If I'm lucky, I might have time to rough out a post or four during the week.) 
6. As for my subbing stories, I let those happen. Some things jump out in the moment as "blog fodder". Others only occur to me after I'm contemplating the days I had. 
7. I tend to work most school days. I only tell subbing stories three days a week. I leave out a lot. I edit out the boring stuff--i.e. the stuff where the kiddos do what they're supposed to do, the classes that work silently without too much effort on my part, and the days when I barely feel like I'm working. There are a lot of these instances. 

And as with anything, this is a work in progress. What works for me today may change over time. My blog must adapt to this. Otherwise, I'd have stopped doing this ages ago. 

What about you? How do you blog? What works for you?