You may remember that one of the surprise outcomes of me starting this blog two years and ten months ago is that I have ended up writing and publishing a bunch of books! Never expected that when I started blogging! Hardly know what came over me!
The amazing thing is, I managed to do most of the writing and editing before the Pandemic began, which was good because work has been bonkers with this virus. Work has been incredibly taxing and for every right reason, I have had to cut back on the amount of time I spent blogging and writing. But it has always been a hobby I have enjoyed whenever I had the opportunity.
Too often I don’t get a break at work, we are often just too busy. But when I am able to sit down for ten/minutes (or on the rare occasion half an hour) I have pulled out a paperback copy of one of my books and a red pen and circled corrections I needed to make. Slowly slowly I have continued to make corrections and update my manuscript. At last that process is complete! I now feel my books will not embarrass me with really silly mistakes. So I am trying to find a way to add pictures of my books with Amazon links to them to my site.
However, I have realized….I cannot do that with my current WordPress theme. So….I am dreading this….but I am going to start messing around with finding the right theme to allow me to do what I want. That is going to be a complete nightmare! I know it. I should have done it before now. But I could not face it.
There was a stage when I was on top of all the widgets and menus on my site – but I gave up about a year ago when things started getting too busy. But I know that changing my theme is going to be a momentous task – momentous! I am going to be searching for a theme that allows me to stay that blue colour I like so much and that allows me to to have a few simple widgets. I don’t want lots of them. I just want some kind of easy navigation widget (is there one?) and to be able to feature my books.
Playing about with the theme is something I am frankly terrified about. I do believe my site will be a mess for a while. But now is the time it would seem. So…while I play around until I find what I want….I do sincerely apologise for any confusion I cause. Caramel is decorating her site – yikes! This could be one of the craziest disasters ever seen on WordPress – are you ready for this?
Caramel 
I like this theme much better than the other one 🙂
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Thank you Kianna.
I was never too worried about my other theme because I do 99% of blogging in the WP Reader, sometimes I go a long time without looking at my site. But I love blue. I also love teal, but I could never find the right shade of teal for me. But blue – well, I love all blues.
It is so scary changing theme! Originally I spent a long long time on the widgets and menus on my other site – but it was very hard to maintain. So I think I need to be content with an archives widget now. I am also going to use the sidebar to display an image that will link to some of the main features my blog had – CARAMEL’S CORNER book reviews, THE BAKE-OFFS, and I am sure I will add more that have been very significant to me.
Goodness…it is so strange being able to do more with a side bar. I have put my books down in the footer. I might move them around – we will see!
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Blue is okay. Green is better 😉
But I get it. I’ve changed my site a few times too and it’s a struggle and nerve-wracking every time. I don’t think WordPress makes it easy. Plus, you have to pay for all the best themes which I refuse to do so I’m stuck with the free ones.
I would probably move the books higher to a more prominent place, not everyone scrolls all the way down.
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Ooooh I don’t like the idea of paying for a theme either.
When I have time, I will play around with moving the widgets around.
I just don’t want it to be too cluttered. I liked my blog being simple and straightforward.
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One of these days I am probably gonna have to pay because you run out of picture space on the free plan and I upload a lot of pics to my blog. It’s already at 20% capacity and it’s not even been a year since I started blogging. That’s a problem.
Yeah. Simple with 2-3 colors max is what I prefer.
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I like the new look. Having a sidebar is very handy.
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Thanks Ashley. The sidebar is handy. I am undecided where to put things, but when I have time I will play around with moving widgets around. I just don’t want to overcomplicate it with too many. I always liked my site being simple and uncluttered.
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One way to reduce clutter could be to set your archives widget to display as drop-down so it only shows the list of every month if someone clicks on it.
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Haven’t I been saying!!! Very nice Melody! ❤
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You have. I plucked up the courage at last.
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I like the light background with the dark gray text much better. It’s easier to read.
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I have seen a few bloggers say that dark backgrounds were easier to read. I always presumed that people did most of their reading in the Reader, so I never worried too much about that. But this theme seems to suit my love of blue and having a white background for posts. The only thing I just noticed is that it looks very different on the laptop compared to the tablet. The other site was virtually identical on both.
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I read all of the posts via my iPhone and I visit the actual posts rather than reading them in my Reader so I can see how the blogger intended for the posts to be seen. Your new theme, in my opinion, looks great on my iPhone. I know some prefer light text on a dark background, but I’m not one who does.
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I would love a new theme, but not many can cope with the new editor and have a sidebar…
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Nice 🙂
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Love the site changes, Mel. Looks great. 😊
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It is very scary to change your site around! Its a huge task!
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