Apologies, questions, and... puppies!

My sincere apologies for my lack of posts this month. Ever since I got home on the 5th, I have been crazy busy from sunup to sundown. You would have thought that going home for the summer would mean that I'd have more time for things, but I got right on a schedule and haven't had much time for anything extraneous since!

Apologies aside, I have a few questions for you:

I've been trying to figure out what my goals are for this blog. I currently I have 137 followers, and am about halfway through my second year blogging. I could keep pushing to get more followers (not to say more comments!), but I realized that shouldn't be my goal. Instead, I desire for this blog to be a place of encouragement and edification for Christian girls (and guys, though I'm typically talking to girls). So, my question for you is: Am I achieving this goal for you? Do you feel like this is a place of encouragement and edification? If not, please tell me what I can be doing better. Are there specific kinds of posts you'd like me to write more often? Would you rather me talk less or more about myself?

Please help me make this the best place I can, gals. I desire to do this for you, not for myself, and therefore I would love and greatly appreciate your feedback in this area.

Also, if you could vote on my poll on the sidebar about disqus and other commenting things, I would greatly appreciate that. 

And now, to the last item mentioned in my title:

 We got a puppy! Her name is Pepper, short for Peppermint. :) She is an Australian Shepherd, and pretty much the cutest thing ever. I always considered myself a cat person, but this little ball of playfulness is quickly winning my heart over to the other side. :)