HELP!!!!!!!!!

Okay, as you can tell I've been absent from blogging for a bit.  There's a long story behind it that I want to share.  I also have new posts ready to go and a fun give-away planned for a very special reason. 

However. . . I need the help of experienced bloggers out there!

I am getting killed with spam comments.  There are tons of them daily!!! Has this happened to you?

picture source

 

I am deleting them every day, but I am wondering if anyone has any tips on how to stop them.  I am going to go ahead with new posts, but I can't do a give-away where you leave a comment to enter when my comments are being so terribly spammed!  It makes me so angry!  Don't these people have anything better to do?  I know it's probably some evil program that just blasts them, but someone had to come up with that!

Sadly, I have added word verification to my comments now because of it.   I didn't want to do word verification because I know I hate it when a blog makes me jump through hoops just to leave a comment.  This looks fairly simple, so I hope nobody gets too annoyed!   I'm also really hoping that will do the trick, but when it comes to all this spam . . .
I would really appreciate any ideas or tips you have out there.

So, on Tuesday I am planning to post a little explanation of why I've been sort of MIA for a while.  After that, I have a couple of posts planned regarding a couple of fun purchases I made, a post regarding a leveled-reading teacher resource book I've been using, and some center activities I've made.  I also have a Valentine's Day printable I would like to get up before Thursday, but it still  needs some tweaking so no promises on that one. :-)

Last but not least is the give-away!  I'm really excited about why I'm doing it and I think you are going to love what I want to give a lucky winner, but I just can't do it until I get this spam thing under control.  Hopefully, I will be able to post the give away by next weekend. 

So, thanks to those of you still coming back despite my hit or miss posting of late.  Hopefully, I can get this spam thing under control and we can resume normal activities!