The New Year Post

By now most bloggers have written posts about their New Year resolutions or a reflection of the year gone by. I am a bit remiss in this way. I would like instead to comment about some of the blogs that I am following and attempt to link them to mine. In 2008, I was following only a few blogs to begin with and then soon discovering many fellow bloggers, each linking one to another until suddenly there are well over 50 on my feedburner. Keeping up with them has somedays been a challenge, or at the very least time consuming. Not all post everyday, in fact most are only posting two or three times per week but still, it's a lot of reading. I fear I am becoming a lurker. I am commenting now, only about 5% of the time. Which is really annoying. Not to me of course but to the person posting. Receiving comments is great encouragement, if a blogger didn't want comments, they would write in a journal, not online.

The idea of blogging came to me first from my cousin Lisa, who was using her blog to keep her children's extended family in the loop. She has since decided to write in a less public forum. I was encouraged further by my friend, Nikki, who always has interesting points to make and none of them related to child-rearing which I enjoy and appreciate. And then Kate who lives in Dorchester and who we only have the pleasure of seeing every couple of years, started to blog about her adventures in parenting which mirror mine in many ways because my little girls are very close in age to her little boys. I had never really felt I knew her well, until she started this page. For those of you who don't know, Kate is also becoming a quite adept photographer and she posts here photos here. Kate connected me with a couple of amazing bloggers, Sarah at handmade homeschool, and author, Dale McGowan of parenting beyond belief. Through Dale's blog I came across his banner artist, Glendon Mellow at the flying trilobite.

And then my lovely midwife sent me a link to an eBay ad. It was intended to cheer me up and cheer me up it did, leading me to Dawn who keeps me laughing out loud. Sometimes rolling on the floor laughing out loud. She's that funny. Seriously, six kids, the eldest of whom is fourteen. Their antics keep me in stitches and give me insight to what I have to look forward to minus a couple of kids because YES, we are done procreating.

Dawn attended a BlogHer conference a few months back which ended up linking me to a number of other amazing bloggers. First, Jen who is in the process of the biggest move of her life: to the jungles of Belize with a preschooler in tow. It helps that she works in a homeless shelter and blogs about social justice. I might have a little crush on her. Jen led me to this woman, who's take on things is just enough different that she keeps me hooked, absolutely and totally.

Somehow from there I ran across a few others but I am anxious to see if my links will actually be functional. So you'll have to wait for my next post. Plus, Ruby is sleeping and the other kids are at a birthday party so I am looking forward to a few quality moments with my husband IN THE MIDDLE OF THE AFTERNOON!!