Thanks to Trop 50 for sponsoring my writing about fabulous bloggers. This year Trop50 is granting 50 fabulous wishes. Click here to enter for a chance to win $1,000 to help grant a friend’s wish!

What makes a blogger fabulous?  I guess everyone has a different answer, but for me fabulous-ness is tightly interwoven with creativity.  The  fab five bloggers I have selected ooze creativity from their very pores.  Not only do they present their creations for us to indulge in, but they spark us to inject more creativity into our own blogs and lives.

The first amazing blogger I would like to introduce you to is Rachel from Following In My Shoes.  On her blog Ms. Rachel quilts together random bits of of her life, excellent photography, healthy living and blogging tips.  She is always changing up something in the design of her blog, and often shares tips with those of us less savvy than herself.  I also liked her focus on homemade goods over the holidays.  Rachel is the kind of girl your wish was your neighbor.

My next über fantastic blogger is Kelly Diels with her blog Cleavage.  Kelly is a gratuitous and frisky over-sharer, and we all love her for it.  In her blog Cleavage,  she artfully explores the topics of sex, money and single motherhood.  On top of all that, she manages to squeeze in some writing advice for her minions.  Yes,  I really need to read her more often.

I now present to you the queen of over-sharing, The Creative Junkie.  No one else but Andy (Andrea Chamberlain) could make me read about bodily fluids and excretions, and come back for more.  Her self effacing humor, and wacky anecdotal tales are sure to catch you in her web.  When you find yourself reading about the antics of Oliver on a regular basis, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

If you are prepared for a psychedelic trip into a wonderland of food, my next blogger is a must visit.  Christine Mack (Momma Cupcake) truly worships at the altar of food in her blog, The Cupcake Bandits.  This is not your typical food blog.  While the recipes and photos are delectable, there is an edginess to the writing.   Imagine carrying a wedding cake on a tightrope.. Yeah, it’s like that.  She is also the co-host of Dessert Wars.

My final fabulous blogger, is Joel Henriques of Made by Joel.  Yes, I included a man on my list. Joel is a super creative fun dad.  His blog is riddled with pictures of his kids enjoying the handcrafted toys that he makes.  Now here’s the great part, he shares how to make these artful modern toys with his readers.  With Joel’s printable artwork to help you, most of these projects are pretty easy to complete.  Projects like these are what your kid’s will remember when they grow up, not which video game they got for Christmas.

While I often stray from reading blogs, since I am always busy on far too many projects of my own, these bloggers always seem to pull me back.  Their passion for their creative outlets exudes from them in a way, that encompasses the reader.  Now get off my dime store rag, and  go get inspired by them.

Don’t forget to enter the 50 Fabulous Wishes contest for a chance to win $1,000 to support a friend’s wish. I was selected for this Tropicana Trop50 sponsorship by the Clever Girls Collective, which endorses Blog With Integrity, as I do. I received compensation to use and facilitate my post.

Until midnight CST, new customers to Hostgator can get 50% off hosting plans.  This is the host I use, so I am not ashamed to say I am very jealous of those who can grab this deal.  Alas, I have been using this host for years, so no new customer discount for me

Awesome deal to grab top quality hosting, for the price of a crappy one.  You can even lock in the deal for up to 3 years on some plans!

Second chance at the deal!!!!  Hostgator will be offering the 50% off deal again on Cyber Monday, for all of you who missed it on Black Friday!!!

This promotion will run Monday November 29th from 12:00AM to 11:59PM CST (-6 GMT).

The 50% off coupon will be AUTOMATICALLY applied, but they also gave a code: CYBERMONDAY2010

No coupon code needed: Link Direct to Order Page

Since many of my blogger friends are also busily working on their holiday gift guides right now, I started a blog hop type link on my Christmas blog, PoorSanta.com.   Today is my Blogaverasary and I am in a giving spirit, so I am also including the linky here.  Please feel free to grab the linky code (right below where you submit) and post, as well.  If you prefer a button, rather than doing a linky post, one is available in the orginal linky post, on the Christmas blog. 

I have been thinking about adding a visitor count on my individual posts for some time now.  Today, I decided to get it done. 

As bloggers, and I assume most of the web know, comments are not much of a measure of the true reach of a blog post.  Granted, controversial posts, will tend to garner more than their fair share of people willing to pipe in on the topic, but commenting takes time.  Non-bloggers are far less likely to leave a comment, yet the likelihood that they visited the post to actually read it is higher.  Many of us also shut down comments, after a certain period of time on our posts, since old posts tend to be spam magnets.

The WordPress plug-in that enabled me to do this is called WP-PostViews.  To use this plug-in, just install, then adjust the settings to block it from tallying your own pageviews and those of bots.  Once that is done, you will insert a small piece of code into your theme, and you should be up and running.  If your theme has hooks, it is super easy, just pop the code in before the post content.  If you have a more traditional theme paste the code in right after the coding for your post header (in the single post file). For more detailed instructions go here –> http://lesterchan.net/wordpress/readme/wp-postviews.html

The plug-in was activated here on Blommi at 2 PM EST  today (Sept. 17, 2010).  Since it of course can’t read traffic retroactively, numbers will seem out of whack for posts which were already up at that time.   This is the first thing I have published, post-install, so it should reflect an accurate count.

I think this is an especially good feature to have on blogs, that do reviews.  What do you think?  Is it giving out too much information?  Should it be an expected standard among bloggers who work with PR?  Is it just blog clutter?

Perhaps I notice it more than any of my readers, but my blog has been a bit “plain” this last week.  There is a reason for the sudden rash of quickie giveaway posts, with stock photos.  My PC was been out of commission.   I’ve been working off my “vintage” laptop in the meantime, thus no photo editing or extensive posts this week.

The whole dismal affair occurred because, I caught a nasty virus on my PC.  I am pretty sure I picked up the virus participating in a blog hop, by the way, so take this as a warning.  BE CAREFUL ABOUT THE LINKS YOU CLICK ON, when you participate in hops and linkys.   Just because someone typed in “warm and fuzzy blog”, does not mean that is the link they actually added.

We ended out having to wipe my hard drive, and I lost a couple programs, and a bunch of images.  I am happy to be up and running again though.  Now to catch up, on the things I couldn’t complete last week.