Velveteen Mind

Hello. My name is Karla, and I am a procrastinator.

Guest Post by Karla from  Looking Towards Heaven

That title has nothing to do with my post topic.  But here I am at the last minute racing to Megan's to get a post up for her.  She may just wish that I had procrastinated a little longer.

Just like a few others who have come before me, I find myself perplexed by the fact that I am writing on Megan's blog… What was I thinking when I volunteered for this! I am hardly qualified. Writing has never been my strong point. I have a hard enough time talking in a cohesive manner, let alone writing it out in a way that won‘t make the reader‘s head want to explode.

I have an almost obsessive overuse of the ellipse. I do find it appropriate; my mind tends to trail off like that anyway. Really, it is the perfect punctuation for me. I also have a tendency to put commas in all of the wrong places or forget them all together. (and if TypePad were my blog host I'd be wearin' that "strikethrough" button out!)

My writing could be torn apart: it’s not witty enough, it’s not thought-provoking enough, it’s not ground-breaking or profound.

But that is me. And, oddly enough, I have discovered that people like that part of me. Sure, there are the (many many many) people who run from my blog screaming in horror. But there are also many that have continued to come and observe my quirks and have even reached out and struck up a friendship in spite of those same quirks.

So it is, with this odd thing called blogging. Who would have thought that such a thing could have such an impact on so many lives. Many women are finding their voices through blogging. Many are reaching out of their comfort zones and opening up about issues that they have been ashamed to vocalize to anyone else.  I certainly don’t want to exaggerate it to mystical proportions, but blogs have become so much more than I think anyone could have anticipated.

For 7 years, my brother-in-law had been after me to start a blog. I’d shake my head and think “what a silly silly man you are. How is that even remotely enjoyable.”

Little did I know.

So, while people may stumble across my blog and immediately pass it by, I know that blogging has made it’s mark on me. It is my story and my life and my handprint that will be left behind when I am long gone. Even if no one else notices it.

Take notice of Karla over at Looking Towards Heaven.  You'll be glad you did.

A bunny story

GoBloMeMoFo... such a funny title (for a funny lady!).  For some reason it always makes me think of a swear word.  Not sure why.

Hi, this is Krista from Welcome to Married Life!  Let’s see what randomness I can come up with tonight to help save the bunny.

I had a bunny. Actually I had two. I was in 4-H (oh yeah!) when I was in grade school.  One of my bunnies was a tortoise colored Dutch named Daisy May.  And how sad is this? For some reason I kept remembering that she was a Netherland Dwarf..., but that didn’t seem right.  So I had to go to the American Rabbit Breeder’s Association home page and look at the pictures to find the right name!

Anyways.

She was small and cute and I liked her a lot, but she wasn’t very friendly. 

The other rabbit I had was a Himalayan. Think Siamese cat, but looking like a rabbit. And she was fat. And I can’t even remember what her name was!  She wasn’t friendly at all.

So I had these two rabbits (and my brother had one) and we kept them in cages under a lean-to next to our barn.  Don’t worry, we lived on the wet side of Oregon and it never got that cold.  Plus they had these nice little wooden boxes to nest in.

Both of my rabbits had babies, and they all died. How sad is that? I don’t think I was a very good rabbit mama because I didn’t know what to do for them to help them take care of their babies.  Do you know how hard it is to bury baby bunnies?  When you’re in grade school?

See, now I’m about to cry.  This is why I had to write a post and help save the bunny!

We moved when I was in middle school and I had to leave my bunnies behind. They went to my 4-H leader’s house and she had lots of bunnies so I’m sure they had long happy bunny lives.

And I won’t tell you about the time our club went to a rabbit farm and they fed us hot dogs for lunch... and then when we were done eating they told us they were rabbit hot dogs.  EW!

Now, come on and help me save this bunny while there’s still time!!!  (or before the bunny escapes and we have to go chase it down and catch it with a fish net!)

And come visit me sometime for more random weirdness! :)

GoBloMeMoFo was a Bad Ass Success

NaBloPoMo:  Dismal failure over here.
GoBloMeMoFo:  Stellar success!

If you haven't been keeping up, NaBloPoMo is short for National Blog Posting Month, during which  the goal is to post every day for 30 days.  Period.

Simple.  Just simple enough that I knew there was no way in hell I could do it.  I generally post 3-4 times a week, rarely on weekends, and sometimes not even that often.  I've been known to disappear into real life for days on end, my blog left to wither and flail about on its own.  I knew that NaBloPoMo was beyond my ambitions.

However, I love buttons, I love social networking (sort of, well, eh), and I love challenges.  I also love to cheat because seriously, I'll follow their rules when the blog police show up on my virtual doorstep to enforce them.  Hence, GoBloMeMoFo was born.

Jennifer at Playgroups Are No Place For Children coined the term.  Fussypants designed the wicked buttons and dreamed up the animal cruelty threats, and I hit the "publish" button.  What you got there, folks, was one glorious month of guest posts from my fabulous readers. 

Because NaBloPoMo can GoBloMeMoFo, we were playing it our way over here.  Cheating or not.  We still posted.

And we met a lot of people.  And that was the point.  I scooped up some crazy great new readers from my guest bloggers' audiences and I hope they snagged a few of mine, as well.  Our own little scrappy social network of cheaters.  I love it.

I will post the final two GoBloMeMoFo guest posts right after this one by yours truly.  I know I'm sort of squooshing two in at the last minute, but I'm going to give them the whole weekend to roam free before I start smashing them under my piles of words, so be sure to read them both, please.

If you submitted a guest post but it didn't get published or asked to sign up but didn't get to in time, I sincerely apologize and ask for your continued patience.  Although GoBloMeMoFo is over, I still host some awesome Squatters here every Saturday, so I hope you'll allow me to slip you in as a Saturday Squatter instead.  Deal?  I underestimated the response and I truly apologize, but you'll still get a cool button and a place on a permanent page over here.  Hmmm, I better get to updating that page...

Speaking of slacking, I know I haven't been posting much this month, but I can't begin to tell you how much I have not even been spitting in the direction of my computer.  If I ever do sit down here, it's to work on my eBay store for the holidays or to grab a guest post to publish.  Then there's that whole trying to get a house thing... 

By the way, we've made it past the first mortgage hurdle and are just waiting to hear back from the underwriter.  Fingers crossed, people.  Fingers crossed.  Knock on wood.  Burn a bra.  Whatever works.  I want this house.  I want a home.  Damn it.

Thanks again to all of my bad-ass nice GoBloMeMoFo guest bloggers, to all of their daring readers who have stuck around over here, and to all of you that have taken the time to click their links and get to know some new blogs.

GoBloMeMoFo guest bloggers, you seriously are bad-ass nice!  Display your badges with pride!

Until next year, GoBloMeMoFo!!!

Bunny Saved.

...........................

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The Thong Song

Guest post from Janet at From the Planet of Janet:

Yo, bunny lovers everywhere.

I am your hostess for the day. Let me just say up front that I'm a guest posting whore. I'll guest post anywhere, any time, for anyone. Given the opportunity to write ANYWHERE but my own blog ... I'm there!

So today ... I am here to save the bunny from NaBloPoMoFo-dee-oh-doh anihalation anhialation anialation a fate worse than death.

Yeah, so now that I have your attention, let's talk, yeah?

I want to talk about thongs.

No, silly people, not those things that my 13-year-old daughter, the Roo-girl, wants to wear under her way-too-tight skinny jeans to avoid panty lines.

What we called thongs back in my day (when dinosaurs roamed the earth) are these:

Yes, I know. We now call them flip flops. And they are, of course, everywhere.

I remember some of my friends called them zorries "back in the day," but in my house, they were thongs. Just thongs.

So in addition to guest-blog whore, my other name is Eeeeevil Mother. I totally LOVE making the Roo-girl cringe.

And I can so do this by telling her how many different colors my childhood thongs were.

And how they actually were made of RUBBER.

And how I wore my thongs IN PUBLIC. Where people could actually see them. And they looked!

And how I sometimes kicked OFF my thongs.

And how I never wore my thongs in the house, but always when I went to the beach.

And how, when I went to camp, I wore my thongs to walk to the showers.

And how my thongs were soooo comfy that I wore them for days at a time!

This makes her a nut ball.

But I do love me some thongs flip flops. I love them because I can show off my pedicure:

Now that the weather is getting colder, though, you might think my thongs are inadequate for keeping warm.

Ah, but no:

My daughter says I'm a geek.

I just think I like my thongs. No butts about it.

Stop by and visit my planet. The weather's fine. Perfect for wearing thongs.

What's Wrong With Me?

Guest Post by PunditMom

I have  grand plans.  I have plenty of ideas.  I make lists.  I get myself geared up.

And then I can't get started. 

I have book ideas dancing like visions of sugarplums in my head. 

I have a vision of a house that's neat and tidy.  I fantasize about finding a way to get the family to the dinner table together with something a tad more nutritious than pasta with sauce from a jar.

Then after I do morning school drop-off, and maybe run an errand or two, I get home and immerse myself in my office and get stuck.

Sure, I can crank out the blog posts.  And there's satisfaction in that.  I'm a writer, after all, and there is the immediate gratification of seeing my words out there in the bloggy-sphere.  I'm even getting noticed a little bit for it, so that satisfies my ego.

But I've got to find a way to snap out of my funk and find another path. 

I don't want to stop this, but my life needs to be about more -- more comfy-ness in my home, more time focused on PunditGirl, more time to get the fingers moving on other stories I need to tell that can't be told in this virtual world.  Time to focus on me -- because at my ripe old age, I have finally figured out that no one is ever going to put me first except me.

So I'm going to start being more selfish about my time.  But I feel guilty about that.  My problem, I know.  I'm working on that.

Why am I writing this here and not at my place?  Because I still need to keep these thoughts and feelings private from certain people, but I still need to put them out here somewhere so I can get them off my chest and find the motivation I've been lacking for a long time to take care of me -- physically, mentally and emotionally.

Any thoughts on where I can find the impetus?  I know a body at rest tends to stay at rest.  I need to get this body movin'.

We've all been there or we all are there, so head over to PunditMom and show her the solidarity I know is there on this one.  An absolute treasure trove of solid posts, you'll be glad you did.  Just be prepared to get lost in the good stuff...