Captcha or moderation?

Okay, I have an issue. It's not a very important one, IMO, but some bloggers and blog-readers out there seem to think it's a bigger issue than I do, and since I ran across it today I really wanted to explore it.

My issue:
Captcha (i.e. word verification) or comment moderation?

My thoughts:
I don't read a huge number of blogs, and when I do, word verification isn't an issue for me. I absolutely do not mind having to verify that I'm not a robot, and I certainly appreciate the reason people have Captcha on (it's also why I tend to use it). I've been spammed insanely before, and I cannot imagine having to moderate every single one of those comments, especially when a "robot" gets really busy. You might be surprised at how quickly those spam messages can add up once they have your number, so to speak.

I blog because I feel 1) like gabbing and 2) sharing my thoughts. You don't have to read my blog, and you certainly don't have to comment. While I love having comments, I don't need them to verify or justify my blogging; I do it for me, mostly. (Again, I do appreciate those who read my blog!! Please don't think I don't.) For me it's about the convenience of my own blogging rather than the readers, and that's probably primarily because I myself don't mind having to enter in Captcha. It's not because I don't treasure you, my readers.

But to give the comment moderation a try, I have it set to deliver notifications to me when someone comments, so that I can approve, or not, of the comments. One other reason I dislike comment moderation is that I feel like, when it's not a scrapbooking-related blog, that if my comments aren't liked by the blogger, they won't be posted. I can promise you that unless something is completely lewd and unacceptable, I will always allow the comments by people, even when I don't agree with what they say. I don't always believe that others will do the same. Know what I mean?

Anyway, there is it. You'll notice a new set up when you go to post (for those of you who have posted before), but you definitely won't see me supporting that new "Say No to Word Verification" movement, if you wish to call it that. I don't have a problem with people wanting to verify, and I certainly think that if a blog-reader really wants to post, then they'll be willing to go along with it. Sometimes it's not possible for the blogger to keep up with comments because their reader base is much too large to have to approve every single comment posted. (I obviously don't have that problem, and likely won't ever. *waves to her 2 followers and few other readers* *smoochies*)

But it's your call, bloggers. You do as you will.

Happy scrapping!

My Daily Five

While looking at Jen Lancaster's blog, well, the title of it, "Your List of Five", it reminded me of something I had intended to do starting at the beginning of this year (obviously I'm quite late beginning that). What is that, you ask? To endeavor to make a list of five positive things every day (or at the very least every week). These could be positive things about that day, my life, my family, that make me happy... whatever floated my boat, so long as I made five. The point was to help me focus more on the positive as opposed to the negative happenings, the latter of which seems to be so easy to do sometimes. Y'know what I mean?

And so... that leads me to my post today. I think beginning with today I'm going to start a 30-day list. When I'm done, I'll be able to scrap a "Positives" page. Sure, I'm not starting on the first day of a month, but I can still do 30 days, right? (And for some reason, this reminds me that I really, really need to post the winner of the subscriptions to Memory Makers in my Yahoo Groups. Yikes!!)

Anyway. My five things today are:
1. My niece, Kiely, was a very smiley baby today.
2. I was able to keep my temper when my oldest, Cat, got snotty with me in regards to doing her homework).
3. Several semi-neglected chores were done, a countertop was cleared and cleaned, and I completely emptied out a plastic tub thereby making my bedroom a little tidier. (Yay for de-cluttering!)
4. I did not let my pain rule my day, despite my desire to do.
5. My Secret Santa gifts (for one group) are all wrapped and ready to go.
**BONUS** My husband Joel was home for a little bit today, and even though he was supposed to be there just to look for his work badge, it was excellent being able to see him. *warm fuzzies!*

So... what are your five? What five positives happened in your life, or made you smile, today?

Here are a couple of parts of that page kit...

So I thought I'd just make a quick post and share a couple parts of that page kit I mentioned, the one that inspired the CD-card-ornaments from last year.

Couple of tags (above) and some deco squares (below).

Last Year's "Card"

Here's last year's "card". I made quite a bunch of these for friends. I wrote our holiday greeting in Sharpie on the back, and see? It doubles as an ornament. Pretty cool, huh? I just altered a CD, and in order to do the eyelet, I used my trusty (and then brand, spankin' new) Crop-A-Dile. Oh, the ease of punching through that thick plastic... I was ecstatic! A couple of years ago I fell in love with those holiday papers, and I hoarded them, waiting to use them on the "perfect" layout. Well, I had a couple of Santa Days in mind, but I never could bring myself to use them. Argh! So when I decided to use them for a swap, when I made a page kit, I decided that I might as well use the rest for giving to someone else, and here's the result. The tree was handmade by me, but is inspired by one of the patterened papers in that collection. (There's a little heart at the bottom of the tree like that.)

I'm extremely fond of these, and almost wish I could do more for this year! *laugh* Instead I'm going to (I think) make the ornaments I posted about right before this one. Or maybe I'll just do those for the kids' teachers... I haven't decided yet. (Some really cool person--Leah!!--gave me the idea to add the kids' photos to the balls, and that inspired me to think I could cut the photos into triangles and glue them to the ball. She also suggested hanging the year beneath the ball, which is just an awesome idea!) For family/friends, I'm going to be making accordion albums (like the Halloween ones I posted weeks ago), but they'll be of the us, but mostly of the kids, with some of their basic likes and dislikes. These will be similar to ones I did two years ago. I'm hoping to do these every year or two (hopefully the former!) that way our friends will have documentation of how the little bra-er, darlings are growing.

Holiday Handmade Ornaments

Thanks to being a subscriber to Memory Makers magazine's newsletter, I found this cool idea. I decided to do my own, and while it's not quite finished yet, there's someone who's interested in looking at a finished product, so... without further ado, my photos are below. The punch I used is somewhere around an inch, maybe an inch and a quarter. I also chose to put an eyelet, for use with ribbon, to hang it from the tree, as opposed to the suggested hole with wire/hook.

Be sure of two things: 1) You only make three "hats", which will leave you with five extra triangles; do not make them into a hat, and 2) you fold the triangles in the correct direction, so the backside folds forward (I'd originally did it the other way around, go figure!).


So... let me know what you think! I plan to paint the edges (to help cover where things didn't match up perfectly), and maybe glue in some brads at the connecting points. I dunno yet. :)