So, it turns out my 1 a.m. Friday night goals are lot more ambitious than my Saturday-morning-and-it’s-sunny ability to finish them.

Instead of being an active participant in Bloggiesta, my son and I took a walk in the morning. Then, in the late afternoon, my whole family went on a picnic at a local state park. Oh, it was so nice to let my little one just run around in the grass! He had fun, and even though this Chicago summer is already sweltering hot and miserable, I still enjoyed sitting outside in the late afternoon.

My son slept very soundly, as he has lately. He’s also not napping in most afternoons. My blog tweaking time, therefore, is going to disappear even further. With summer, though, I’m enjoying the time away from the computer.

I don’t normally get any time on the weekends to work on my blog, but counting the middle of the night time, I did spend about 3 hours working on my blog on Saturday, which is a lot for me. I also did a little bit of work on Rebecca’s Cooking Journal, which isn’t a blog so much as just an online record of my attempts at cooking (I’m quite the amateur) for my own record.

On Saturday, I wrote my review for The Forsyte Saga, fixed up the links on the “Reviews by Title” archives, and cleaned up my tags and categories. I also participated in a few mini-challenges. I realize, in retrospect, that if I’d just ignored the mini-challenges, I’d have accomplished a lot more of my other, more important goals.

Grade my blog (Ruth from Bookish Ruth). When I did analyzed the SEO info, it suggested I add meta tags to each page, including the about pages.

Update Google Reader (Rebecca at The Book Lady’s Blog). A few months ago, I deleted a ton of blogs, going from 300+ books blogs to just 30. I’m adding blogs back in, but just those that I’m reading on a regular basis and that I know review books that I am interested in. I’m back up to about 55. It killed me to cut blogs out, but what do you do? 300+ was a bit overwhelming to me. I do click on your name and read your blog if you leave a comment on Rebecca Reads. But I can’t be subscribed to 300 books blogs. I took Rebecca’s advice and deleted some inactive blogs. I already have my blogs sorted in to folders, which does help! How many books blogs are you subscribed to?

Comment on ten new blogs (Jill at Fizzy Thoughts). Oh my, this took forever. I didn’t realize how odd my reading choices are until I read more than 70 blogs looking for someone who reads something that appeals to me. (I didn’t want to just leave an empty “hi, I’m here” comment.) I haven’t been reading much modern fiction, and it seemed like many blogs were genre modern fiction: action, romance, sci fi, chick lit, “paranormal,” YA, etc. I like to read a variety of things.

If you have a books blog, I’d suggest you create an archive of all the books you’ve reviewed or at least an “about me” page that tells what kinds of things you like to read. It’s hard to find new blogs that are interesting, and without any kind of guide, the front page doesn’t always tell me much. Besides, I love browsing through other people’s reviews! What feature do you wish all other books blogs had?

What did you do for your blog this week?