Tag: blogging community

The 500 subscriber milestone … exciting? A little.

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings20 Comments

I hit 500 subscribers to this blog at the end of last week.

On one hand that is pretty cool. On another hand I have a feeling some of those bloggers subscribe because they are looking for me to reciprocate. The issue is that many of those who subscribe never comment here so I have no idea who they are which means I’d probably never subscribe to their blog. I’m old school and think of blogging as a social activity of sorts. We exchange ideas or share a little bit of ourselves and others do the same in the comments.

I’d like to know who you all are, in other words so, please, feel free to introduce yourself in the comments. I love to get to know the bloggers who follow me. It was really nice to have some of you tell me about yourselves last week on the post where I shared about myself and the blog.

For those who are new to the blog, you may have noticed I blog a little bit a lot of things here. I share some posts about my faith (usually entitled Faithfully Thinking), I share fiction (usually on Fridays and sometimes on Thursdays), I share photographs, and I share what I’m reading/watching/doing on Sundays. In other words, I sort of share whatever comes to my mind at any given moment (scary, I know.).

If you are interested in reading some of my fiction you can find link to excerpts from my book A Story to Tell HERE and A New Beginning HERE. You can also follow my novels in progress, The Farmer’s Daughter (I’ve been publishing new chapters on Fridays) at the link of the top of the page (or HERE) and Fully Alive HERE.

Welcome to the new subscribers and hello to the old. Glad to have you visiting my corner of the world.

Links around the internet that have nothing to do with You Know What

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings24 Comments

Escapism is the name of the game for many of us already prone to anxiety who are in the midst of all this world craziness, so I thought I’d share some blog posts and other links from around the internet that I have found this week that have nothing to do with You Know What. If you need info on You Know What, you can always look to news and medical sites, but we should always have a few places we can go for escape as well.

I could relate to this one by Mama’s Empty Nest about smells and how they trigger memories of our loved ones. 

I always love the photos from Derrick and his wife Jackie and I’m glad he’s able to get out in his rural setting and still take some beautiful images. I also love reading about what they are eating because half the time I have no idea what they’re talking about. Ha! I’ve been following this blog that offers the most encouraging posts for Christians and others.Just One Robin has been keeping the topics on her blog different than the news to give people something to escape to and she offered this one about her art journey earlier this week.Bettie G shared about the guilt many of us have over asking for prayers for ourselves.Our Little Red House shared about making over pretty mugs to hold things, such as cute plants.Michelle at Blessings by Me always shares great DIY projects and this one is about a cactus flower pot, which then reminded me of Our Little Red House’s blog post about cacti in Arizona, which she called Walking with the Giants. I’ve been following some serial fiction stories, including:Pond People on Writing WrinklesQueen of the Garden at The Lily Cafe.Alice and the Warden by Autumn Rain.and some short fiction on this Pete’s blog and this Pete’s blog.For my own blog, I’ve been trying to stay away from commenting on all the news with some (mostly) unrelated posts:

A blog post about using the thesaurus more when writing. I swear it is more interesting than it sounds;Faithfully Thinking: When the Church Disappoints You;Sunday Bookends: Light Romances in book and movie form.And of course the continuing chapters from A New Beginning. We’ve also been distracting ourselves from things by watching this goat farming family from Arizona.
This post has some to do with what is going on, as it was put out for that reason, but it can also be a good one to save for moments of high anxiety.



For comedy, we’ve been binging Foil, Arms and Hog  (be wary they aren’t always appropriate for children, so just screen them.) They are very Irish with very Irish translators so you may need closed captioning. 😉 

We have been out of the house, um..some, but mainly to my parents because we only have one car right now and my husband is using it for work.

So what have you been reading and watching that aren’t related to You Know What? Let me know in the comments. And if you have any similar links to blog posts or other sites, please let me know in the comments as well.

Round ‘Em Up. Biweekly blog round-up.

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings, Weekly Favorites15 Comments

There have been so many good blog posts this week around the blogosphere. I’m excited to share some of them with you, and some of my own, for this week’s Round ‘Em Up.

On the blog here for the last couple of weeks, I focused on a lot of different subjects, including:

As for some other awesome blog posts from other bloggers this week:

How about you? Have you found any interesting blog posts that you would like to share this week? Either from you or someone else? Let me know in the comments and leave me a link!

Round ‘em up! Weekly blog roundup

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings, Weekly Favorites2 Comments

There were so many good blog posts this week around the blogging community and I’m excited to share them with you on my weekly round up. As usual, I’ll provide a link to my blog posts from the past week or so as well, but this week I want to focus on some cool bloggers I follow or have discovered.

Pete at Lunch Break Fiction does it again with The Gift. Do yourself a big favor. If you aren’t following Pete’s blog yet go over right now and “click” follow. You won’t regret it. It’s full of touching, awesome, engaging short stories.

Manitoba Mom, hanging out up there the frozen Canadian tundra (just kidding about it being frozen. I think.) always gives me a lot to chew on and think about, in a fun and entertaining way, mixed in with some deep thoughts as well. This one about five tips on how she plans to manage the cold winter months coming up in January and February is one I can relate to because I struggle terribly with keeping my sanity in the winter months. We’ve been lucky to have a stretch of warmer days but the darkness is still here and I know the cold will soon make its return.

For His Purpose wrote about developing patience with people who are sometimes difficult to deal with and I could absolutely relate to this, especially since I used to work with people daily when I worked for smalltown newspapers. For this post, she’s been dealing with a particularly challenging person in her personal life, and again, I can completely relate to struggling to show a person like this the love of Christ, when all we really want to do is run screaming away. (I have a feeling I might be that person for other people  . . . hmmmm).

Bettydraper offered this lovely post about the day she became a Christian and how it ties into the real meaning of Christmas so perfectly.

I’m pretty sure I already shared links to some of Our Little Red House’s 12 days of Christmas craft posts, but just in case, here is another one. What ingenious ideas she’s had or gleaned from others over the years to recycle objects and turn them into beautiful Christmas ornaments or decorations. She offers other unique craft ideas throughout the year as well.

The Feet of A Messenger offered this look back at 2019 and how much she’s changed and grown in 2019 and also how far she still has to go. Trust me, I could relate to this (as you know by reading some of my more whiney blog posts earlier this year.)

I’ve also been discovering some new fiction writers who blog serial stories, or short fiction pieces, this week which is exciting for me since I’ve been blogging my own fiction since May.

I bumped into BeetleyPete who is in the midst of a serial story about a murder mystery. I’m heading back to the beginning to catch up on this one since the parts I started to read intrigued me already.

I’m also intrigued by Rachel Smith’s fiction and can’t wait to delve into her stories this week.

As for my blog posts in the last week or so:

So what have you been up to on your blog and otherwise? Read or write any good posts you would like to share? Leave a link in the comment section and I’ll share them in my next Blog Roundup (which I hope to make a bi-weekly post, or weekly if I have enough posts to share each week).

Lisa R. Howeler is a writer and photographer from the “boondocks” who writes a little bit about a lot of things on her blog Boondock Ramblings. She’s published a fiction novel ‘A Story to Tell’ on Kindle and also provides stock images for bloggers and others at Alamy.com and Lightstock.com.

 

 

 

Tuesday Blog Roundup: Catching up on my blog and the blogs of others

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings4 Comments

It’s that time of the week when I like to catch up on some other blogs I’ve been reading and share what you might have missed on my blog in the last week or so. I also love for you to share any good blog posts you’ve read or written as well so please be sure to do that in the comment section.

First, some favorite posts from other bloggers from this past week (or so);

Christmas Tree Tea from Mama’s Empty Nest where she writes about her “hodgepodge” Christmas tree and how it brings up many memories from her past, but especially the time she held Christmas teas after she retired from volunteering with the local PTA groups.

Brenda from Becoming His Tapestry had a timely post just this morning. 10 Ways to Destress This Christmas. My goodness, could I relate. Not because we are busy in this family with Christmas parties or extreme decorating (no one invites us to parties and we barely decorate). I related when she talked about avoiding going into debt during Christmas because God never intended us to celebrate the birth of his son by going into debt. Preach it, Brenda!

Our Little Red House always has some awesome craft ideas and she’s doing 12 days of Christmas crafts for, well, Christmas. This one interested me because it uses old toilet paper rolls and anything that uses up toilet paper rolls interests me. There are only four of us in this house but we seem to fly through toilet paper sometimes.

Mama Duck had a sweet post about “One of the Best Christmas Gifts I Ever Received.”You’ll have to check out the post to see what it is.

I enjoyed this post by Jenni at Housewife Hustle about sleeping goals for her children.I could relate to this one since I’ve had sleep time challenges with both of my children, especially the youngest since she doesn’t yet have her own bedroom. (That will change when we move.)

Dawn raised a concern about blogging that I also have on her blog Every Small Voice in a post entitled Blogging Popularity.

PMeyers writes about Navigating Christmas Without Momon her blog Mind Heart Matters. She lost her mom to a brain tumor this year and she has been writing candidly about that horrific journey in such an uplifting and encouraging way (the way her family handled this situation was amazing, but I wish they hadn’t had to).  Get out the tissues for this one, but please know there is some joy here too and if you are so inclined, leave the blogger an encouraging message.

As for my blog this last week, I was as eclectic as always in my topics.

On Saturday of last week I blogged about how to Tune out the ‘Negative Nellies’in our lives.

On Sunday I continued with the new weekly Sunday Bookends post where I talk about what I’m watching, reading or doing for the week. I used to hook up to a book blogger for this post, but I’m not really a book blogger so I’m just doing my own thing now (although still reading the book blogger posts).

Later in the week, I rambled about theChristmas romance movie binge I’ve been on. Read this weekend about how that binge ended.

On Friday of last week, I shared Chapters 6 and 7 of A New Beginning, my continuing serial fiction that I post on “Fiction Friday” (incidentally, Friday is my worst blog traffic day, but I like the alliteration of Fiction Friday so much, I don’t have the heart to change the posting day.)

Then Sunday I posted another Sunday Bookends, where I talked about Dick VanDyke and my lack of reading lately.

So how about you? Any favorite blog posts of your own or others you’d like to share? Please feel free to share the links in the comments!

Lisa R. Howeler is a writer and photographer from the “boondocks” who writes a little bit about a lot of things on her blog Boondock Ramblings. She’s published a fiction novel ‘A Story to Tell’ on Kindle and also provides stock images for bloggers and others at Alamy.com and Lightstock.com.

 

 

Catching up: What was on the blog last week and some favorite posts from other bloggers

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings19 Comments

It’s very possible you have a life beyond the blog world, like I do, and may have missed some of my posts and some great posts by some other bloggers the past week or so.

I thought I’d compile them in a list for you, in case you are lazy, like me, and don’t want to scroll back on the blog or search the web for the posts of others. Oh wait, maybe I’m not that lazy since I’m compiling this list for you. *wink*
On the blog here last week:

Sunday Bookends: House selling, snowstorms and rediscovering art

This just got real (more about house selling)

Faithfully Thinking: Is it true God only blesses you if you give money to the church?

Creatively Thinking: Like Breathing Again

Fiction Friday: A New Beginning Chapter 5

Some of my favorite blog posts from other bloggers last week included:

Love at First Light from Pete at Lunch Break Fiction. It’s such a sweet short story about . . . well, you’ll have to read it.

I read two posts this week about anxiety that I could completely relate to. The first was from Jenni at Housewife Hustle entitled Coffee Talks: Confession of a Scrooge Mom.

The second was A Letter to the Church about Anxiety and Depression by A.E.I. Writes, in which she reminds the church they aren’t doing the best job when it comes to helping those with mental illness. Trust me. I can relate to this.

This post by Alethea’s Mind about a group called anSpoken that helps people of all walks deal with their pain and not feel ashamed of the tough times they have walked through, but especially those who feel their church has judged them because of situations they have faced that were not in their control.

I absolutely loved this post, Waiting with Jesus, by BettieG but I love everything she writes. What a sweet, Godly woman with a chronic health condition that she has let bring her closer to God.

The Manitoba Mom Blog wrote about Why You May Feel Sad at Christmas and I can say I could relate to just about all of the reasons and how to deal with them.

So how about all of you? Any favorite blog posts of your own or others? Let me know in the comments.

 

 

 

 

 

Blog roundup: Favorite blog posts from the blogosphere.

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings7 Comments

I love sharing blog posts I’ve discovered in my “bloggy rounds” throughout the week, but I haven’t done that in a while so this post might share some gems I have found throughout the last couple of weeks.

Mama’s Empty Nest talked about seeing “both sides” of an issue while also talking about a really cool bridge in Michigan. The photos and the words are gorgeous in this one.

I could relate to this one by Jenni at Housewife Hustle, talking about getting back to blogging after an injury but especially the part about giving up on chasing family down and trying to make them be part of their lives. Boy, does that get old after awhile!

Running Half Empty wrote about A Day in the Life of a Mom, showing things can be very crazy for us moms, even though we love our roles and our kids!

I enjoyed looking at these 3 DIY frugal home decorations for Thanksgiving from Our Little Red House and had even planned to do a couple, but since we just put our house up for sale, I haven’t had the time to even try.

Many of us know how negatively a “not-so-perfect” mother can affect a child, but we don’t always think abouthow the mother who tries to be perfect can also affect her children, something Kat from The Lily Cafe explored recently.

I enjoyed this post about a slow and cozy fall day from Erin at Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs. It was my kind of day, complete with photos, also “my thing”.

I’ve used a recipe similar to this before so I really liked that Michele from Blessings By Me shared thisPhilly Cheesesteak Stuffed Peppers recipe.  She has some mother great recipes on her blog as well.

Alethea’s Mind shared a great post about recognizing that we can do all things through Christ, no matter the limitations we see within ourselves. 

I love Lunch Break Fiction and this one, called The Book Club, was among my favorites of his.  He has so many great fiction stories on that site. If you haven’t checked him out already, you need to.

I have a link to the blogs I follow in the right sidebar, if you haven’t noticed before. I encourage you to check out some of those blogs if you are looking for new bloggers to follow in the upcoming new year.

So, how about you? Any favorite blog posts from the last couple of weeks? Maybe even one of your own? Let me know in the comments and feel free to share a link!

 

 

 

 

Some favorite blog posts from the blogosphere

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings12 Comments

I’ve been making a list of blog posts I’ve really enjoyed for probably a month now, but haven’t taken the time to sit and write a post to share them, so I’m finally doing it today! Hopefully, you will find some new favorite bloggers from the list.

I really enjoyed this thoughtful post that Running Half Empty wrote about a homeless man she met and helped recently.

He was so grateful that someone cared enough to stop. I gave him some money. How much or little is irrelevant. I just wanted to check on him. We swapped names. His is Bill. He had beautiful, piercing blue eyes. Mesmerizing. He asked me to take off my sunglasses so we could see each other. I did. That eye-contact and smile at each other were lovely. Not some fairytale bond until the end of time. Just two people seeing each other. Metaphorically. We spoke for a minute, and I went on my way.

 

This post from motherrealist at I Didn’t Want to Be A Mother about the myth of “making time for yourselves as mothers” was a winner for me.

“Make time for yourself” is my second-favorite parenting advice. It comes right after “Enjoy the moment and don’t stress about the little things like housework, etc.”

Hah.

The problem with making time is that I haven’t achieved that superpower yet. The problem is that, last time I checked, there are still 24 hours in each day. The problem is that I have to care for the physical and emotional needs of human beings and the house they live in during 56 of those 24 hours. I’m already over-booked.

 

I always enjoy Michelle’s DIY craft posts at Blessings By Me and I was excited when she put up a Fall DIY roundup post on her blog last week. I have marked a couple of the projects down to try with my kids in the next couple of weeks.

Brittany from Ordinary Extraordinary Mom always makes me think and she definitely did with this post about Walking in Faith, even when we think we heard God wrong!

You clearly heard the call.  You did everything you felt God led you to do.  You prayed. You believed, and you walked in faith.  Then it all fell apart.  Life went from bad to worse.  It did not work.  You failed.  God failed you, after you did what you know is precisely what He asked you to do.

Now, here He is asking you to walk in faith again.  He is asking you to answer the call again.  He is asking for blind obedience again, and you are unsure you are willing to take the risk.  You doubt that he will come through.  You are scared, and you are discouraged because “last time…”

 

I am enjoying Kat’s series on motherhood on her blog The Lily Cafe. She’s been writing about how she and her husband decided when they wanted to be parents and then the process of getting there. In this post, she talked about the timing of motherhood for her had to be “perfect.”

I also enjoyed this post by Thom at The Immortal Jukebox entitled: Linda Ronstadt, Mike Nesmith, P P Arnold : Different Drum

A new discovery this week was Phil Cobb’s blog. He’s an author and wrote a post entitled “Me and Billy the Kid” about his job as a freelance journalist. Since I wrote for newspapers myself, once upon a time, this one interested me.

What about you? Have you stumbled onto some blog posts you liked over the last week or month? Let me know in the comments!

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!