How I Follow 177 Blogs (And How You Can, Too!)

I told a quilting friend how many blogs I like to keep up with - yes, that number is currently 177! And always growing! She wanted to know if I live on my computer all day long. No, I don't!

When I first discovered quilting blogs, I bookmarked them on my computer. Then every day, I'd have to go to my bookmarks and click on each blog individually to see if there was a new post. Often there wasn't a new post. I spent so much time daily clicking and checking, sometimes only to find a couple of new posts. I was explaining this to my Software Engineer daughter a couple of years ago and she had a solution which has changed my life.

Now I can read so many blogs in so little time! And I don't have to search to find recent posts. I know many of you may already know how to do this, but in case you don't..... Emily has helped me with these instructions.

1. Go to http://reader.google.com and sign in with your Google account. If you do not have a Google account, click "Create an account" to make an account. (This is free.) This account will give you access to ALL of Google's apps (GMail, Google Calendar, Google Reader, etc.).

2. At the top left corner, click the "Add a subscription" button. This is where you'll start adding the blogs that you read.

3. Type either the blog address (e.g. greenquilts.blogspot.com) or a search term (e.g. Green Quilts).

4. Repeat this for all your blogs, and you're done! You can click "All items" on the left to see all of your new blog posts from all of your subscribed blogs. If you'd rather view only a specific blog, click on the blog under the "Subscriptions" section on the left.

It takes a bit of time to enter your favorite blogs in initially, but it's really not too bad. And whenever you discover a new blog you like, it's so easy to add it to your list.

I hope this changes your life as much as it has changed mine. Now I just have to go to reader.google.com, click on "All items," and any new posts from my blog list appear for me to read. As I scroll through each entry, it is automatically marked as read so it will not appear again. One site. Lots of blog entries. Time saved. It's a very good thing!