Ok, I am feeling slightly down after the last review I did, which only got a 1/5, so I was excited to review a blog that I loved, and feel has only a few downsides. Secret Squirrels In The House is a small little secret diary about a mother of 3 children. Two of them are grown up and one teenager is still at home. She also has just started a new marriage and has plenty to blog about, and while she may be going slightly crazy it is still something very interesting for people who know her, and more importantly people who don’t!
The design, while slightly basic, is very nice and easy on the eyes. I do not know if the design is unique to this blog, however; I feel it is most likely not. If indeed it is not unique then it has been edited well and not over-used by other blogs. There is a very large header image which could do with a bit of scaling down due to it taking up nearly half the page before the fold on a 1024 resolution. The font of the header image could do with being changed slightly due to it being hard to read, however; it adds a classic feel to the whole blog, which (without sounding too evil) goes well for a blog about a 40 year old mother. The colors used on the blog are great on the eyes and while testing I found that none of the colors cause any problem for my color-blindness, which is great. The design, as I said before, is classic and reminds me of the 20’s and 30’s with the use of patterns from that era, it is not overpowering in any way. The menu is pretty much a basic menu, with a small bit of information telling you what the blog is about, and then a link to a more advanced about page. The blogger has a shoutbox on the website which allows for visitors to leave general words of wisdom and comments about the blog, and so far that seems to have been used mainly by people who read the blog with every update. It also provides a small bit of information explaining who each person that she talks about is. Within the blog she uses code names so that no one finds out who she is and who the other people she talks about on the blog are. Then there are the general things, such as, the archive and blog roll. The blog roll {links} are not too large and keep the page nice and tidy. It then has some rather random links and images related to certain aspects such as Fighting cancer, which is nice to see.
The Content is well written and is done in a format which you would expect for such a personal blog. While it goes into detail about each thing, it would be nice to see more of her thoughts and feelings and not so much about her children. It is great to see the blogger use blogs as a way to let the world know that not everyone is as normal as you would think, and in the bloggers own words she is slightly crazy, which gives the posts, as serious as they are, a bit more depth and humor. There are a large amount of pictures used in the blog posts, however; they are not too large and don’t have too large of a file size. It is a shame to see that this blog is using typeblog for a number of reasons that will remain unsaid, and it would also be nice to see this blog with a domain name.
Apart from the few things I have said, I feel this blog has done well in providing an insight into the life of the blogger and a somewhat crazy lifestyle. The design is nice and while it is not perfect the content has been written well. I would love to give this blog 4/5, and as such I will!
You sometimes get one of them blogs and wonder why the author is even bothering. And as harsh as it sounds I feel I may of found one of them. Let me introduce you to