Blog Buttons

I've been having the best time lately playing with picnik.com.  I've been making blog buttons.  They are on my sidebar.  You can take one if you want.  Actually, I don't know how to make real blog buttons, the kind that you, as a reader with a fellow blog are able to "grab" and post on your blog, so they are just pictures with text on them.  I looked up the directions for blog buttons on google and I understand everything except how to assign a web address to a picture. What????  Like anyone is really supposed to be able to figure that out!  I figured out a way to make them the poor-man's (dumb girl's) way:  Take the picture and put it on your sidebar and then link my address to the picture.  I realize that the downfall of this plan is that you could link any site to my picture and that might be kind of hilarious, but I'd like it if you just linked my site to my picture.

I find the best buttons are made from unflattering pictures of myself.  I have so many choices!  This button is made from my all-time favorite picture of myself:

It was taken when I was eleven years old.  We were in Tasmania touring the crap out of the place (I'm not kidding. We lived in Australia for a year. Shut up, Mitch) and my sisters and I were SICK of looking at old convict artifacts so we threw ourselves into playing with our barbies.  We were walking around this old graveyard and my dad wanted a picture of the old graves but he wanted a person in it because he says that pictures are always better with people in them.  I was sick of getting my picture taken too, so I wasn't interested in putting my best foot forward anymore so I didn't bother taking down my hood, or even untying it or loosening it a tiny smidge.  And I was holding Barbie so why not put her best foot forward and give her a little camera time?  And while I was at it, how about a hand on the hip and a white-man's overbite to give that boring old graveyard a little sass?  This picture was lost for a long time.  It was the stuff of Lindahl family legends.  It was talked about and laughed about so much that I thought maybe the silliness of it was being exaggerated.  Then I found the picture a few years ago and it was every bit as silly as we remembered.

On to the next button.  Now, before I show it to you, I want you to know that this is what I thought I looked like:

But this is what I actually looked like:

This is another classic that the people who are supposed to love me most in the world laugh and laugh about.  I was on my honeymoon at Yellowstone National Park and Mitch and my sister and I were seeing the sights. (Amy went on our honeymoon with us. What?)  I was walking around like this ALL DAY.  I had that nifty crossbody bag but nobody told me I was wearing it wrong.  Thanks, new husband!  Thanks, sister!  It's not supposed to go tightly over your boobs, it's supposed to go loosely between your boobs.  I've tried crossbody bags since this incident and they don't look good no matter how I wear them.  If I wear them properly between the boobs like Reese is in the picture of her, it makes one boob look really high and one boob look really low.  Maybe my boobs are lopsided?  Probably.

So grab a button if you want!  And if you know the tightly kept secret of assigning a URL to a photograph, please, let me know.