Welcome to Dreamin’ the Life 2.0

photo credit

I’m so excited and proud to announce an accomplishment of one of my biggest goals since starting this blog in June of last year: a custom redesign and installation of the Thesis theme.

Since I began blogging 7 months ago (wow, it’s been that long?!?), I have wanted a custom design and gorgeous header that really represents me and this site. I’m SO excited now to debut it, and incredible happy with the results.

My friend and Twitter BFF, Shannon Albert is actually the one that I need to give all the credit. I already knew that she was geekly-inclined, and way more techy than I, but her visual and artistic skills ended up blowing me away. True, it wasn’t hard to improve upon my incredibly lame previous design, but pleasing my perfectionist eye was much more difficult.

The truth is, I have been contemplating hiring a designer for months now, but procrastinated because of fear that it wouldn’t live up to my too high expectations.

Right now, she has an incredible opportunity available for anyone that wants to have her set up their new blog. That sounds so cheesy and infomercial-like when I put it that way… but the truth is I wish she had this when I was setting up my blog. I had no idea how to do any of it, and it took me days to do something that would take her hours… or minutes. Until the end of this month, Shannon is offering to set up new blogs with your own domain for free provided that you go through her affiliate links to purchase hosting and a domain. Since as you have to purchase these things anyway if you want to set up your own website, her offer is beyond invaluable.

Blogging is something that has changed my life since I discovered it last year. It sounds silly and too trivial to make that much of an impact, but a blog can actually serve many purposes. It can serve whatever aspect you choose: a creative outlet, a way to connect with friends and family near and far, a way to learn and explore your own thoughts through writing, a business, or a means to connect with people with similar interests that you would otherwise never met.

For me, my blog has fulfilled all of these qualities. The future for this little site makes me giddy and excited just thinking of it. I plan to grow this blog into a business, while still maintaining it’s integrity and the personal-development-through writing-about-my-experiences style. Monetization and small business development are still topics that seem to boggle my mind and confuse me the more I focus on them, but I figure that just like getting this blog up an running, I can do anything I put my mind to.

There is still some tweaking of this site to come in the near future, and new features that I am very excited about. This coming week, look for the conclusion to Girl’s Night Out, as well a new Site Review and mini-interview with one of the biggest personal development bloggers in the industry.

So, tell me in the comments… what do you think of the design? What aspects do you like best, and what do you think can be improved upon? Thank you for reading, as always. I am ridiculously excited for what’s to come for Dreamin’ the Life in 2010.

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