Okay I see you are getting spam, are you Wordpress?

If so go to plugins, click on Add new enter the search term

Akismet

Then add his plugin, use the slider bar to change your donation to zero (unless you have a buck or two), sign up to get the api key and then plug it in. This spam helper is the best.

Also I see you have Google Friend Connect highlighted that is great, but do consider that they are taking GoogleFriendConnect away from everyone unless you are a Blogger site. So just a thought you might want to put a google plus widget, I found this one http://widgetsplus.com/

later after it goes through. I went ahead and loaded one just now, I will see how it looks after updating. 

Your site looks good clean. However your header does cut off your tag line, so you might want to play with that. Picnik, is a great photo resizer tool if you don't have photoshop, its free and online, i use it constantly, i also use powerpoint to manipulate my images.

Absolutely LOVE your header.

But your sidebar is too busy.  I personally don't think the "Google Connect" adds anything to blogs, but that's my personal opinion.

What your sidebar really needs is the methods for people to follow you via your e-mail newsletter or RSS feed, at the top of the sidebar, as you have it.

Next should be a list of recent posts and your topics.  I just think you have way too much going on in your sidebar and as a result, important things like "recent posts" are far too small and therefore, not likely to get attention. 

You can get an idea of what I mean by looking at my website: 

http://homeschooling911.com/blog/

Part of the problem might be your theme.  I use Headway, which is a paid theme.  But there are many free themes that are good - or so I've heard!  I had no luck with the free themes which is why I went with Headway.  

In any case, lose some of the stuff on the sidebar and make your recent posts and maybe your popular posts much more prominent.  Well, that's my advice anyway!  Good luck!

Looks nice. I do agree about the sidebar being too busy though. Less is usually more :)

I just started a new blog too.  I would love for you to check out mine:  www.brownpaperandstrings.com.

I am going to check out yours now.

Wow, I am in the same beginning process, so I'm going to take the advice here and try to make my blog better.  I just posted a list of questions that I can't figure out!

my blog is Bean's Monkey Business if you want to check mine out too.

I really like your header!  And your "follow" thing with the cute icons.  I'm really struggling with trying to figure out which 'follow' things to use (I can't figure out google+ at ALL and I keep wondering if its ever going to take off)... and I can't figure out the RSS feed thing either.  I'm so exhausted from working on this too much all weekend... :(

Jamie, your blog is beautiful and very professional looking! I love it!

Thanks, Shannon! 

Congrats on the new blog :P I'm off to take a look. I'm new here and trying to get my feet wet.