The Bigger Blog Swap

Todays guest post is brought to you by
MissK
from
Pictures & Post-Its.
This is all part of the 20 Something Bloggers "Blog Swap 3".
Don't forget to go check out my post over on her site.

Hey folks, this is Kendall. For those expecting a Wednesday Workshop, you're out of luck today sorry but I may still participate tomorrow if I have time after work. Anyways, today is the Blog Swap 3 from 20Something Bloggers which has had me excited for quite a while. Be sure to check back later for my own guest post (which I shall link to). Now enjoy yourselves! And in case you're wondering, yes that was an order. Just kidding. Kinda.

Hi everyone! I'm not terribly good at introductions, and I rarely make a good first impression, but I am MissK from www.picturesandpostits.wordpress.com . I'm here, taking part in a blog swap organized by 20 Something Bloggers. My blog is relatively new, and mostly I just post pictures, or the occasional post it note. I'll be the first to admit I'm struggling a little to think of something to blog about here... I'm guessing I'm going to need something more than a dodgy happy snap to fill the space.

This has lead me to spend entirely too much time thinking of something to blog about, and you know what I came up with? Several ideas that sounded good in theory, but when I started writing ended up sounding kind of lame.

I considered blogging about why I took my current job, and why I love it even through all the less enjoyable parts, because I am constantly asked why I do my job as opposed to something with less exposure to animal cruelty and euthanasia, but then I realized that would then give away where I worked, and I've had stalkers before - I don't need anymore of them.

Then I wondered if maybe I could blog about how I am struggling with a few people who were once great friends, but lately seem to have drifted and now it's all weird because we both know we've drifted but for some stupid reason we're both still pretending we care. Then I thought that could've lead into how you decide when a friendship has run its course and what is the best way to go about ending it with as little mess as possible. I decided I am not smart enough to do this.

I also wondered if maybe I could talk about how I've just found out I've got some horrible kidney problem and it's all going to hell in a handbasket for me, health wise, right about now... but then I remembered I haven't told my employers yet, and people I work for have a stunning ability to find my blogs and then call me out on things I've posted in them.

Then I realized I'm posting on a teacher's blog, and now I'm concerned about my spelling and grammar and ohmygoodness don't mention the fact that you were never taught and still don't know the difference between a noun and an adjective. And his blogroll is HUGE, and that's a lot of people that might be looking right at me if I stuff this up. This would surely be followed by some kind of hyperventilating.

Interestingly enough, this has just proved how bad I am at making decisions. And apparently, how much of a people pleaser I am. Possibly even that I worry too much. What is interesting, though, is that small decsions I am bad at. Big decisions, I'm pretty good at. Give me the task of choosing which DVD to watch on Saturday night, and I will fail in epic fashion and we will end up watching bad Saturday night TV. Give me the task of selecting a new car, and I will decide in about 5.4 seconds.

It's a bizarre phenomenon.

I simply do not understand myself. Anyone else have this problem where they will compose pro-con lists over whether they have pizza or pasta for dinner, but decide within all of thirty seconds that they're going to give up full time employment with all sorts of benefits to work for yourself in an industry you had no experience in?

You know what else I learned about myself?

I suck at guest posting.

Spreadin' the Love

I've gotten my second award from Diane, this one is a friendship award which made me smile.



This is the Proximidade Award, which celebrates bloggy friendships. It means, "This blog invests and believes in 'proximity' [meaning, that blogging makes us 'close' - being close through proxy]." I now have to pass it on to at least 8 other people which makes me sad because I have other people to give this to as well.

So my entourage goes as follows:

Mich
Dee
Tiff
Jess
Lady X
Tricia
CG
Mindy (coincidentally the only person here who knows my last name -- because of Fbook)

This makes me laugh as my blog friends imitate my friends in real life as every one on that list is a woman.

------

I really did have an actual post for today but with Marilyn's 22nd birthday starting up shortly -- first time going clubbing on a day other than Friday or Saturday -- I don't have the time tonight. Sorry. : )



HAPPY BIRTHDAY MARILYN!

Who Needs A Golden Globe?

So I've received my second award from the wonderful Tiffany. Wow, I feel like such a star. Anywho, before I develop an ego let me move on to the rules of this little bit o' blogging love.

Da Rules are simple. Passthis on to five bloggers and tell them to open the nearest book to page 56. Write out the fifth sentence on that page, and also the next two to five sentences.

Not their favourite book.

Not the most intellectual.

The CLOSEST (as in you can smack your head on it without needing to move your tush) geographically.

The nearest book to me is from an old favourite of mine, C. S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia.

"Thank you, thank you," said Uncle Andrew in a faint voice. "Thank you. Dear me, I'm terribly shaken. If someone could give me a small glass of brandy--"

"Now you attend to me, if you please," said the policeman, taking out a very large note-book and a very small pencil. "Are you in charge of that there young woman?"

I'll be thinking on who to pass the award along to and will edit this when I figure that out. Until then, I have a presentation to prepare for on Wednesday. Happy trails, folks!

I Haz Award!

So this morning I received my very first award for blogging from the wonderful Diane over at Diane's Addled Ramblings. Cue megawatt smile. Were I not a state away, I'd give her a gift but alas I'll just send her some link love from time to time.



Now there are two rules for receiving this award. One, I have to list 6 things I love and then I have to pass 6 people to pass this on to.

Things I love...

1. Books. I've often heard that one day books will only be stored electronically and that thought breaks my heart. As someone who practically grew up in a library, nothing can replace the feel of the pages or the intimacy of curling up with a good book. Things a computer screen can't replicate.
2. Making people laugh, I'm a firm believer in the Patch Adams school of thought. That if you treat a person, you always win.
3. Cooking for the people I care about. I've been told I seem to have been designed to want to take care of others, I'm starting to believe it.
4. Seeing the look on a child's face when they understand what you are trying to teach them. It was this look that convinced me teaching is what I wanted to do with my life.
5. Being a writer. It is easy to write words down on paper. It is far more difficult to give those words meaning.
6. Kissing. Slow and lazy or passionate and burning. I love them all.

Today nominee's are...

1. Katie over at I Know This Much Is True. She works in the law industry and still holds onto her humanity. She also has an old-school charm that I find endearing.
2. Summer over at Blogfully Yours. Her posts often make me smile, laugh, and think which is truly what it's all about.
3. Tricia over at The Silver Lining. Somehow a Texas mom to two little boys transplanted in Michigan. Somehow, she even manages to make it work.
4. Mindy over at A MinD in MoTown. Another transplant, this one from Pennsylvania to my own state. Her posts are always good for a dose of liberalism and wit.
5. Tiff over at A Bit Of Miss Tiff. The first friend I ever made blogging and my general go-to person for tech questions. Her posts always make me laugh.
6. Black Hockey Jesus over at The Wind In Your Vagina. If you like laughing and having your thoughts provoked, give him a look-see.

And People Say Politics Aren't Funny

Since I would like a slight break from studying, I decided to share this with y'all.

I make no secret of the fact that I dislike Sarah Palin. I can admit with complete honesty that I actually like Baby Bush more than I like her. So when I found this on Sarah Nielson's blog (who you should check out post haste at sarahnielson.com) I nearly cried laughing.

Start laughing yourself here.

Sarah Palin - A New and Horrifying Standard

This is from Matt Taibbi's Mad Dog Palin article from Rolling Stones magazine.

The defining moment for me came shortly after Palin and her family stepped down from the stage to uproarious applause, looking happy enough to throw a whole library full of books into a sewer. In the crush to exit the stadium, a middle-aged woman wearing a cowboy hat, a red-white-and-blue shirt and an obvious eye job gushed to a male colleague — they were both wearing badges identifying them as members of the Colorado delegation — at the Xcel gates.

"She totally reminds me of my cousin!" the delegate screeched. "She's a real woman! The real thing!"

I stared at her open-mouthed. In that moment, the rank cynicism of the whole sorry deal was laid bare. Here's the thing about Americans. You can send their kids off by the thousands to get their balls blown off in foreign lands for no reason at all, saddle them with billions in debt year after congressional year while they spend their winters cheerfully watching game shows and football, pull the rug out from under their mortgages, and leave them living off their credit cards and their Wal-Mart salaries while you move their jobs to China and Bangalore.

And none of it matters, so long as you remember a few months before Election Day to offer them a two-bit caricature culled from some cutting-room-floor episode of Roseanne as part of your presidential ticket. And if she's a good enough likeness of a loudmouthed Middle American archetype, as Sarah Palin is, John Q. Public will drop his giant-size bag of Doritos in gratitude, wipe the Sizzlin' Picante dust from his lips and rush to the booth to vote for her. Not because it makes sense, or because it has a chance of improving his life or anyone else's, but simply because it appeals to the low-humming narcissism that substitutes for his personality, because the image on TV reminds him of the mean, brainless slob he sees in the mirror every morning.

Sarah Palin is a symbol of everything that is wrong with the modern United States. As a representative of our political system, she's a new low in reptilian villainy, the ultimate cynical masterwork of puppeteers like Karl Rove. But more than that, she is a horrifying symbol of how little we ask for in return for the total surrender of our political power. Not only is Sarah Palin a fraud, she's the tawdriest, most half-assed fraud imaginable, 20 floors below the lowest common denominator, a character too dumb even for daytime TV — and this country is going to eat her up, cheering her every step of the way. All because most Americans no longer have the energy to do anything but lie back and allow ourselves to be jacked off by the calculating thieves who run this grasping consumer paradise we call a nation.

Just think my fellow Americans, this is the woman who would be just one heartbeat away from the presidency.

Forget the Wicked Witch of the West...



(Photo courtesy of the Washington Post, Captions courtesy of Icanhazcheezburger.com)