Is This Goodbye?

Hello there!

I hope you enjoyed the first full week of the brand spankin' new year! I was so hoping it wouldn't whoosh by, but it did.


And I hope this isn't the last time I'll see you and hear from you!

Wait. What?

You may have already heard that Google is going to start the process of cleaning out and streamlining how people access Blogger.

If I understand it correctly, that means if you don't have a Google account and you follow me via the blue "Join This Site" button (Google Friend Connect), you will be dropped as a follower as of Monday, January 11, 2016. (It may not happen prezackly on Monday, but over time.)

That also means you won't be able to comment, which will make me very sad! Right now when you leave a comment, you may see these "identity" choices:

or you may have more identity options, like this:

or if the blog you are visiting doesn't have a pop-up box for comments, your identity profile options might look like this:

I'm not for sure if the ONLY way you can leave a comment in the future is by the first choice of a "Google account," but I know some of those other options are disappearing. So just to be safe, if you set up a Google account, you will be able to leave comments on anybody's blog.

ETA: Nan writes that it is only the ability to follow that will be affected and not the ability to leave comments. That's not what I've been reading, but it's a relief to know if that's how this pans out! She suggests having a Bloglovin link on our side bars, which I already do, as a way for people to follow instead.

The problem is I don't know how to "see" who follows me that way to introduce friends to friends in my New Friends Corner, or monitor my NBUS Challenge or giveaways, so I'm hoping people will still follow the "old-fashioned" way. If someone knows how I can see who follows me via Bloglovin or Feedly, I'd love to know. Thanks for all your suggestions and advice!

What You Can Do

Setting up a Google account is free and easy and I hope you will take a minute to do that now so that nothing will change between us when Monday rolls around!

Go to https://accounts.google.com/signup. The signup page will look like this:

Simples. As far as I know this does NOT mean you have to sign up for Google PLUS +. I sure hope that's not what it means as a lot of us don't want that. Please let me know if you have any problems with signing up. I would hate to lose you as a follower and I will truly miss your wonderful comments!

I even made you a card to say there are ten things I love about you and that I love hearing from you!

I embossed the card with a "Next Level" 3D embossing folder by We R Memory Keepers and attached little heart stickers in the indentations. I made the heart stickers by running a sticker sheet through my BS using the PTI "Notched Hearts" banner die. I colored the little hearts using my SU poppy parade marker. The NBUS telephone die is from My Favorite Things called "Ring Me." I hand made the numbers and used a piece of confetti as the cord. The center heart and the charm were in my stash.

As it happens, City Crafter is having a "Say Hello, Wave Goodbye" challenge, which fits this post perfectly! And at The Paper Players, Joanne has a theme challenge of "All About Numbers."

~~~

Giveaways

Thank you all so much for your enthusiastic response to my Year in Preview post, my goals, and my new "Giveaways" page. Today I have begun the first Giveaway and I have set up a new email account to efficiently (I hope) handle the process. Please see the tab at the top of my blog if you are interested, or I think you can find it here.

 ~~~

Enjoy your day! No, seriously, enjoy! LITS!*

As always, thank you for coming by to visit the Playhouse and special thanks to you if you take the time to join as a follower! Please let me know you came by, so I can be sure and return the flavor!

*Life is too short!

To open the pop-up comment box that let's you jump to the end w/o scrolling:

Click CTL + Home. 
Click the Home tab under my blog banner which resets the post.
Click Page Down to reach the end of the post.
Click Comments and the pop-up box opens.
Click Jump to Comment Form; no more car pool tunnel! Mwah!
If you ask me a question in your comment, please remember to leave
me your email address so I can respond. Thank you!