Hi, Laurie, thanks for your kindness. Yes, I added the feature to show updates. Personally, I think it encourages more of us to read the other blogs because we can see which ones have new posts and can spend our scheduled blog reading time more efficiently. (For those who have such good discipline that is. Unlike me, who gets swallowed up with the goodness I keep finding from link to link to link. )

I don't know that much about homeschool blogger, but I will do a some reading on this and see what I can find out. I do know that independently hosted and blogger/blogspot blogs as well as typepad blogs do all show updates. Some times the ping and update services that the free hosting sites offer don't always notify properly. I have a few friends that use Xanga and sometimes their feeds don't always update witht the services. This has more to do with the hosting provider than the blogrolling service. I do think there are a few alternatives out there that can help. I check into today after my second cup of coffe and my lemon doughnut.