Any Bloggers out there?

I use NucleusCMS on my own domain and LOVE it.  They have so many skins to choose from and I've been able to customize it.  Also their FAQ and help forums are amazing.  I can ask a super specific question about some tidbit of code and some dude 5 time zones away will post the answer in less than an hour.

I don't like sites like Facebook, MySpace....things that limit what you can do and put ads all over.  Nucleus is free and the cost of a domain for me is $16/yr, and I know other providers are cheap if not free.

What is your opinion of Blogspot?  That is where a lot of adoptive families have posted their stories.

 I recently created a Blogspot account, and I like it so far.  I think selecting a blogging site really has a lot to do with how you want to use it.  For me, I want to be able to customize the page, and post gratuitous pictures and long-winded monologues about my dogs.  Blogspot works perfectly for that.  It has a lot of fun features and applications you can add to your blog, like a List function that I used to create a long list of dog books I love.  And you can edit in slideshows and all sorts of other fun stuff.  You can look at mine if you want (the link's in my signature), but bear in mind that I JUST started it, and haven't finished adding all the applications yet.  I want to start coding HTML banners and such, but that will have to wait until I have more time.

I created a blogspot blog for the same reason you did when I got pregnant.  I wanted something that had templates for me to make it easy when I started but that I could also customize if I wanted to.  I have been really happy with it so far and have found little add-in's that customize it more for my own use.  I have enjoyed creating an online journal and it is nice to be able to  refer people to your blog for updates and pics instead of repeating the same things over and over.  We have a friend who recently adopted her second child from China and we all kept up with her journey through it which was a wonderful thing. 

From time to time I will send out an email to my family telling them I have a recent update if I want them to go look, but for the most part, the people who want the updates check it pretty regularly.  They tell me all the time how they enjoy reading it. 

ETA: one thing that may or may not make a difference to you is online picture storage.  I started using Picasaweb for it b/c they gave me the most storage for free and let me arrange the albums in an easy to browse format.  It is also very easy for me to post pics to my blog from it but I have found it very hard to post pics to forums from it so I still use photobucket for those or just link the entire album. 

Hi, I use Blogspot too and is very easy to use and a great way to share your thoughts, pics, family stuff, work, whatever you want actually. My blog is in spanish, if you want, you can see it here... and if you are interested or need help, you can ask me anything.

 I use Blogger.com (blogspot is the same) and it is very easy to use has nice templates and has enough support to learn how to do various things. I have domains for my blogs and you can use blogger on your own domain - a friend of mine did that fairly easily so it is doable.  You can buy domains for as little as 1.99/yr from lots of places - mine are from GoDaddy.  I think I would prefer that mine were on the domains vs @blogspot mostly because mine are related to my work

I didn't know about that NucleusCMS and will likely have a play with that - thanks Lies!!!

Blogspot is OK, IMO, but I need full control b/c I do XHTML and CSS on a daily basis, plus I already own several domains so it makes more sense for me to use a CMS product and have full control.  But, if you're not into that, then I would sign up for something free like Blogspot.