Help Needed

How many of you use a reader to keep up with your favorite bloggers?

I've been using Google's Reader for several months now and it really has helped me to keep up with new posts others have been putting up and saves me a lot of time because I don't have to log into each and every blog to see if a new post has been put up from the day -or two days maybe (when I get behind on reading) before.

Usually I like this service -a lot -but the key word there is "Usually."

Since last Friday -August 1st -my Reader has been acting up, behaving weirdly for me. I appears apparently to many who use a reader that I have not put up any new posts since Thursday, July 31st -and that's not true. I have done several posts as a matter of fact, since that date.

Last Friday, from about 9:30 a.m. until around 8:00 p.m., when I would log into my reader, all I would see was maybe 1/8 of the number of blogs I subscribe to showing on the left sidebar. In addition to that, there was no scrollbar between the names of those I subscribe to and the posts. I sent a message to Google/Blogger's Help Form (Such a wonderful place that is to get lost in!) about my issues but to date, I have received no response from them giving me any assistance.

Friday evening -around 8:00 p.m. -my reader began working again. However, there seems to be still more of a glitch going on with it and that is that MY blog is not being updated on readers!

The last post showing for my blog on Reader is dated July 31st.

I have tried everything I KNOW (which isn't very darned much, I admit) to get this corrected -to no avail. If you click into my blog via Google Reader and then click on my blog name at the top -not the name of the blog post, but my blog name (Down River Drivel) it will take you to my blog and the recent posts. But just on first glance, it appears I haven't updated so gee, what does that do then to my stats, how many readers are stopping by, reading, commenting even at times.

I tried over the weekend to put my blog on Feedburner and wow, talk about major confusion to my pea brain! That site sure did me in -definitely has had me pretty much cross-eyed for the past 2-3 days now trying to figure out various things there.

One thing in particular is "sitemap" and "Verification of my blog" -which both of these have me totally confused.

What I'd like to do here is ask any of you reading this post, to please either leave me a comment or e-mail me (use the e-mail thing on my profile, please) to let me know that you read this post.

And, if you have a clue at all about how to fix stuff that goes awry with blogging, please feel free to offer up any suggestions, information, instructions there too -you name it, I'll try to see if it works!

Right now, this is quite frustrating for me and I really would appreciate very much any information, any help you can offer to me.

So please, come forward and give me a hand, will you? Comment that you read my blog from your reader and it's updating okay for you or comment that you come here from your own bookmark of my blog or however you came by here. Or please e-mail me and let me know how you found my blog now or find it regularly -whatever. I really need to have more information so I can try to wheedle down the list of what might be creating this problem and then, how to go about fixing it.

I'll be here -waiting patiently to hear from you!

Ok, I confess -I won't be waiting patiently, but I'll be here, and yes, I'll be waiting!