I’m baaaaaack!!

I can’t even tell you how good it is to be typing this right now. I’m really excited to be back!

I waited for a few days and, seeing no more spam links, I devoted some time to getting rid of all of the links on all of my previous posts. That’s 300 posts (this post makes 301!), so it took a while, but I feel very good about it now. I’m still cautious; I swear if those links show up again, I’ll scream, break things, and quit. But, for now, my site is clean. If anyone has some ways to prevent this sort of thing from happening again, I’m all ears.

As I was cleaning the site, I took some time to update a few things. I totally revamped my blogroll to reflect the blogs I actually read on a regular basis, and blogs that actually still exist. If your site isn’t on there and you think it should be, feel free to drop a link in my comments and I’ll be happy to add your site. I’m also now showing all of the blogs on my blogroll instead of a random 5.

I also added a few badges to the far right sidebar to highlight some of my more popular and ongoing series. There is now a badge for my Feminist Weddings series, one for my Feminist Wife series, and one for my Teaching Feminism series. These series are ongoing (well, except for the Feminist Wedding… the wedding is definitely over), so this will make it easier to find and easier to subscribe to the stuff you like.

I also added a badge to donate to my Avon Walk for Breast Cancer 2011 (and got rid of that bulky thermometer thing). Please consider donating! I don’t ask for money on here, but if all my readers donated to this cause, we could make a real difference.

A brief update on my competitive drama season: We took fourth place (out of seven) with two students receiving individual medals for their performances at the Sectional competition last Saturday. The weekend before at the tournament my school and I hosted, we had two students medal, as well, (one of them the same as the Sectional tournament) and won an award for our teamwork setting up and tearing down the set. All in all, I learned a lot and am excited for next year!

In the meantime, I’ll be fully back here, writing about marriage and teaching and, hopefully, how the two intersect. Look for posts coming about how both of us being SUPER BUSY ALL THE TIME (he was coaching, too, this season) affected our relationship, as well as how it’s made us stronger. And now that we have time to spend together, I’m sure I’ll be writing about how much of an adjustment that is. Oh! And look for a bunch of awesome guest posts! (And submit your own!)

I’m excited to be back, and I hope you’re excited to have me back! Drop a note in the comments if you are so inclined. It would make me happy. 🙂

6 replies on “I’m baaaaaack!!”

  1. Jane on

    I’m happy you’re back! Maybe I will submit a guest post, as you invited them.

    • Ashley on

      I would love a guest post from you! Just email it to me once it’s written!

  2. John O'Dwyer on

    Welcome back. Looking forward to your new posts. Great work.

  3. Steph Barnard on

    Glad you’re back too — I’m going to try to participate here more. I read “Columbine” recently on your recommendation; loved it.

    Do you have a spam comment filter plugin installed? I think the default one for WordPress is called Akismet. If not, just Google that phrase (“wordpress spam comment plugin” or similar)… you should be able to find something. You’ll still see the spam comments in your queue, but they won’t be posted unless you approve them.

    • Ashley on

      Thanks Steph. I’d love to hear more from you!

      I’m so glad you liked Columbine. It was such a moving book, and still haunts me.

      I do have a spam comment filter plugin installed, and it works very well. Unfortunately, the spam I was talking about was actually inserted in my posts, not the comments. They were links to online pharmacies. I deleted them all from every single post, so hopefully they stay gone! Thanks for the suggestions, though!