(This is my first post, so be forgiveful!)

This is what I did. Its the EASIEST solution that I know of. I just reused the advanced search done in CGridView.

In my controller file

public function actionIndex()
	{
            
                $model=new Blogs('search');
		$model->unsetAttributes();  // clear any default values
		if(isset($_GET['Blogs']))
			$model->attributes=$_GET['Blogs'];

		  $this->render('index',array('dataProvider'=>$model->search(), 'model'=>$model)); //send model object for search
            }

In my view file (namely my index file)

<?php
$this->breadcrumbs=array(
	'Blogs',
);

$this->menu=array(
	array('label'=>'Create Blogs', 'url'=>array('create')),
	array('label'=>'Search Blogs', 'url'=>array('admin')),
);
Yii::app()->clientScript->registerScript('search', "
$('.search-button').click(function(){
	$('.search-form').toggle();
	return false;
});
$('.search-form form').submit(function(){
	 $.fn.yiiListView.update('blogslistview', { //this entire js section is taken from admin.php. w/only this line diff
		data: $(this).serialize()
	});
	return false;
});
");
?>

<h1>Blogs</h1>

<?php echo CHtml::link('Advanced Search','#',array('class'=>'search-button')); ?>
<div class="search-form" style="display:none">
<?php  $this->renderPartial('_search',array(
	'model'=>$model,
)); ?>
</div>

<?php $this->widget('zii.widgets.CListView', array(
	'dataProvider'=>$dataProvider,
	'itemView'=>'_view',
       'id'=>'blogslistview',             //must have id corresponding to js above
       'sortableAttributes'=>array(
        'id',
        'startdate',
           'enddate',
           'user_id',
    ),
)); 
?>