A Plan B

If, like me, you are a houseblogger going through withdrawal as Houseblogs.net is again MIA, listen up: I’ve devised a Plan B.

(OK. I didn’t exactly devise the plan any more than Al Gore created the Internet or John McCain invented the Blackberry. However, I’m putting some info out there for your consideration.) It was actually Vicki at Not So SAHM who’s the catalyst for the plan as it were.

Last month, she launched Best Posts of the Week. Rather than paraphrase and screw it up, here’s her explanation/description straight from the site: Best Posts of the Week is a blog dedicated to highlighting the best post of the week from participating bloggers. It's easy to participate. Just submit the link of your best post! … She got tired of spending too much time surfing for great content and wanted it to come to her. Now you can reap the rewards!

Now, here’s the plan part. If, like me, you send Vicki your favorite post for the week, you’ll be on BPOW for not only interested housebloggers but a whole ‘nother crop of folks to come and visit your blog. Because you know if they read one post and they like it, they'll read more, too.

It’s free, it’s easy, and most of it is something you’re already doing anyway (writing a blog post). All it means is you send a single email once a week with a link to your favorite post. And, it’s a nice Plan B to find everybody in one place when some of our other outlets aren’t up and running.

And, Vicki’s a great gal. I know she’d love to have you on board. She collects all the submissions by Friday and then posts them on BPOW on Saturday.

AND … you might even make some new friends or find some more blogs you’d like to read. I know I have. Hope you will, too.

Props to OPB & the People Who Love Them

For a person that a year ago had all but abandoned her own, it's been other people's blogs -- or the OPB -- that have fed what is now an addiction for me.

Previously, I alluded to finding a "whole new world" of individuals through This D*mn House. Early on, that included Ann at Velvet Lava. Ann has a blogful of mouth-watering goodies. Her posts are littered with eye-popping dessert photos and to-die-for recipes, all part of her love affair with chocolate. She also has an acerbic wit and a sense of humor that parallel my own.

I "met" Ann at YorkieTalk last year. (She has two darling fur babies, one of whom has the best name in dogdom.) I was delighted to find that there was indeed a fellow blogger among my YT pals. I am not a cook or baker by any stretch of the imagination, but I love to eat, so I am always awestruck by Ann's concoctions -- when I'm not wallowing in the cuteness of Wylie and Marcel Verdel Purcell, whom I still maintain has the best name in dogdom.

I stumbled upon Vicki at Not So SAHM very recently and quite by accident. I found her, by all things, through a search I did on self-propelled lawnmowers, having recently "inherited" one of my own. I laughed at her account of mowing the lawn. I laughed even harder when I read one of the comments left by one of her regulars: I’ve mowed the lawn twice in the 9 years I’ve been married ... Ours had that self-propel thing on it, too… it self-propelled me right into the side of a car the first time I used it. (Boy, could I relate to that! My first experience nearly took my shoulder of out its socket while simultaneously hurling me down the driveway.) While I neither stay at home or am a mom, I'm vicariously enjoying the wholesome adventures of Vicki and her two young daughters, particularly the vivacious toddler that is Ashlyn. You just never know what is going to happen next! I also like to peek in on whatever Vicki is creating for her online business SewPetit. I marvel at her talents because I struggle with simple buttons and hems.

Very, very recently, I got my first issue of This Old House magazine and discovered HouseBlogs.net. That has brought me into contact with hundreds of other perpetual home renovators (read: crazy DIYers).Talk about some beautiful places. And some of the jobs people are doing put me to shame. I am so glad that some of them have found me, too. (I don't know who most of you are, just that you're coming from HouseBlogs.) But some folks have left me comments like Jennifer at Tiny Old House, C&C at Adventures on Willow, and Mike at Rural Renovators, so I'll try to keep up with their progress, too. There are a lot of others I'm following, so I'll be updating Sites I Like real soon.

The person to whom primary blogging credit/blame goes to though is my colleague, KayO. I've been reading her blog for years, a great source of inspiration when I started. I love reading about her travels, taking in her varied performance and book reviews, and just soaking up some of the ever eclectic Kayness. Hey, how many people do you know that can successfully combine Pan, Buddha, Krusty the Klown, and Jerry Garcia in their office, much less in a single blog post? I'm proud to say I know one.

But for all the OPBs, they'd be mere soliloquoys without the PWLT or People Who Love Them. Monkeygirl and CD, two regular commenters of mine, and two of the "Excellent Eight," my circle of high school friends, are very loyal followers. You couldn't ask for a better or more supportive audience. Love ya, ladies!

My friends have come to regard our individual friends outside the immediate circle as "bonus friends." That aptly describes how I feel about some of the OPB readers. Because some of the OPBs like KayO and Ann and Vicki have been so good to me, their peeps are visiting, too. Many of those visitors are bloggers as well.

And so the circle expands ...