Like browsing in a candy store . . .

 

. . . just as much of a treat, but without the potential calories … that’s browsing in the blogging world!

Because my lovely friend, Hilary, at The Smitten Image, made my story about A Hardworking Grandma one of her Posts of the Week, I received some comments from people I’ve never “met” before.

And one comment was especially interesting.  A comment by gaelikaa caught my interest when she said that she, like Hubby’s mother, lives in the same house with her in-laws, plus her brother-in-law and his wife!  But she went on to say that that isn’t at all unusual where they live … in India.

Who could resist following that intriguing thread?  So, I went to her blog, gaelikaa – Out of Ireland. into India, and it is fascinating reading.  I think if you visit there, you will agree. 

She is Irish but her husband is Indian and she has lived in India for the last 15 years with him and their four children. 

One of her commenters said that reading one of her posts is like reading a mini-novel, and I agree.  An excellent writer, writing about a culture very different from my own.

This just reminds me, once again, isn’t the blogging world wonderful?  There are so many interesting people and stories out there to “meet” and read about at our leisure.

And, of course, the biggest blessing of my blog world, is those of you I have come to know and call friend, both bloggers and commenters.  Thank you for becoming a wonderful part of my world, friends.

Now I recommend you go read about gaelikaa dealing with daily life in a very different culture than what most of us have experienced.  A worthwhile read.

 

A Snapshot of Friendship

 

Last week I had the rare pleasure of getting to meet two fellow bloggers — C and V from Stickhorse Cowgirls!  Hubby and I were passing through the city where they live and I had contacted them and asked if we could have dinner.  Hubby just stayed long enough to eat, and then he left the three of us to gab till our hearts content.  And we did just that.

It was so exciting to get to put faces to two women who had over months of reading and commenting on each other’s blogs, become my blogging friends.  We talked (and ate, at least part of the time) for three hours, with nary an awkward silence.  The conversation really was more like old friends catching up after a long absence, rather than strangers meeting for the first time.  Remarkable, touching, fun, memorable.  And now, I consider V and C real, honest-to-goodness friends of mine.

But, the real friendship I want to tell you about is the one between the two of them.  Sitting at a table with them for three hours gave me a little snapshot of their very special friendship (of over 50 years!), and how it blesses both their lives.  I can’t remember anything specific they said that would be an example.  All I can say is that I came away from that evening having been reminded of how precious old friendships can be when they are firmly grounded in shared love and respect and lots of shared memories.

May we all cherish and nourish the friendships we have been blessed with — both old and new.  They are such a plus in life.

Thank you, C and V for such a memorable, fun evening.  Now, when I read your words, I see your faces and hear your voices. 

A truly special evening.

I like MY blogging world, thank you!

 

On Thursday, my blogging friend, Beth, at C.Beth blog, did a post about some unkind exchanges on a message board that was discussing, of all things, lollipops!  I was amazed at the tone the commenters used not only about the product but about each other!  You can go here to read Beth’s post.

Reading those comments reminded me once again how thankful I am for my blogging world that is filled with bloggers and commenters who are unerringly polite and supportive to each other (and me!).

I think there may be a few reasons that have kept nasty, mean-spirited people from visiting here. 

~ One is my blogs title.  If someone is looking for smut or topics on the dark side or some topic that will just give them an excuse to rant and say unkind things to other people, I’m guessing they probably aren’t drawn to a blog entitled Add Humor and Faith.

~ I tend to visit blogs and develop friendships with bloggers and commenters who are of the same mind as me, i.e., who appreciate civility, try to see and encourage the good in others and enjoy a good story or a good laugh (or photography!).  And, I very seldom venture out onto the ”big, bad” internet in general.  I have specific sites I go to to make purchases, but in general I’m very careful about new sites I visit.  In both cases, I hope that I am limiting my exposure and maybe fly under the radar in the bigger internet world.

I also watch my lauguage!  Not only will you not see swear words here (although, I do tend to use a heart-felt “crapola!” or “rats!” occasionally), but I am careful that I don’t use any specific words that might lead someone putting that certain word into a search engine to my site.  Case in point is the time I wrote about The Flasher (you can read that post here) and was careful not to use the anatomically correct word for the part he was flashing! (That was a little difficult since, after all, it was the focus of the story!)

And, lastly, twice, when I first started blogging, I got a commenter who left comments on a post  that were just a string of filthy words and thoughts.  In both cases, I just marked those comments as Spam and sent them off to the Word Press support group.  Now, it did happen twice, so obviously whatever they did the first time didn’t discourage the sick commenter, but I never heard from him after I sent his second comment to Word Press.  And THAT is one of the big reasons I will probably never leave the Word Press protective umbrella, because they took care of him for me, and I have no idea how, I just know I never heard from him again. (and also they are, without fail, kind and helpful when I ask them really dumb questions about blogging!)

So, thank you fellow bloggers and commenters for making up a wonderful blogging community in which we all can love and laugh and learn.  I am thankful for you.

(Hmmm. I just read back through this.  Is this dry as dirt?  Am I old as dirt?  Points to ponder.)

Happy Saturday!

A Laugh for Today … The Cake Ball Video

 

Wellll, the newspaper just arrived, and the article about me cooking isn’t too bad.  But then I went to the newspaper’s website and watched the video of me.  What a hoot!

You can read the full article by clicking on the article’s name in the left hand column words printer friendly above the picture.

 Here is the article and see the video here – your laugh for today!

After the storm …

 

I want to share with you a new blog I have found, or, I should say, found me!

In the stats there is always a list of sites that visitors have come from.  Because I’m not at all tech-saavy, I have no idea why there are just a few — not one for every visitor.  Just one of those mysteries of life.

But anyway, when I looked at my stats this morning, I noticed a site a visitor had come from that I didn’t remember ever seeing before, so I clicked on it. 

And, it took me to Cathy’s blog which is titled “Fighting Childhood Obesity One T-Shirt at a Time!”  Apparently she was an overweight child as well as adult, but has now lost about 100 pounds! 

The title refers to her mission to sell T-shirts from which she will contribute 100% of the profits toward progams that fight childhood obesity.  Certainly a worthy endeavor!

She has only posted on her blog a total of four or five times, but I was inspired in my own life-long weight challenges by what she had to say in some of those posts.  So, if you too are a work in progress in regard to weight, I recommend the reading of her heart-felt posts about obesity.

And her most recent post, After the storm, is about a recent diagnosis she has received of a very serious, and potentially fatal, illness.

So, I am telling you about Cathy and her blog because I think if you read her posts you may be inspired, and if you choose to leave her a supportive comment you may inspire and uplift her too!

Celebrating the Fives!

 

Two years ago today, on September 22, 2007, our daughter DD had finally coerced me into writing a blog, because she was sure I would just love it.  Oh, all right, I would give it a try.  I decided on a name, she created the blog and then told me how to put a post on it. 

I had already written two posts, but I wasn’t sure how to put one on, even after her instructions.  So she told me to e-mail one to her and she would get me started.  I sent them both and told her to just put whichever one she liked the best on for the first post.  She put them both on … the first day  (Let Them Eat Potatoes, here, and A Great Saying — Unless You Are on The Receiving End!, here)! 

I called her and said, “Hey, at this rate, I’ll run out of things to say by the end of the week!  You should have only put one of those on today, so that I would have something to post tomorrow!”  She laughed.  She obviously knows me better than I know myself.

So, today, in honor of this two-year anniversary, I looked up some stats and was struck by the predominance of fives!

~Today is my 507th post (200 in the first year, 300 in the second year — Heaven help us all, I’m getting wordier!)

~There have been 55,999 visits.

~There have been 5,008 comments.

And, as important as all those numbers are to me, I would say that that last number is the most important.  More than anything else, the comments have been the fuel that has kept this bus on the road and headed in sort of the right direction! 

Thank you to all of you who read and comment here.  You are truly appreciated.

How Important is A Name?

 

While working at the jail, I had an opportunity to see many unusual names.  Some that come to mind are Kimothy, Jessthy and a brother and sister named Carless and Carhonda (I have always assumed their names each reflected the transportation situation for their family at the time of their birth).  And, the other place I notice a frequency of unusual names is in gossip columns about people in the movie industry — Apple is the one that comes to mind, but I probably only remember it because it is only mildly quirky — the others are so unusual I can’t even remember them! 

While we may smile at these interesting names, I have always thought that it probably makes life a little easier for a person if they are given a name that doesn’t make them constantly correct the spelling and/or be asked to explain why they have such an unusual name (of course, in Hollywood, no explanation is probably necessary … after all, it’s HOLLYWOOD!). 

However, in defense of especially mothers who pick names that may not turn out to be a particular asset to their child – they may be having to pick a name just after having had their bodies traumatized by birth, possibly having  just received large doses of drugs, and at an especially chaotic, hormonal time in their lives.

But, picking the name for a blog (as Dorothy and the Tin Man would say) is a horse of a different color.  There, the more clever and quirky the better it seems, although I have known some very understated but wonderful ones, like an old favorite that is no longer around — Simple Words I Understand. 

I was first attracted to blogs named C. Beth Blog, The Smitten Image and Cakes Wrecks because their names interested me and made me want to see what they were all about.  And, I don’t know what other names Barb at Half Past Kissin’ Time may have considered using, but I can tell you that I think she picked the perfect one because I’m sure I’m not the only one who just couldn’t resist visiting a blog with such a cute name! 

All of this thinking about names comes from a visit I recently made to a blog whose name caught my eye in a comment section – Stickhorse Cowgirls.  As soon as I read that name, I guessed that this was a blogger who might be a member of my generation, because when I was growing up stickhorses were a very common part of our play, and I think “cowgirl” is a term more frequently heard in my generation too.  I was right — C. and V. are the writers and, while younger than me (aren’t you all?), I would still consider them of my generation.  And, Stickhorse Cowgirls has turned out to be an interesting, sometimes funny and many times inspiring blog that I am so glad I first noticed because of its interesting name.

Inspired by what I’ve read at Stickhorse Cowgirls, tomorrow I’m going to write about an old friend’s long-time marriage ending and how some women, rather than curl up in a fetal position and just hope the bad stuff will roll over them, not only stand up for themselves, but  “rise above it” with humor and grace. 

If you want to “read ahead” about  C., an attorney whose husband of 39 years left her for a much younger woman, and whose MIL (yes, the mother of the man who done her wrong) is moving into a small home on C.’s property (and they’re going to raise chickens together!) go to this Stickhorse Cowgirls post for a start.

Tomorrow’s theme: Can Stupidity be Terminal?

Unbelievable Creativity!

 

I have “met” a new blogger, June, who has a new, very interesting blog that includes a variety of subjects, including writing.  It is now in my blog roll and is called The Ratio of Failure.  I forget what her explanation is for the title, but I believe it relates to success in writing.   

Anyway, I wanted to share her recent post about a favorite TV commercial.  It is a commercial for Prius cars, and it involves landscaping that is all “acted out” by people!  When you realize that, it is really amazing.

June also gives you a link to a video of how they made the commercial — and that really makes you realize what unbelievable creativity the commercial required.

I hope you enjoy seeing this commercial and the way it was made as much as I did. 

Thank you, June, and welcome to blogging!

It’s Hard to Look Away from a “Wreck”

 

When the subject of blogging comes up with friends I sometimes try to tell them about  ”Cake Wrecks”, a blog on my blog roll that I really enjoy.  But, when I start describing it, it is just hard to explain how pictures of unusual, ugly, sometimes gross or just plain dumb cakes (almost all done by commercial bakers) can be so entertaining.  Part of the reason is that Jen, the creator of that blog, is hilarious with her commentary on the cakes she shows.

Here’s my totally inadequate description of what Cake Wrecks is all about:  She tells her readers to send her pictures of cake disasters they have encountered (she says the marked-down table in grocery store bakeries is a good place to look) and then she posts the pictures and writes really funny comments about them.

When I was looking at this post recently, I thought, “You just can’t describe this kind of stuff to people .. they have to see it!”.  So, I suggest you take a look at Cake Wrecks.  I predict you will really enjoy it. 

Oh, and about once a week, she has some really beautiful or clever cakes on too.

Just like a traffic accident, sometimes these Cake Wrecks are so bad, you feel like you should just look away, but there is a morbid fascination that compells you to slow down and look anyway.

A Rainy Day Makes You Appreciate When The Sun Shines!

 

You know how you will have a spell of rainy, gloomy weather, and then one morning you will get up, the sun is shining brightly and your heart just sings because of the contrast?

Well, that’s me this morning.

I have had serious computer problems (that have kept me from writing on my blog, among other things) for about three days and I was so frustrated last evening that I told Hubby, I didn’t think I was going to be able to sleep because I was so overwhelmed with what seemed like everything going wrong with the computer.  I was especially bummed that it was the weekend and I was sure I couldn’t get any help with a fix until at least Monday morning.  Definitely an emotional “rain cloud” over my head.

But, then I remembered that my nail tech had given me the card of an IT guy who does her computer maintenance, and she really liked him.  So, I thought, “What the heck.  I’ll call him, and see if I can make an appointment for him to come over first thing tomorrow morning. That will give me a little peace that the stupid computer will at least be fixed sometime in the near future.”

I called “Ron” and introduced myself and tried not to sound too pathetic when I told him all the problems I was encountering, and asked if he could possibly come over tomorrow and fix it.  He said, yes, but if I wanted him to, he could come over right then! … at 7:30 p.m. on a Sunday evening!  (Maybe I sounded a little more pathetic than I thought.) Hooray!  I loved him before I even saw him!

He was here from 8 to 11 p.m. working on getting rid of the viruses and Trojan that I had somehow allowed into my computer.  And then he came back at 8 a.m. this morning and spent another hour finishing up.  If he had happened to look back as he walked to his car, he might have seen me doing my “happy dance”!  Relief is an understatement.

My computer is all defragged (do they still use that term?) … anyway, it’s all clean and germ-free.  And I am one “happy camper”.

My computer had a couple “rainy days” but now my computer “sun” is shining … and the contrast is wonderful.

May your Monday be as happy as mine is starting out!