My Top Ten List So Far

So I've been doing this blogging thing over a year now. I started at Babies Gotta Have It, but then I just got the yen to come here and write some of this stuff that 's going on in my life. I would actually like to write a book, but that's not something I seem to have the discipline to do during naps.

I've been reading a lot of blogs lately. Some of them are good. Really surprisingly good. Some are interesting and some are educational and some are funny. Really surprisingly funny. Like laugh out loud funny when you've been out to dinner with friends and you had that really strong mojito and you're really a teetotaler and you come home and your baby and husband are sleeping in nearby rooms and your apartment is really small but you're laughing in bursts through your nose like you've got the giggles up in the balcony in church kind of funny.

So this gal over at Piece o' Coconut Cake had the idea to create a top ten list of her favorite posts for her readers to check out while she's visiting her family in Guatemala. Let me just say, why doesn't my family live somewhere tropical and lush instead of somewhere that Puritans and farmers decided to remove rocks from and endure. Anyway, when you're up late reading blogs and eating thin mints and you want to meet some new bloggers, check out her list and the links at the end of her post.

I haven't actually written all that much in the last ten months. But I do have more than ten entries. So I went back through and scanned them and reread them. Here are the ten I like the best today.

1. My Apology to the Girl at the Cruise Lines Audition My first post. Why and how I got into all this.
2. What Does It Mean to Eat Your Children The post I wrote the day I stopped breastfeeding.
3. Left Wing Butterflies Baby's First Birthday Post.
4. Taking the A Train With My Baby New York, motherhood, and avoiding the culture of fear.
5. Pole Dancing and Drag Shows That's just how I roll.
6. The Apocalypse The Mayans and the end of the world.
7. Lock Up Your Craft Scissors What happened when I cut my baby's hair. This became a weekly series.
8. Pa Ingalls and My Responsibility Project When littering meets Halloween.
9. Yes We Did. The video I took of people celebrating election night in the streets of New York.
10. The Bouncing Remote, Baby TV and Why Doesn't My 17 Month Old Walk
    
    
    And as an extra bonus. A Conversation Late Last Night. This is short. It speaks for itself.
    
    Thanks for reading. Want to get a coffee?
    

How to Turn Your Kitchen into a Food Network Kitchen

Ok so I can't get arrested in the Entertainment Industry these days. Nothing doing. Not at all. "No thank you Wendy, we'll just pass." And pass. And pass. And pass.

I am, however, getting invited to blogging events right and left. This amuses me to no end. I'm not getting paid a dime for them, of course. Except in hypo-allergenic pillow covers, Yanni CDs and bath mitts. Oh and pasta sauce. And it was at the pasta sauce event I attended where I learned:

How to Turn Your Kitchen into a Food Network Kitchen

(not literally. the kitchen i crashed was actually just a studio kitchen and the event was not a Food Network event per se. just sounds sexier with that title, don't you think?)

1. Add water to browning ground beef if you want it to steam. And who doesn't want a little more sizzle in life? No idea what this does to the beef itself. Might it make it moister? God knows. On list of things to try someday when I have time to kill.
2. Arrange all your ingredients attractively in clear prep bowls.
3. Wear full make-up and a great (very slimming) dress while you cook. Also pretty rings so your hands look good while you're adding salt and pepper to taste.
4. Pour your sauces slowly...dare I say...sensually when you add them to things. Even if you are pouring them out of giant glass jars.
5. Always pour sauces away from you and toward the camera. This minimizes messy splashing on your aforementioned great dress and allows the viewer to see what you're doing.
6. Have fresh flowers on your counter. I mean, if you don't already. (I know, who doesn't grow narcissus on the kitchen counter...)
7. Polish your tomatoes until they shine.
   
8. Have another person actually do the food preparation and clean-up for you.
9. Put pans and plates into the oven absolutely silently.
10. And finally, don't forget "The Hero Shot." Let me explain, lest you think I have strayed from the realm of cooking shows into porn. From what I could observe, "The Hero Shot" appears the be the final shot taken, when you have cut the beautiful slice of whatever it is you are making, served it up on a pretty plate, garnished it with whatever it demands, and then you photograph or film it in all it's foody glory, being heroic. Frankly after slaving in the kitchen I think you deserve to be featured in the Hero Shot. But unless you have someone doing your makeup and providing you with the great dress, it's probably better to just shoot the damn pie.
    

Addicted to Blog Giveaways

My name is Wendy. And I am addicted to blog giveaways.

I spent all of naptime today entering them. Seriously. I did.

Ok it started because I was listing my own blog giveaway on some blog giveaway sites. And let me say here for the record—there are blogs for EVERYTHING. I mean EVERYTHING. Macrobiotic LOST Fans. Stay at Home Moms who Dream of Hosting their own Crafting Shows. Roller Derby Circus Clowns. You name it, someone is blogging it in full color complete with helpful diagrams.

So. People list blog giveaways. As the complete content of their blogs. Bless their good-hearted souls. Because you can just enter one after the next after the next. And there are SO MANY.

And may I say, I have already won three of them. Three. I hate to make this public because then so many others will start dedicating all of naptime and lunch hours to entering them and my odds of winning will plummet. Admittedly, one of them I won, well, there were five entrants for three prizes. Those are the ones you gotta find. But still, the odds are usually 500 to 1 at the worst and much much better at the best. I have a box of eco-friendly cleaning supplies to prove it. And two other gifts.

And winning is just friggin fun. It convinces me that exploring the blogosphere is so much more than a time suck. It’s practically a job. I’m gonna feed and clothe my family on stuff I win on blog giveaways. Plus the last time I won something I was in the fourth grade and it was a cakewalk at a school Halloween Party (this was the late 70s when the fear of razor blades in apples was in its fullest swing and trick-or-treating was shunned in favor of school Halloween parties which basically sucked except I won this cake). I got to choose from what seemed like about 50 cakes all spread out in the science room. I picked Winnie the Pooh.

So because I’m a good person. I will tell you where to go to find lists of giveaways. Perhaps in so doing I will cleanse myself and break my addiction. After all, it worked for Facebook Scramble. Which has now been replaced by entering blog giveaways.

www.prizeatron.com (ok I just entered another one between the time I typed that url and found the next one…I’m totally serious…I may have a real problem) www.bloggiveaways.blogspot.com and www.acontestblog.com.

Enter at your own risk. You also may soon forsake bathing in favor of giveaways.