A new home for Kristen's Guide content about health, wellness, and life skills

Excuses Excuses

I cannot believe it has been over a year since I updated Kristen's Guide.  In Internet years, that's like dropping out for a decade.  I've been working hard in graduate school, studying mental health counseling and clinical psychophysiology, and have learned a lot that I want to share with my readers, but because I've been so busy, I haven't had time to design anything new or post any of the great information I've learned.

But Really, I Can Explain

Now, Kristen's Guide needs some serious updating.  I know you've noticed it too.  Many of my fans have been contacting me and wondering when I'll post new printables, calendars, checklists, articles, how-to guides, calculators, etc.  I've had several messages from people worried that Kristen's Guide was going offline.  I've even had multiple offers to sell it.  But, don't worry, it's sticking around.  However, rather than just updating things the same ol' way, I'm going to try something new.  Kristen's Guide will still have lots of great information about a wide variety of topics and free printables, and I will update it, but I'm also starting a new site: All Together Wellness at http://www.alltogetherwellness.com

Introducing All Together Wellness: A Health and Wellness Focused Site from the Creator of Kristen's Guide

The goal of All Together Wellness is to have a website/blog that has more specific wellness and health focused information along with life skills that everyone can use.  All other topics that don't fit into a wellness category (e.g. coding web pages and shopping guides) will still be on Kristen's Guide.  All Together Wellness will also be less focused on me personally, which will allow for guest posts from other experts and professionals instead of just having every post be,well, "Kristen's Guide to ...."  Plus, it will be database driven using flexible platforms, so we can expand it as needed.  For all you non-geeks out there, that means it can do more than the old Kristen's Guide website.  At All Together Wellness, in addition to having articles and printables, we could have life skills and wellness courses that you can enroll in online, forums for getting questions answered, and social networking so you can keep in touch with like-minded people through popular social sites like Facebook and Google+.  It will take some time, of course, to get everything up and running, but we're already posting new content, and it will continue to grow.

Local Resources Too

For those of you who live in or near Gresham, Oregon (East Portland Metro), on All Together Wellness you'll also find information about local health and wellness resources since we have quite a shortage of online resources for this area.

For those of you who live in other parts of the world, we'll do our best to put up national and international health and wellness resources that can help you get pointed in the right direction.

Grand Opening Tour Time!

So head over to All Together Wellness, take a look around, and let me know what you would like to see there.  Then subscribe to the feed or follow us on Facebook or Twitter to easily get updates.

See you there!

What's New at Kristen's Guide

I know it has been a long time since I've updated Kristen's Guide, but I certainly haven't forgotten it. I've been working hard on my Master's Degree in Mental Health Counseling and my post-grad certification in Clinical Psychophysiology, which has taken up lots of my time, but my educational growth has also taught me a lot about how I can help my readers and site visitors, so it's worth the wait. I'm also in the process of starting a new site, called All Together Wellness, that will incorporate articles and tools from a variety of authors, not just me, about mental and physical health as well as social health (aka relationships) and will have an additional focus of helping people in my local area.  Kristen's Guide definitely isn't going away though.  In fact, I could use your help in making it better.

I'm hoping you can let me know what you'd like to see on Kristen's Guide, especially with regard to printables and topics for articles and worksheets.  I'm planning on getting an early start on the free printables this year.  That way, the education related printables will be done by the end of the summer and the 2012 printables will actually be ready by 2012. :-)  So let me know what you want to see!

Evil Redirect Ads

A sneaky way that some browser hogs get you to look at their site is by putting redirect code in the ads or comments. The redirect code automatically redirects you to another website, something totally unaffiliated with the one you're looking at.

This is what I recently discovered was happening with one of the ads on Kristen's Guide. I'm doing my best to get rid of the bugger, but it doesn't happen every time, so it's difficult to troubleshoot. To fix this, I need you, my subscribers, to help me.

All I need you to do is visit KristensGuide.com. After the page finishes loading you should be looking at the Kristen's Guide home page. If you suddenly find yourself redirected to another website, please let me know. Just send an email to me at feedback@kristensguide.com (since the contact forms on the site may not be working because of the annoying browser hogging spam bug).

Thanks so much to all of you who help me out. I truly appreciate it.

(I know. I know. The easiest way to get rid of the problem is to get rid of all ads on the site, but hey, if I did that, I couldn't pay the bills.)