Tag: bloggers

Favorite blog posts around the web this week

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings4 Comments

I thought I’d share some of my favorite blog posts from around the web this week because I’ve read a few really good ones. I’d also love to offer you an opportunity to share one of your favorite posts from the week from your own blog, or from another blogger.

1) I enjoyed this post about patriotism from Mama Duck. She asked what’s happened to patriotism in the United States today and shared how much the 75th anniversary of D-Day awakened her patriotism even more.

2) I have a discovered a new-to-me short fiction site called Lunch Break Fiction. I suppose this particular blog post about a man accidentally throwing out some important books that belonged to his wife is, of course, fictional, since it is tagged “flash fiction” but it’s so hilarious I am really hoping it might have some truth in it.

 

3) I agreed with this post from Kat at The Lily Cafe about books that feature unnecessary swearing.

“I find cursing to be crude and unsophisticated. I also appreciate the power of words and words like enraged, furious, and incensed carry more power than pissed off. Total honesty. I cringed just writing that. And that’s probably being mild.”

 

4) I could definitely relate to this post by Ordinary on Purpose since I also have a tween in my house. It’s a good reminder that yes, they are growing up, but yes, they will still need you and love you for awhile too.

 

5) As a photographer who considers myself more documentary than anything, I really enjoyed this post by Lauren Webster who followed a married couple while they planted a garden in their backyard.

Please leave me a link to a favorite post of yours or another favorite post by another blogger in the comments!

 

Favorite blog posts from the week

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings4 Comments

I found some new bloggers this past week and also some really great posts from the new bloggers and the one’s I’ve been following a while (aren’t you glad I didn’t say “the old bloggers!”). I thought I’d share some of the posts in case anyone is looking for a good read or a new blogger to follow.

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Christine at In This Ordinary Time talked about moving in this post from last week:

“We too are transplanting. Or being transplanted. Or however that works. Settling into the house, setting into the community… all that jazz. It is often hard to be patient with the process, even though we’ve done several of these big moves before and know (or should!) how it works. As the song from the Daniel Tiger movie about moving goes, It takes time, it takes time to make a new house feel like home.”

I could relate since we will be moving at some point in the future after my husband starts his new job next week.

This post by Megan at Mender and Maker wasn’t written last week, but I found it, and her, last week, so I’m sharing it here. She wrote about “The Mess of Motherhood,”:

Because I’m a nerd, I went to a LOT of school. My direction was science, so I took enthralling classes like bio-statistics, organic chemistry and anatomy/physiology. Along those lines, I became familiar with the Laws of Thermodynamics. My favorite (and most applicable here) is the second Law which states that “all things tend toward entropy”, or chaos. Another way to put this is that all organized systems eventually become more disorganized with time.

Sigh.

Such is the life of a mother! As a Type A personality/control freak, having young kids in the house has been among other things, ahem, challenging.

To be brutally honest (as I always hope and try to be), the last few months have found me a little stuck in what you might call a desert. A desert of spirit, of mind, of faith. It has sapped my energy and creativity and has made the most mundane task feel like lifting weights. As I swept the floor the other day, I looked down and I realized I was looking at the most excellent visual example of how I have been feeling. Please observe: [read more HERE.]

I loved this post by Mama’s Empty Nest about her forsythia bush, maybe because my mom has been commenting so much on the forsythia bush behind their house, which she can see from the kitchen window.

Of course, Mama’s Empty Nest titled her post: “Words for Wednesday: forcynthia,” playing on the spelling a little bit.

“You read that title correctly. No, I did not make a typographical error there. I didn’t misspell the word forsythia, I truly meant to post forcynthia.

What in the world? you may ask.  As she nears that ripe age of 65 is she starting to lose her faculties? Or is it simply that the appearance of sunshine and spring-like weather addled her brain? Is she giddy with spring-time bliss?

To answer those questions: No, I don’t think I’m losing my almost-65-year-old mind. No, my brain isn’t addled…at least not yet. And maybe, yes, I could be giddy with spring-time bliss.

But the most accurate answer is there is a story behind the title of today’s post and I am going to share it with you.

[Read the rest HERE. ]

So, how about you? Have any favorite posts this week? Yours or someone else’s? Leave me a comment or a link in the comment section and hopefully, you’ll check out some of these posts today.

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Weekly Round Up and Favorite blog posts

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn books and reading, everyday musings, recap of the week4 Comments

I thought I’d start a weekly tradition of wrapping up my posts from the past week and also share some favorite blog posts from other bloggers. Hopefully, it will be a tradition. It may just be a one-off thing, knowing me.

Tuesday I shared my monthly 10 on 10 post, which is part of a blog circle with other photographers. We share ten photos from the previous month, from either one day, event, or subject, or simply our favorite photos from the month.

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On Wednesday I rambled about what books I’m reading and some of the cons of getting back into reading – like forgetting to feed my children. Oops.

On Thursday I shared the latest installment in a story I have been writing, based on the story in the Bible about Jesus raising a 12-year old girl from the dead.

For some of my favorite blog posts from this week, (disclaimer: I actually read some of them last week, but I’m SHARING them this week, so hey, that’s how it works in my world):

Blessings by Me wrote this post about 5 Indoor Plants That are Hard To Kill. I found this interesting because I’m a plant killer and I don’t have hope that I could keep even the plants on this list alive. In fact, I’m pretty sure I’ve killed at least one of them at least once, if not more than once.

Michelle at The Green Study cracks me up because she puts such a creative spin on the highs and lows of life. This post, “My Misery Brought A Plus One” is one of the more creative posts I’ve read about being sick.

As a fellow mom, this post “You pretty, Mommy,” by Cheyenne on Chey’s Corner, gave me “all the feels” as people younger than me say. It’s a great reminder for mom’s that our children don’t see us the way we see ourselves. They don’t see the flaws or shortcomings. They just see the mom they love.

bryanI wouldn’t normally promote my brother’s blog because it gives him a big head (like the photo he uses for his blog header), but I did like his post for the Sunday Salon this week when he asked how people read but also WHEN do they read. His post was part of a link up of other bloggers who read or review books and then write about it on their blogs. Most of them are strictly book bloggers and it’s a great list of links where you can find some good ideas for new books to read.

So what did you post this week? Read any good posts by other bloggers? Let me know in the comments. I’m always looking for new bloggers.

 

Why do the Jehovah Witnesses only come when I’m not wearing a bra?

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings10 Comments

My son came down the stairs with his English book as soon as I closed the front door and tossed their propaganda on to the couch.

“Jehovahs , huh?”

“Yeah. I thought we had got rid of them when I told them that our beliefs on who Jesus and the Holy Spirit are are vastly different than theirs but they’re back.”

“I knew it,” my kid said with a slight eye roll. “I was up there thinking ‘it’s probably the Jehovahs because my mom isn’t wearing a bra again.'”

That pretty much describes my life and I could say lately but that’s my life always – weird.

It’s true that I was wearing the stay-at-home-homeschooling- mom uniform when they knocked on the door and I knew it was them because, sadly, they are about the only people who ever stop at my house. Christian churches I have attended don’t believe in visiting people in person anymore it seems. They think they’ll only win souls by posting a clip on their social media account of a hipster pastor preaching or opening a hipster coffee shop. I like the word hipster and I am fully aware it makes me sound older than dirt. God forbid Christians today knock on a door or two, but then again I wouldn’t be a big fan of that either. I was an introvert before Facebook made everyone else one.

This weekend I realized, not without disappointment, that my friends are merely acquaintances, which means they never knock on my door either. I came to this conclusion about my pseudo-friends when I realized not one of those friends knows anything about me. Not one knows my favorite food, favorite color , what music I listen to, movies I watch, books I read or even what I think about many issues. I thought about what would happen if one of these acquaintances got sick and I realized I would have no problem helping them until they got well again, but it hit me, pretty full force , that they wouldn’t do the same for me.

How do I know this? Maybe because none of the people who used to be in a group I called friends almost never ask how I am. In fact only one person I’ve known for more than a few years as a friend has asked me this. It is what it is so don’t pity me. It is the natural evolution of friendships, though it took me a long time to actually except the demise of all my Nike friendships.

Other friends from high school or college never text, call, email or even send a carrier pigeon. (Getting a carrier pigeon would be so cool, though, wouldn’t it? Open up your front door and a pigeon is just sitting there with a message in its’ mouth, tilting its’ little head back and forth so its’ beady eyes can look at you while it coos ? That would be hilarious.)

Am I trying to paint a picture here that I’m a victim? No. Does it sound like I am trying to convince you I am a victim? Probably. But I don’t mean to.

What I am doing is realizing that for years I have sat wishing my friends were remotely interested in spending time with me (yes, I have asked and their response is usually “we will have to do that sometime,” but sometime never comes.) and wasting my time by getting my hopes up only to have those hopes ignored. I wasted way too much time looking at a phone to see if my message was returned or waiting for the phone to ring.

What I should have been doing instead is letting go of the past and that means letting go of people who used to be my friends and accepting they’re merely acquaintances now, which is fine and simply a part of life.

Maybe then I’ll look toward my future, instead of wallowing in, and moaning over, the past. And maybe then I’ll have enough gumption to change my daily uniform so that the Jehovah Witnesses don’t catch me braless again.