Velveteen Mind

Let Me Back Into The Matrix

A little over a year ago, I took the blue pill.  The one that places you inside the Matrix.  The Matrix that is the blogosphere, that is.

A little over four months ago, I took the red pill.  The one that removes you, albeit painfully, from the Matrix.  The one that plants you in the real world.

Now I'm ready to take the blue pill again.  But will you let me back into the Matrix?

~~~

It is amazing how much I missed while I was out of the Matrix.

It is disconcerting how little I missed while I was out of the Matrix.

Wading through hundreds of blog posts, it is clear that the more things change, the more they stay the same.  Conversations turn into friendships.  Slights turn into tantrums.  Radicals are born and movements are started.  Resolves fizzle as the shine of new blog buttons begin to dull.  Awards are doled out and flashes appear in the pan.  All that glitters...

And yet nuggets of genuine gold are there.  Scratch them.  See for yourself.  There is value in this Matrix that we have created.  You just have to know where to look.

So I took the blue pill.

Now let me back into the damn Matrix.

~~~

My progress so far...

Apparently BOSSY really did email me about her Excellent Road Trip  while I was, uh, not reading my email.  Thanks for supporting my bludgeoning of her for "overlooking" me anyway.  I should probably read my email from her before I start yelling at her next time.  Nevertheless, I will be meeting up with BOSSY at her stop in New Orleans and I couldn't be more excited to have her in my neighborhood.

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TopBlogMag is not dead after all.  It was just in a coma.  Unfortunately, it has woken up from its coma with amnesia, not being able to even remember its name.  Therefore, I have renamed it and given it an all-new identity that suits my purposes as its new publisher and editor:

Blog Nosh Magazine!

After consulting with all of TopBlogMag's excellent writers, the new reincarnation will be a magazine featuring republished posts from your blog's old archives. 

You know those really great posts you wrote before anyone was reading your blog?  The ones you try to pimp out in your sidebar's "Dear God, Please Read These Before You Judge Me for Writing About My New Haircut 4 Days in a Row!" section?  Yeah, those.

If it has fallen off of you r front page and you love it, then we will be noshing on it!

*With your permission, of course.*

I'll be calling for editors soon to start compiling content for lots of subcategories.  While TopBlogMag always had male writers, the majority of the bloggers seemed to come from mommyblogs.  Time to ditch our niche and help promote and discover  some solid content not originating from the uterus.

Not that I don't love mommybloggers.  ;)

*By the way, we will still have some "themed writing" challenges, but it won't be the entire content model now.

Want to get your name in early as a writer, contributor, and/or editor?  email me and I'll add you to the Blog Nosh Magazine mailing list for updates and cries for help about the progress of the magazine's restructuring and relaunch.

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In this same vein, one of my favorite new discoveries post-hiatus is Alltop.com.  Granted, I sort of hover around the moms.alltop.com section, but when I do venture out, I am always richly rewarded.   Alltop.com is an excellent source to break out of your "Internet stagnation."  Taken from their "about" page:

We help you explore your passions by collecting stories from “all the top” sites on the web. We’ve grouped these collections ... into individual Alltop sites based on topics ... At each Alltop site, we display the latest five stories from thirty or more sites on a single page — we call this “single-page aggregation.”

You can think of an Alltop site as a “dashboard,” “table of contents,” or even a “digital magazine rack” of the Internet... The bottom line is that we are trying to enhance your online reading by both displaying stories from the sites that you’re already visiting and helping you discover sites that you didn’t know existed. In this way, our goal is the “cessation of Internet stagnation.”

Precisely.  As such, Alltop has become an excellent source for knowing which blogs' archives I might like to dig through to find old content that they might like republished and re-promoted for Blog Nosh Magazine.  Particularly blogs in niches that I don't generally read.  A gold mine, indeed.  Although they only display the most recent headlines and preview the first paragraphs* from these blogs' posts, it's usually enough to know if I want to click through or not.

*Good reminder to all of us:  open strong and headline with intrigue!
 

Love it.

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Finally, the worst of my renewed immersion in the Matrix has been twitter.  When I took the red pill and stepped away from the computer, I was a so-so fan of twitter.  Mostly, I found that people used it to promote their blog posts and maybe talk about what they were eating.  No real conversations within the circle of twitters that I followed.

At the suggestion of MammaLoves, however, I decided to give twitter another go.  Apparently, Mamma is a drug pusher.   

May I suggest that if any of you decide to take a hiatus from blogging (highly recommended, mind you), twitter may be the fastest track back online.  Within days of logging back on, I have found at least a dozen new blogs that I adore and gained twice as many lovely "followers" as I had even last week. 

Talk about getting lost in the Matrix.  Get yourself an account or start using that dusty old one you already have and start following me.  You'll be amazed at who you'll meet, who you'll start reading, and who will start reading you.

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Now it's your turn.  Tell me, what else did I miss while I was away?   Pop a blue pill and draw me further into your Matrix.

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Good Friday. Pure. Home.

You know how we didn't have a computer for four months, more or less?

That also meant no internet and no television.  We were in a self-imposed technological dark age.

That's how I missed this:

I don't care how hard-hearted you are, that is a beautiful thing.

And I don't care how many times you've seen it, watch it again.  For me.

Because it's a Good Friday.

~~~

I'm not a YouTube kind of girl, but I am loving watching the nominees for the YouTube Video Awards this morning.  Watch all of the nominees and then check out the winners. 

~~~

Speaking of Good Friday, I got into this YouTube-watching-timesuck because I was looking for recipes for Easter cupcakes and deviled eggs.  I have a new cake plate and carnival glass deviled egg dish I want to use, so the eats has got to be pretty.

Aah.  That dish is my grandmother.

I want to make something like this:

 

But I have a feeling that the best I'll be able to pull off will be something like this:

 

 

Any suggestions for Easter cupcakes?
What about your mama's deviled egg recipe?

Our first Easter in our new home, so it's time to warm this place up with some new family traditions.

What are your family Easter traditions?
Help me make this house a home...

 

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Stop your Jedi Mind Tricks, Angelina Jolie!

Waves of nausea crashing over me for no apparent reason does not lend itself to a peaceful night's sleep.  Those same waves reappearing the next day and knocking me on my butt, again, for no apparent reason, have solidified one resolve in my mind:

I would be crazy to have any more babies.

Babies on the brain lately.  Time to issue an eviction notice.

It seems like everyone is pregnant right now.  I don't want to count myself among them.  However... 

We have two awesome baby boys.  As a kid with only one other sibling, I've never really considered having more than two kids.  Two seemed sufficient.  My husband was an only child, so he figures we've already achieved something remarkable.  Three kids would be crazy.  Any more than that would be insane.

Yet, I see these pregnant chicks everywhere and I start thinking...   completely crazy thoughts.

I love being pregnant.  During the second and third trimesters only.  I abhor being pregnant during the first trimester.  Loathe it. 

I had vicious morning sickness with both my babies (though not like moosh) and was unpleasantly surprised to discover that said morning sickness with the second baby was accompanied by simultaneous utterly uncontrollable peeing in my pants every time I worshiped at the porcelain god.  I mean, seriously.  Seriously?

So, yeah, uh, I'll pass on the being pregnant again.

And then I see a picture like this:

Photo Source  --  a terribly addictive site!

Granted, Angelina Jolie did not give birth to all of those babies, but still.  Doesn't this picture just kill you?  Doesn't it look so, I don't know, manageable?*

The worst part is that the giving birth bit is a breeze for me.  Well, if you consider absolutely tearing up your vuh-jay-jay every time a breeze.  Oh yeah, and wracking pain so fierce that you look like you've been possessed by a demon with epilepsy.  But back to the breeziness...

I was in labor with Pants for just a few hours.  Real labor.  I pushed for maybe ten minutes or something.  Breeze.

I pushed once with Goose and he came flying out in one wickedly awesome shot, head to toes, kabam!  Booyah-  you have yourself a baby rocket!  The doctor literally caught him in mid-air as he was sitting down.  Had the doctor not been sitting down at that moment, I think the receptionist might have caught him whizzing over her head down the hallway as she answered phones.

The doctor didn't even charge me for the delivery.  He said, "All I did was catch."

Oh yes, I can deliver them babies.

But I just don't think I can deal with that first trimester again.

Then I read about the moms who are having trouble getting pregnant or staying pregnant and I think, "Am I refusing a gift here?"

I really am wondering that.

On the flip side, I adore my two boys and fear rolling the dice again.  So many things can go wrong.  What if I whip out an ugly little dullard this time? 

Yes, I'm that shallow when pretend-baby-shopping.  What?  Did you think I was worried about genetic defects?  No, I'm worried about the entertainment factor.

And then there's The Roller Coaster Factor.  The Gulf Coast Momfia have been schooled in this one by me already, but I will cover it again for you newcomers:

You can not stop at three kids.  If you do, one kid will always have to either ride in the roller coaster car by himself, with Mom or Dad, or with a stranger. 

The horror.

Therefore, you have to have even numbers.  Sorry, Fussy.  That means you have to have one more after this new one.  That would make six.  All boys, no doubt.  Because God laughs.  Good luck, babe.

Which means if I want to have another, I would either have to have twins or withstand two more first trimesters.

You see my conundrum now?

But then I look at pictures like this:

Photo Source - BTW, these were taken in New Orleans in our old neighborhood.

And I think, well...

Help me, people.  Angelina Jolie has hijacked my brain. 

*Please note that I am well aware that she probably has more nanny help than you can shake a stick out, however, I also know that lots of moms manage with beautiful broods of this size without nannies.  I just like these pictures.  A girl can dream in her fairy tale world.

**PS-  I am neither sick nor pregnant.  Just tired for a day there.

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