Ok this might not work but I'm trying it. Here's the problem.

Facebook sharing totally jacks up all my pretty little paragraphs and grabs random bits of text constantly.

I figured out how to override this by typing in the desired title in the manual excerpt area. Perfect.

Then I decided that I really don't want full posts on my homepage but would rather have excerpts of about 250 words.

Problem? The ones I have made Facebook share ready are now displaying the manual excerpt instead of the first 250 words. I even tried adding the "more" tag manually (the right way not like that). And it still is pulling from the excerpt.

Any ideas on how to override this or other ways to control what gets shared on facebook?

the only ay would be to edit the theme code since the rule is:
if there is a manual excerpt use that otherwise go generate an excerpt

Hi Juggledad.

I'm happy to do that (I won't be updating anytime soon). Can you point me in the right direction I can't seem to find what I am looking for yet.

you will need to look in functions.php - search for 'excerpts'

Awesome. Got it.

Thanks so much!

p.s. your help over the last number of years off and on has been incredible in helping me build my blog and go from knowing nothing about HTML/CSS to do a lot of things on my own now. so....thank you. my husband works for a nonprofit and i am home with our almost one year old and finances are super tight so there's no way i could ever have been able to afford to go to school to learn this stuff.