Big changes at the All Arkie Army!

As I've griped about several times on here over the past couple of months, I got dog sick and was unable to get a lot of things done.

I've pretty much kept up with my job, my primary blog -- The Natural State Hawg -- and have, sadly, not done much at all with The All Arkie Army. I put that one together a few months ago for the purpose of providing a place for Arkansas bloggers to promote their content. Of course, we've got some people on there with Arkansas ties, too.

I'm finally healthy again and find myself in the mood to pay some attention to the little blog that I've unfortunately neglected. To that end, we've got a few changes in store.

First of all, we're moving from simply posting links here and there to reproducing entire articles that have something to do with the Natural State or are just ones that participants happen to like. Some of that content will be original, whereas some will not be. Of course, people will still come in and link to their articles and that's just fine.

I'm not limiting what people can post at all. I suspect people will still simply use the All Arkie Army as a way to link to their blogs. That's just fine. I simply believe some Arkansas-specific content that's reproduced in full will be useful to all who visit.

Also, I had hoped to get the All Arkie Army listed on Entrecard, but the blog was rejected for want of original content. More original content should help us get around that problem and, thus, drive some more traffic to the blog. We'll just see how it works out over the next month or so.

Now, most of the great ideas I've come up with over the years have been stolen and I can't claim credit for this one. No, my friend Theresa Komor over at Eyebald and A Bumpy Path came up with the idea of having more original content on the All Arkie Army in hopes of having more of a magazine format. That was a great idea and I've shamelessly stolen it. That's pretty much par for the course.

Second, I have been inspired by the very kind ladies over at Margie and Edna's Basement. Not long ago, those nice ladies presented me with the Special Tea Award. That award was special because there were absolutely no strings attached. That's right -- I didn't have to pass it around or anything like that. It was a simple token of appreciation and I love that idea.

When you combine that concept with my desire to be a Kentucky Colonel, what do you get? That's right -- an award through which people will be named Captains in the All Arkie Army. The award is not meant to be passed on and will be awarded to bloggers out there that we just like. How cool is that? I hope it works out like that, at least.

So, there are big changes in store at the All Arkie Army -- some things I've been meaning to implement for some time but just haven't felt up to it. So, if you are an Arkansan or have ties to this wonderful state, please pay us a visit and think about applying for membership. Instructions on how to join can be found right here.