A Plan and Some Questions for Y’all!!!

1. After my sad post the other day, I did some hardcore searching for state blogging groups/rings/sites.

2. My results? There’s not much. At all. As in, I found groups for only a handful of states, none of which are in the South!

3. So what should I do? Take Bug’s suggestion - start something myself.

4. However, I decided that just starting a ring for Florida or North Carolina wasn’t going to be enough. There’s obviously a lack of Southern blog groups out there - and there were a couple I found that were just Southern in general, but they were definitely aimed at women (which, while I obviously have no problem with that, it does kind of leave half the species out of the running).

5. So I’m working on a new project. It will be a place for Southern bloggers to find both state and regional representation. Contests, spotlights, possibly memes . . . all the good stuff ;-)!

6. However, while I am totally prepared to take over the majority of the work, I am going to need to coordinate some with a representative blogger from each state. Which brings me to my questions . . .

7. Are you a blogger? Do you live in one of these states?

-North Carolina
-South Carolina
-Mississippi
-Florida
-Alabama
-Georgia
-Louisiana
-Texas
-Virginia
-Tennessee

If so, please email me or tell me this in the comments. Even if you have zero interest in helping out with this, I’d love to get an idea of where people are from!

8. Do you consider your state Southern, and it wasn’t mentioned above? Let me know!

9. Are you from all over the South? For example, I was born and raised in Georgia, I’ve technically lived in Florida for about 10 years, but I’ve been up here in North Carolina for the past four and a half years because of college. If I had to pick just one state to join, I’m not sure which one I’d pick!

10. Are you a Southerner, but you live somewhere else now? I’ve got ideas for you too - let me know who you are!

11. And now, a few non Southern-centric questions. In a blogging group, what are the most important things you look for? Contests? Awards? Memes?

12. If there was one thing that you absolutely cannot stand in a blogging group, what would it be?

13. If you think that this is really cool, and you KNOW you want to help out, please let me know!

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As you know, I am a HUGE fan of E. Webscapes. They’ve done four blog designs for this site, and they also designed Reading Red Letters, my faith blog! As a result, I try to keep up with what they’re doing.

Yesterday, I saw an awesome design come through on their RSS feed. It’s for a cool new site called New Music Nation, and the design is so seamless that if you didn’t know better, you probably wouldn’t be able to tell that it’s a WP design! So go take a look - content’s not bad either ;-)!

I’ve seen on other peoples blogs that there are state-wide blogging groups (Rocks in My Dryer is a member of Blog Oklahoma, An Indian Summer is a member of the Arizona Bloggers Coalition) . . .

My question is this - how do you find them? I’ve been searching some online, but I can’t seem to find the unofficial bloggers’ group for North Carolina or Florida (and if I found them, how would I decide which to join? probably North Carolina . . .)!

So, how did you find your state’s blogging group? And do you know where I can find mine? Oh wheeeeeeere ismyblogginggroup?!

I found this great new site about health (something that I try to stay up with). It’s called Everyday Health, and there are a ton of tools and articles! You can find recipes, discussion forums, support centers for 20 conditions. It’s really got a little bit of everything! And a nice, simple design.

I did the 3 minute health check that is shown on their front page. It actually takes longer than 3 minutes, LOL, but that’s OK, it wasn’t too bad. It was very comprehensive - I was impressed. There are a lot of great tips that I received in the results of the quiz, and I feel like the resources on the site will be helpful with helping me in the areas that I need work! All in all, I recommend this site :-).

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