And to Think it All Started With a Giant Metal Chicken

Still blogging away alongside three other talented bloggers.  Each week, one of us chooses a topic and we all post a blog entry on that topic, usually on Thursdays.  (Usually we are on time.  Usually.  Ok, sometimes.)

Here are the links to the other fabulous blogs:

Merryland Girl

Froggie 

Moma Rock 

This week, Merryland Girl asked us to give a shout-out to five of our favorite blogs [outside of our group and her blog, ChickLit Central, which we all love and to which we sometimes contribute].  She asked us tell how we found them and why we like them so much.

Perhaps I am again showing my age, but I don’t follow many blogs.  I spend plenty of time online, but I tend to read specific articles, or go on Facebook, or GoogleStalk people (I’m kidding, I’m kidding).  I truly could not come up any blogs I honestly read regularly, and listing five that I read even occasionally was impossible, so I’m going with the four I follow with some semblance of consistency, in order of the amount of attention I pay (the links to the blogs are within the first mention of blogs’ names):

(1)  The Bloggess:  Ah, Jenny Lawson, you?  Are a genius.  I learned of The Bloggess through another blog, one written by an author I like, Jen Lancaster (I didn’t include her blog here because she stopped blogging with regularity a while back and tends to use her website almost exclusively for book promotion).  I love love love The Bloggess.  Jenny is brilliantly hilarious, the kind of funny that makes you laugh so hard at your desk at work that people come in to check on you and see what the hell you’re laughing at, and then you have to tell them it has to do with dead hobo fingers or kitten mittens or being buried in a casket full of marshmallows (these conversations actually took place).  But Jenny is also sweet and genuine and honest.  She has no qualms talking about her crippling social anxiety or her equally debilitating rheumatoid arthritis or her recurrent depression or her body image issues.  By doing so, she has saved lives.  She’s reminded people they are not alone, and that this too shall pass. 

Jenny sells things through her website, most of which are quirky and based on blog posts.  She gives a portion of her profits to charities.  She loves animals and blogs about her pets, often including photos and videos.  Texan Jenny also loves dead, taxidermied animals, which she enjoys dressing in clothing and posing around her house.  One of her favorite hobbies is to mess with her very patient husband, Victor, an always-amusing sport (don’t worry:  he gives as good as he gets).

Arguably, Jenny’s most popular post involves a giant metal chicken named Beyonce.  I dare you to read it without laughing out loud.  Thanks to Jenny, I will always refer to metal chickens as Beyonces, and I will always laugh when I see one.  Hands down, my favorite blog ever, and her book, Let’s Pretend This Never Happened, is one of the only books I have ever in my life pre-ordered.  I couldn’t wait – and I was not disappointed.

(2)  Mary Kay Andrews’ blog:  Mary Kay Andrews is an author who writes chick lit featuring Southern heroines living in Southern settings.  I’m not generally a fan of traditional chick lit, and her books are a tad formulaic, but I love them because Mary Kay creates memorable, vivid characters, and she writes about the South in a way that makes me feel like I’m there, or at least wish I could be.

Mary Kay’s blog is about her own life in Atlanta and on Tybee Island, Georgia.  She shares many of my hobbies and interests, including junking and refinishing her finds, so I love her posts, as she always includes before and after photos.  She writes about her book tours and her family.  Often, a post will be as simple as a photo, and her blog really has more of an Instagram feel (perfect for my undiagnosed ADD), but I love seeing images from her life.  I only recently started reading this blog, and hell if I didn’t go all the way back to the beginning to see what I’d missed.     

(3)  The Magnolia Market:  Just a few weeks ago, I discovered and instantly became obsessed with the HGTV show Fixer Upper.  The show follows Texans Joanna and Chip Gaines as they rehab old houses in and around Waco, Texas.  It also shows bits and pieces from their own lives, spent on a forty-acre farm where they raise goats and chickens and their four young children.  The couple also builds houses and owns a store, The Magnolia Market.  I wanted to hate Joanna:  she’s pretty and talented and doing a job I would love to do (though I doubt I’d be nearly as good at it).  But Joanna is funny and warm and genuine, and you can’t help but like her, or at least I couldn’t.  I began looking around online to read more about how Joanna and Chip became HGTV stars, and I stumbled across their website, which contains Joanna’s blog.  Sure enough, just as I did with Mary Kay Andrews’ blog, I began reading all the way back to the beginning. Joanna’s blog is sweet and real.  It has great decorating ideas and home décor inspirations.  She talks about juggling life as a busy working mom and offers tips on how she keeps it (mostly) together.  Though she’s religious, her newer posts aren’t overtly so.  They are spiritual, in a way that is meant to inspire.  Joanna tries to connect with everywoman, and I think she succeeds.  I will continue to follow this blog so long as she continues writing and posting those incredible photos.

(4)  Beth Hoffman’s blog:  Another author blog!  Beth Hoffman is hands-down one of my favorite authors, and I regularly recommend both of her books, Saving Cee Cee Honeycutt and Looking for Me.  Beth paints beautiful images with words, and her characters have both grace and depth and truly unique voices.  There’s no formula here, just inspiring, inspired, gorgeous writing.  I don’t read this blog regularly because Beth doesn’t blog regularly, but when she does, her posts are as thoughtful and well done as her novels.  She shares insight into her life, good and bad, and updates and photos from book tours.  I read all of Beth’s posts within a few days after I discovered her blog, and I only wish she wrote more often so I didn’t have to stop.  But if I had to choose, I’d prefer she focus on writing books, because I love those more. 

Bonus shout out:

There are three other blogs to which I subscribe (the posts arrive via email) but which I don’t read regularly.  All involve home improvement and décor.  I’m not sure where I stumbled upon the first two; mostly likely, I saw them on Facebook or in a magazine.  The third was mentioned in The Magnolia Market blog.  I enjoy all three and hope to catch up on them when life is slightly less hectic and I am in a house which is not for sale:

Thistlewood Farms

The Inspired Room
Design Mom

Should you feel up to it, feel free to share your fav blogs in the comments, either below or on Facebook.  I’m always looking for something good to read/look at online!