Blog News/Update

Hey everyone! So, in case you hadn't noticed, the blog's been having a bit of a mid-life crisis this past week. Lots of different colours, backgrounds, text - basically a lot of changes.

The first reason behind all this, as Alex mentioned in our last layout post, is to celebrate summer, aka our return to blogging. This past year was tough for our little blog, and we apologize a million times to you guys who have stuck by us through our months without posts!

The second reason is that we're changing our content slightly, mostly due to myself. I've realised recently that my desire to read YA has greatly diminished, and the number of regular fiction books I've enjoyed recently has risen greatly.

This fact had originally brought me to the conclusion that I was no longer going to be able to blog regularily, but of course Alex would have none of that. So A Flight of Minds will now include regular fiction reviews, written mostly by me (and possibly Alex on the rare occasion). A teen's view on the genre :)

So basically, we're expanding :) For the better :)

Layout change!

If anyone was up from 11 pm - 1 am today, you may have noticed some strange changes going around our blog. Meaning the layout may have been really bad while you were looking. I was attempting to change up the layout. A revamp, if you will.

Why? Well, Lauren and I decided (a while ago actually) that the blog needed a makeover. We were on a hiatus for most of the past school year, and now that summer has come, we thought a new layout was due. Summer = free time = time to read and review. Hopefully.

Well I've rambled enough I guess. What do you think of the layout? The pink colour too much? It'll probably be going through some more changes for the next little while, so I'll thank you in advance for putting up with it!

As usual, comments and construction critism are welcome. How does the background fit on all of your screens? I have a really wide screen, so what I see tends to be a lot different from most.

Reading Challenges and more update stuff

They always seem to go together. I wonder why?

For the 100+ Book Challenge, to read 100 books in 2009: I just finished it! Wherever Nina Lies is the wonderful book that ended up being my 100. Actually, I had wanted it to be Along for the Ride by Sarah Dessen, but somehow I miscounted and it was the book before, making Wherever Nina Lies 100. :P Oh well. I loved WNL so it's fine. I'll still be recording my books and all, because I think it's a great idea, in the right sidebar gadget.

Lauren is still plugging her way through the challenge, but she's more than halfway now, at something like 58, and will no doubt finish the challenge. I mean, it's summer! We've got tons of time.

And the Sarah Dessen Challenge. A mini updated list:

1. Along for the Ride (Lauren AND Alex)

And that's it. :/ Gotta get working on that one. There's always so many library books to read though! Ack.

And on another note, I changed the layout again! I'm really starting to get the hang on the HTML stuff. Not really getting the hang, but I'm learning. And I actually really like it. (I'm a computer geek like that.) There's lots of great tutorials out there, which are so so helpful. I'm going to need to widen the header somehow, since it's at an awkward length. Okay, question: Keep the same banner picture but widen it, or change it to something else entirely?

100+ Reading Challenge (and update stuff)

First off, we decided to join the 100+ Reading Challenge. Well actually, we've been recording all the books and really doing the challenge since the beginning of the year, but now we've officially signed up. :) One can check on our progress by looking at the right sidebar. So far, I've has read 93 books and Lauren has read 47.

It's not too late to sign up for this challenge if you haven't already! Even if it's already more than halfway through the year. To sign up, simply click on the button above. So go ahead! It's fun.

Also, I changed the blog layout around. Added a left sidebar, widened the middle part, etc. etc. It's confusing. I had to use a tutorial to make the left sidebar, then had to change the html again and again. I'm not very good with html stuff and am still learning. It's interesting though. :) Once I'd changed the layout I had to edit a lot of posts which took quite a bit of time. I think the whole blog looks better now though, so hopefully all my effort was worth it. So how does the layout look? Yay or nay to the two sidebars?