Welcome to what should appear for you as the newly redesigned blog. (If you're not seeing a lovely blue color and a new banner, or if you're seeing some of those things but they seem to be misaligned in some way, try clicking the refresh button in your Web browser.I also hear there may be some problems for those of you viewing in Safari. Until we figure that out, Firefox and Internet Explorer seem to handle the changes better.) Ever since the web hosting fiasco of 2007, Dan and I have been plotting a move to a new hosting service, and we figured that since the blog is three years old in September, this would also be a good time to give our online selves a makeover. "It will be easy!" we said. "We'll just tweak a few things here and there, no big deal!"

Well, that's not what happened. It turns out that since we started the blog three years ago, I have spent a lot of time reading blogs. And while that is a good thing, it has also given me some very definite, picky, deeply-held opinions about what I do and do not like in blog design, and therefore, what I do and do not find acceptable on my own blog. This made Dan's job, as the can't-get-out-of-it-because-I'm-married-to-her Web designer in the family, infinitely more difficult. Dan would labor over some piece of Movable Type code for an hour or so and then show it to me, and I would say "Umm, yeah, sort of like that, but with less rounded edges." And then I would wander off to let him figure out what that meant. I am fairly sure that professional Web designers have terminated client contracts for less. So first and foremost, please give Dan a nice round of applause for making my blog look just exactly like I wanted it to, even though I didn't really know what I wanted at any stage of the process.

And now for a tour of the changes. First off, we have our new banner, which I love, and which you may recognize as featuring the work of my wildly talented future brother-in-law, Nashville photographer Daniel Meigs. This photo (full image available here) is very meaningful to me, because Daniel took it from the porch of my parents' home in Oloh, Mississippi in 2004, one early morning when the mist from the lake was hanging between the trees in this beautiful way that you can only see if you look at just the right moment. It makes me sound like more of a tree-hugger than I really am, but I loved those pine trees, and less than a year later, the majority of them were destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. I have a copy of this picture hanging in my living room, and it is one of my most treasured possessions. Still, Daniel probably now wishes that I didn't love the photo quite that much, since my passion for it led us to ask for permission to use a portion of it for the blog, thus dragging Daniel into our convoluted world of amateur Website building. In recent weeks, Daniel has patiently adjusted this photo time and time again when we changed our minds about how big it should be, and he has never once complained. So many thanks to him for his generosity with his time and his work. We're making him work hard to get into this family, and he just keeps taking the abuse. It's amazing, really.

One thing I'm really excited about is that we now have a blog roll. As I mentioned, I read a lot of blogs, and I have long wanted to link to those sites, but we just never got around to figuring out how to set that up. So while I realize that everyone else thinks blog rolls are, like, so 1999, I am pretty psyched about having mine up and running after three years of meaning to get one. Hopefully you'll find some new blogs to frequent, since I think I have some pretty entertaining friends. And if I've inadvertently left your blog out of the list, let me know and I'll add you.

Comments! We also now have a nifty comment display area to the right of entries. I have wanted one of these, because a lot of the time, someone will leave a comment on an archived page and I never see it. Now I will know everything that you write on my site. Which may or may not be a good thing.

Finally, in the top corner, where archives and the basic information about the site is located, I've added a brief history of the blog to explain a few things that could be confusing if you were new here and just clicking randomly through the archives, as I know people do from time to time. It's nothing anyone who has been here a while doesn't already know, I just thought it would be helpful. Also, I might be kidding myself, but I do feel like the blog has had an interesting three years of life.

That just about covers everything. Let us know if you're having any trouble seeing the new site in its new location, and tell us what you think!